Strains Users Say Bring Better Sleep

Getting the proper amount of sleep is crucial for your overall health and your ability to participate in your work and the activities you enjoy. But according to the Cleveland Clinic, as many as 70 million Americans report having some kind of sleep disorder, with an estimated 10% to 15% suffering from chronic insomnia.

There are plenty of over-the-counter and prescription drugs to choose from when it comes to treating insomnia. But, for those dealing with a chronic problem, there are concerns over the potential side effects of taking these drugs for an extended period.

Fortunately, cannabis can provide relief for people who have insomnia without all the harmful side effects. Cannabis compounds offer relaxing effects that naturally lead to better sleep without the risk of headaches, mental fuzziness, digestive upset, or dizziness that can result from taking typical sleep aids.

We sat down with Bret McGee, general manager of Clear Choice Cannabis, to learn more about the experiences his customers have with using cannabis to treat insomnia.

Many people say marijuana helps them sleep better. Why is that?

Research shows THC, the psychoactive compound in marijuana, has sedative effects and can make it easier to fall asleep. Emerging evidence also suggests that THC may improve breathing, which makes THC a potential therapy in treating obstructive sleep apnea.

When a customer enters a Clear Choice store and asks if marijuana will help them sleep, what do your expert budtenders tell them?

We see many people with that issue who report finding some relief with a number of products. Of course, our budtenders are not physicians, and everyone should check in with their doctor about what kinds of treatments are right for them. But once a customer has decided that marijuana is a treatment they’d like to try, we recommend trying products that are a 1:1 ratio of cannabidiol (CBD) and THC. CBD is another compound in cannabis that can help with sleep. It’s non-psychoactive but less potent. Some of our customers report success with a lesser-known cannabinoid called CBN. Clear Choice stocks many different products that would be great to try and see if they work for your sleep issues.

What are some of the most popular sleep-inducing strains sold at Clear Choice dispensaries?

Strains that people often report helped them with sleep are Grand Daddy Purple, Northern Lights, Ogre, Gorilla Glue, White Widow, Vanilla Kush, Platinum Bubba, and more. Of course, these all have varying effects beyond aiding in sleep, so our budtenders are there to help everyone make the right decision for their needs.

What options are available for people who don’t smoke marijuana?

Flower and vape cartridges work well for some people, but not everyone wants to smoke or vape. So, Clear Choice offers many other products such as tinctures, capsules, drinks, and solid edibles that can have similar effects without the need to smoke or vape.

What’s the success rate with your products?

We cannot promise that any product will have a specific effect for an individual, but we do see customers return and purchase the same products again and again and report success with their experiences.

Insomnia is a frustrating and even debilitating problem that can snowball and impact all aspects of your life. But you don’t have to keep dealing with its effects or take potentially harmful pills every night. With Clear Choice Cannabis, there’s a natural option that can help you sleep and feel great the next day.

Take It From This Veteran: Cannabis Is More Than Just a Good Time

In the minds of many, cannabis is a mind-altering substance that’s just for fun. Throughout the years, it’s been the subject of countless pop culture jokes and has a reputation for being the substance of choice for people seeking a laid-back lifestyle filled with relaxation.

But the truth is that cannabis is enormously helpful as a therapeutic treatment for people experiencing a wide variety of physical and mental ailments. Among the people most helped by cannabis are our nation’s veterans, many of whom struggle with pain from injuries, depression, anxiety, PTSD, and other challenges when they return home from deployments.

Clear Choice Cannabis is proud to work with those who served, including Sgt. Carlos Mullen, a former infantryman who suffered severe injuries in a homemade explosive detonation in 2010. He was subsequently discharged from the military in 2014 and struggled to manage his physical and emotional symptoms, eventually turning to alcohol.

We spoke with Carlos about how he vastly improved his well-being and outlook on life with Clear Choice Cannabis.

Tell us about yourself and your military service.

I served from 2009 to 2014, when I was medically discharged. I served in the infantry, which means that I directly engaged with people on the ground during my deployment, civilians and soldiers. This often leads to very dangerous situations. I lost friends and had to put some of them into body bags myself. You don’t forget things like that, and it’s not easy to live with.

I also saw disturbing sights among the locals where I was deployed, including a woman being stoned to death. You don’t forget that scene, and it pushes you to want to rid the world of evil and defend the good and righteous. We weren’t supposed to get involved with the locals, but we felt strongly that the things we witnessed weren’t right and did what we could to help.

When I got back, I didn’t have a lot of responsibilities and was struggling to get control of my mental health, including combating my PTSD.

How did you eventually find relief?

I found Clear Choice when I hit rock bottom with my alcohol addiction, trying to erase my dark memories. When I was discharged, I didn’t have work commitments to encourage my sobriety. With the loss of friends and responsibilities, I was drinking a lot. A good friend who also retired from the military told me to stop drinking so much and try cannabis. Clear Choice was the local store in the area, so I checked it out. The environment was unbelievable! It was clean and organized, and I met great people that cared. I found products that worked for me immediately.

That’s great! How has your life changed since you found Clear Choice Cannabis?

I got inspired to help people again, and I stopped drinking alcohol. I pitched to the business to fund a petting zoo for local youth. I shared the idea with the owner, Adam, and he responded by offering to give a check the following Tuesday.

After that, we did a relay for life, and kids earned the donation money sponsored by Clear Choice by doing laps around the track. I’m not sure if Adam knows this, but those events changed the way thousands of local people think about the stigmas surrounding cannabis. I had to have meetings with superintendents who, back then, were nervous about taking donation money from this source. But after explaining the program and motive, it was clear it would be doing a disservice to these kids not to use this donation money for good.

What did you learn from your experience?

I learned that there are people who need cannabis, and some benefit from it more than many people understand. I see it helping people with trauma like me. I understand now how much it can help people get adequate sleep and live their lives with joy, even when they have been through traumatic events.

Which products do you use, and how do they help you?

RSO helps me with sleeping, IBS, and my pain. It has helped me greatly with night terrors. I don’t get them much anymore. I like smoking flower socially, and I believe smoking flower can bring people together. I’ve met some really great people, and those relationships help me mentally. I also enjoy distillate dabs.

What was most surprising to you about how cannabis use assisted you?

I was surprised by how effective it was at helping me sleep. I didn’t know cannabis was so impactful to sleep. I thought alcohol had helped me sleep but realized how the quality of sleep is [poor] when you’re drunk. I also was destroying my chance at a good tomorrow almost daily, living my life constantly hungover and in a fog.

Why would you recommend Clear Choice Cannabis to others?

This business is compassionate, patriotic, honest, and dedicated to helping others. The owner truly cares about the community and constantly does things to support the local community.

Clear Choice’s selection is also the best around, and they focus on caring for medical marijuana patients. Nobody else is doing that or seems to care about people. For the competition, it’s all about the money. Clear Choice is different.

Overall, people like Carlos have sacrificed so much and deserve to live lives that are filled with purpose and joy. With the help of medical marijuana and products from Clear Choice Cannabis, Carlos and others like him can find the relief they need.

Clear Choice’s Best Cannabis Gifts for This Year

The holiday shopping season is upon us once again, but rather than join the rush to the mall for another generic sweater, consider giving the cannabis lover in your life something they’ll really enjoy from Clear Choice Cannabis in Tacoma and Bremerton. The incredible selection of cannabis products has something for everyone, regardless of their delivery method, strain preferences, or taste buds.

The holiday shopping season is here, and for many of us, this year will be extra special because so many of us had to stay home in 2020 rather than celebrate with family and friends.

To add to the festivities for your 420-friendly loved ones, consider the wide selection of products from Clear Choice, which operates dispensaries in Tacoma and Bremerton and is sure to have the perfect gift for marijuana lovers on your list.

“Both locations will have great specials throughout the holiday season,” said Owner Adam Schmidt. “This will include specials on cannabis items as well as glass and vaporizers.”

Schmidt added that the holidays are usually a busy time of year for the dispensaries due to their specials, so it’s a good idea to get your loved ones some of Clear Choice’s many products (some that are up to 20% off!) sooner rather than later.

Flower

Clear Choice has an incredible selection of flower for cannabis traditionalists who prefer to carefully select their strain and either roll it or use it in a bong or a pipe. With sativa, indica, and hybrid options, Clear Choice offers a flower for everyone. Some of the most popular offerings include Apple Fritter, a hybrid that brings an uplifting high, Gold Leaf Gardens’ Peppermint Cookies for a holiday theme, and Wedding Cake, an indica with mood-boosting, calming effects thanks to reasonably potent THC levels.

Plus, Clear Choice carries a large selection of Lifted Cannabis. The company’s exclusive strains and presentations make a heck of a gift!

Pre-Roll

For those who prefer to let others do the rolling, Clear Choice offers a line of pre-rolls that are sure to please any cannabis lover. Clear Choice’s selection includes single pre-rolls for those who want to sample several different strains, as well as two-packs and five-packs for those who know what they like. Perfect for the newbies, Clear Choice also carries Northwest Cannabis Solutions’ joints, an excellent, hassle-free way to enjoy cannabis. And like the flower selection, pre-rolls come in many different strains, including Cookies and Cream, a sativa, and Blackberry Kush, an infused pre-roll.

Plus, Clear Choice offers exclusive and upscale Liera Cannagars, including options wrapped in 24 karat gold, perfect for a classy holiday celebration for the seasoned cannabis lovers in your life.

Vape

Vape fans love Clear Choice for the incredible selection that includes different strains, cartridge types, and flavors. Vapes are increasingly popular because they allow for more discreet marijuana use without smoke or smell. Clear Choice offers live and cured resin cartridges, pods, and distillate cartridges, ensuring compatibility with many different vape flavors and brands. With choices like the leading brand in vapor technology, Puffco, Pax Dry Flower vaporizers for those who don’t want to smoke the flower, and TwoHeads for newbies, there’s an excellent gift for any vape fan!

Edibles

Those who prefer to eat their cannabis are sure to find something that pleases their taste buds at Clear Choice, where more than 180 edible products await. Chocolatey offerings like Evergreen Herbals’ 4.20 Minis and fruity choices like Molotov Mystery are available in sativa, indica, or hybrid strains for those who prefer to ingest their THC and as CBD edibles for the relaxing effects of cannabinoids without the high. Clear Choice also offers capsules, drink mixes, candies, cookies, and pretzels, to name a few.

Clear Choice recommends cannabis newbies start with 10mg increments and wait 1-2 hours before consuming more to determine the proper dosage. Its Lush products from Verdelux even come in 10mg servings!

Concentrate

Dabbers delight in Clear Choice’s selection of concentrates, which includes everything from resin and wax to butane hash oil and diamonds. These high-quality concentrates ensure a fantastic experience from beginning to end, with reliable dosing. Clear Choice offers premium resins like Xtracted’s Loud Resin. Clear Choice resins are made in a state-of-the-art laboratory with no fillers, flavors, or additives, and partnerships with local providers mean that you and your loved ones can trust the products.

Topicals and Tinctures

Clear Choice offers a wide variety of premium CBD topicals and tinctures perfect for the athlete or chronic pain sufferer in your life. With lotions, creams, gels, and patches, relief from pain and inflammation can be applied directly to the affected body part. Ceres Dragon Balm is one great option for loved ones, especially those who are on the fence about cannabis and new to the various pain relief benefits.

At the same time, bath salts and sublingual tinctures offer anxiety-reducing benefits to the whole body at once. These products come in various flavors and scents and are great for those who want to access the benefits of cannabis without smoking or ingesting THC.

With the perfect present from Clear Choice, you can give your loved ones a unique, high-quality cannabis gift that perfectly fits their preferences.

“Clear Choice Cannabis is always striving to provide our community with the best options for their cannabis needs along with exceptional customer service,” Schmidt said. “We are always willing to take our time with our customers to make sure they are getting the right product for their needs!”

A second-to-none selection makes Clear Choice a one-stop shop for all your cannabis holiday shopping. Visit a Clear Choice dispensary in Tacoma or Bremerton to take advantage of holiday deals today!

How to Use Rosin

Rosin is a cannabis concentrate that is prized for its purity, potency, flavor, and simplicity. While most people prefer to dab or vape rosin, there are actually several different ways to enjoy it. Keep reading to find out more about how to use rosin!

What Is Rosin?

Rosin is a clean and potent cannabis concentrate that can reach potency levels of over 80% THC. It really hit the mainstream after being popularized by cannabis connoisseur Phil ‘Soilgrown’ Salazar in 2015. However, the extraction method used to produce it is believed to have actually been around since the 1990s or early 2000s.

It is considered to be purer than other cannabis concentrates because it is solvent-less. Unlike concentrates produced through BHO extraction (shatter, etc.), rosin does not require a solvent to produce, and thus cannot contain any traces of potentially harmful chemicals (if produced correctly!).

Instead of being run through with solvents like butane or CO2, rosin is produced by applying a mix of heat and pressure to high-potency plant material like fine-pressed hash. The result of this process is a thick, gooey whole-plant extract containing a healthy mix of terpenes and cannabinoids. Thanks to its abundant terpene content, it is not only potent but also delicious!

How To Use Rosin

Rosin is a very versatile concentrate that can be enjoyed in a variety of ways. Here are the 5 most common ways that it's typically prepared and used!

Dab It

Dabbing concentrates really brings out the terpenes and lets you enjoy the myriad of flavors and aromas that each strain contains. Since rosin already has a robust terpene content, you can be sure that your dabs will be extra delicious! If you are looking to maximize flavor and taste, dabbing rosin is the way to go.

Vape It

If your vaporizer is designed for use with cannabis concentrates, you can simply load up your rosin and vape it. If you prefer, you can also prepare your own rosin-infused e-juice at home in just a few steps. Whatever kind of vaporizer you choose to vape it out of, just make sure it is safe to use with concentrates. Vaping rosin out of a dry herb vape could lead to a sticky mess and irreparable damage!

Roll It

It may seem counter-intuitive due to its sticky nature, but rosin can also be crushed up and rolled into a joint, blunt, or spliff. Just remember to dry it out first so you don’t end up with a sticky mess. Alternatively, you could heat it up and spread it across your rolling paper with an applicator tool. You may find that the added stickiness may make the rolling process easier for you (or harder!).

Add It to Your Bowl or Bong

Too lazy to roll one up? Not a problem! Rosin can also be sprinkled on top of your favorite bowl. Just place some of it on top of the ground bud in your bowl (or bud + kief!) and light it up. When exposed to heat, it will turn into a sappy oil that melts into your bowl and covers your bud with a glistening glow. Just be careful! Adding a concentrate to your joint or bowl is sure to boost its potency by a lot!

Bake It into an Edible

Lastly, you can also bake rosin into a cannabis edible. Some people prefer to decarboxylate their rosin before infusing it into something else but others do not believe it to be necessary. A good rule of thumb is that if you wish to maximize the potency of your edible, it is probably a good idea to decarboxylate it before infusing it. But if you are just looking for a quick edible fix, adding it raw directly into your recipe or into other foods and liquids can also get the job done!

Is It Time to Retire the Term ‘Marijuana'?

Way back in the 1990s, around the time of that first, groundbreaking legalization of medical cannabis—thanks, California!—it was common to hear the warning “This isn’t your parents’ marijuana!” This was a bit of caution aimed at smokers returning to the fold: Newer, more carefully cultivated cannabis flower were exponentially more potent than the “street weed” many children of the ‘60s had grown up with, and imbibing an entire joint—as many remembered doing with ease—could have unintended consequences.

Now, some 20 years into this grand experiment, cannabis advocates are wondering whether the word “marijuana” still has any relevance. Maybe it’s time once and for all to discard the old labels—and old concepts—and rediscover the role this fascinating plant has to play in our lives today. Let’s start by looking at the definition of marijuana and what marijuana used to be.

“Marihuana:” An Unwelcome Guest from the South

Although cannabis and hemp (essentially a very low-potency commercial crop) have a long history in this country, its medicinal (and, one assumes, recreational) role was limited. Cannabis tinctures and hashish were available over the counter—as were more powerful “remedies” as cocaine and opium—where they were recommended for anxiety, muscular pain, and upset stomach. Sound familiar?

But beginning in the early 20th century, migrant laborers from Mexico brought cannabis flower—“marihuana”—and the practice of purely recreational smoking with them. Race and class-based unease about immigrants tainted cannabis, as did the rising tide of the temperance movement, culminating in Prohibition in 1919 and the passage of the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937. Cannabis was officially flora non grata in the United States, and for most Americans, the word “marijuana” would take on a dark and sinister cast.

Marijuana vs. Cannabis: New Terms for a New Era

While marijuana has shed many of its negative associations—recent polls suggest a clear majority of Americans now support both medical and recreational cannabis—this is as good a time as any to reconsider what we call the plant.

For one thing, “marijuana,” as noted above, is not a botanical term; it’s a culturally specific one. We don’t call cheese “spoiled milk,” as do many Chinese, who grow up in a largely dairyless culture.

Additionally, cannabis has a different role to play in today’s society than it did a century ago. Research is uncovering deep and potentially game-changing synergies between the cannabis plant and our bodies—largely through its interaction with the Endocannabinoid System—but many physicians remain skeptical of the plant’s usefulness as medicine (thanks, Jeff Sessions).

The words we choose to describe our world send powerful messages; a rebranding of the old “marijuana” may not change everyone’s minds, but switching to the term “cannabis” can have a subtle effect, signalling that old assumption may no longer be valid, or that it’s time for a reassessment of outdated—and often negative—perceptions of this controversial plant-based medicine.

Of course, at the end of the day, we’re fine with whatever you want to call cannabis, so long as you’re deriving value—recreational, medical, spiritual—from it. But consider the potential of a subtle rebranding, the power of turning over a new leaf and seeing something you thought you knew from a different perspective. Now that’s powerful medicine.

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