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RSO: What It Is, and Can You Smoke It?
RSO, or Rick Simpson Oil, sits with the concentrates on a dispensary menu: a thick oil sold by weight in a syringe, usually a half gram or a gram.
How it is made
RSO is an alcohol extraction; dispensary makers use food-grade ethanol. Soaking plant material in the alcohol carries out its cannabinoids along with terpenes, flavonoids and plant waxes. The alcohol is then driven off with heat, and that same heat converts the plant's THCA into THC, so RSO is already decarboxylated by the time it is packaged.
RSO or distillate
The two sit near each other on a menu and are made for different ends. Distillate is refined until it is very high in THC, often 90 percent or more. RSO is less refined: along with its THC it keeps more of what the plant contained.
Can you smoke or dab it?
RSO is sold as a concentrate, so it can be dabbed or added to a bowl like other concentrates; our guide to wax and dabs covers those methods.
Reading the syringe
The label gives the weight, the THC percentage and, as Nevada requires, the THC in milligrams. A 1 gram syringe at 70 percent THC holds about 700 milligrams of THC.
If you swallow it, the notice Nevada requires dispensaries to give buyers applies. It reads: "The intoxicating effects of cannabis may be delayed by 2 hours or more and users of cannabis products should initially ingest a small amount of the product containing no more than 10 milligrams of THC, then wait at least 2 hours before ingesting any additional amount of cannabis." Against a 700 milligram syringe, 10 milligrams is a very small fraction.
Ratios
Some RSO is sold with CBD, CBG or CBN alongside the THC in a stated ratio, such as 1:1 THC to CBD.