Marijuana Cooking: Good Medicine Made Easy

by Bliss Cameron and Veronica Greene, is the publisher’s most popular title.

First released in 2005 and reprinted several times already, it offers step-by-step instruction with photos showing five scenarios for preparing cannabis for cooking and several recipes for cookies, breads and even tinctures.

The recipes, such as Whole Wheat Honey Banana Bread and Marijuana Leaf Sugar Cookies, provide a solid foundation to get started.

Cameron was actively involved in canvassing in Sonoma County prior to the passage of Proposition 215, the 1996 ballot initiative that legalized the medical use of marijuana in California.

A patient and one of the founders of the Sonoma Alliance for Medical Marijuana, she learned long ago that cookies are a logical way to standardize dosage. For years she made them for others as part edu-cation / part advocacy.

“I literally made and gave away hundreds of cookies in five years,” she said. “Every holiday I’d bag them up and I’d take them out to give to people that I knew needed medicine.”

Cameron has always preferred eating her medicine to smoking it. For several years, she welcomed people into her home to medicate with cookies.

“My house became like a speakeasy,” she said. “People who didn’t want anyone to know what they were doing would come over to get samples. It turned people around who had no appetite. Cookies are an easy thing to eat. Almost everyone has a favorite cookie.”

While perfecting her technique, she experienced an unex-pected benefit and came to learn more about the endo-cannabinoid system. While rolling the dough into a ball, flattening and shaping it, and as the oil from the cannabutter melded into her hands, she noticed that arthritic pain on and around the point of contact would disappear.

Adept at making cannabis oil and cannabutter for her own dietary needs, co-author Greene was also a natural for creating a how-to medicinal cannabis cookbook. The book includes tips for ingredient substitution for those with special diets. Complete with suggestions about vis-iting a doctor and dispensary, this is a practical choice for newbies to cannabis and cannabis cooking. Marijuana Cooking sold well from day one.

“It just took off because it was what people needed,” said Cameron, who states that her main motivation was in creating a reference material that could be used by patients. She is drawn to the idea that cookies and breads can be cut or measured into portions, a practical solution for people needing regular dosages. A purist, she did not feel the need for elaborate cannabis meals that might ven-ture too much into the realm of recreational usage. “At the time we conceived it, Marijuana Cooking was to be a medical book to help people understand how to dose, what cannabis can do and how to go to a doctor,” she said. “I think that’s why it’s been so popular; it was right at the time when all of this was getting started.”

In the realm of cannabis cookbooks, recent offerings are polished, high-gloss and filled with appealing photography to showcase mouth-watering delectables.