understanding full extract cannabis oil

Browsing cannabis retailer shelves can be overwhelming—there are so many options!  Edibles and tinctures, dabs, wax, concentrates, salves, lotions, massage oils, and more. You may find yourself overwhelmed with new descriptions, vocabulary, colloquialisms and foreign acronyms, like FECO.  

That last one may cause a double take when you realize you just saw ‘FECO’ on a store shelf, labelled for human consumption. A child-like giggle may escape your lips, and your first impression may be, “Really?” Get your mind out of the gutter! FECO stands for Full Extract Cannabis Oil.  Some processors call it Whole Plant Cannabis Oil (WPCO), or RSO which is short for Rick Simpson Oil.

Mr. Simpson is renowned for perfecting and promoting the extraction process of cannabis when he was diagnosed with basal cell carcinoma skin cancer in 2003.  He had been taking the oil internally, but decided to apply the oil to his skin cancer. He claims after four days his cancer was gone and that cannabis oil had cured his cancer. For more than 15 years Rick Simpson has made it his life journey to tell others that cannabis oil can cure cancer. Regardless of his anecdotal claims or any pending scientific studies in the works, many people around the world now believe in the power of Full Extract Cannabis Oil (FECO).

Many believe that FECO is a superior extraction method for cannabis because it's a full spectrum extraction, meaning the end result is a concentrated cannabis oil suitable for human consumption that contains the broadest range of components and constituents in the cannabis plant, including cannabinoids (such as THC, CBD, CBC, CBG, etc), terpenes, chlorophyll, flavonoids, and more. The process also uses only solvents suitable for human consumption. Sun God Medicinals, for example, uses only certified organic cane alcohol in the process—the vast majority of which is is removed before we have a finished product.

Ingesting FECO
Despite containing only natural ingredients, one must remember the famous lesson from Mary Poppins when ingesting FECO, as the concentrated plant oil is very bitter. “A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down!”  Many find that a chaser of honey is a natural palate pleaser when paired with FECO. As the oil is very concentrated, most recommend that those new to FECO start with a very small amount—perhaps the size of a grain of rice—when taking internally.  Unfortunately the size of a grain of rice is subjective. I’ve actually had a brilliant customer inquire if that was raw or cooked rice, as the size would be different. Truthfully, weight is really the best way to track your servings, not volume.

Understandably, it can be hard to determine the right amount of FECO when it comes in a syringe and is the consistency of tar!  Not only is a “grain of rice” subjective, but it also can stick to your fingers or anything else you put it on.  Some choose to ingest FECO—and that's perfectly fine—but sublingual application (rubbing on the gums) is actually one of the fastest ways to get cannabinoids into the blood supply. Many find themselves frustrated trying to use sublingual application of such a sticky substance as FECO. So, here’s a little trick for getting a more accurate serving size for sublingual dosing of FECO style cannabis oil.

The Trick:

1. Purchase a small food or diet scale that can measure in milligrams, as well as rice paper (you can often find rice paper in the Asian foods aisle).
2. Cut a small piece of rice paper and zero it out on the scale. 
3. Squeeze a small amount of oil (approximately the size of a grain of rice) on the rice paper.
4. Place rice paper with oil back on the scale.  You will then know the accurate weight of your oil. 
5. Multiply the mg per gram listed on the label of your FECO by the weight displayed on the scale to determine the potency of your serving. Record this information for later.
6. Place the rice paper in your cheek with the oil pressed against your gums. The rice paper will dissolve in your mouth and the FECO will eventually absorb into your gums.

Each time you ingest Full Extract Cannabis Oil, record the potency of your serving in a journal, adjusting over time as needed.  This way you'll have an ongoing record of how you feel the FECO is affecting you, and can adjust your servings to fit your individual taste and your body's unique endocannabinoid system.

Determining Potency of FECO:
Due to testing and labeling requirements in the state of Oregon you will know the mg per gram of THC or CBD in everything you buy.  For example if the cannabis oil is 76% THC then there are 760mg of THC in each gram of oil. If your oil weights 0.05 grams on the scale then your potency in this example would be 38mg of THC.  Sun God Medicinals affixes a unique batch number to each of our hemp and/or cannabis products that corresponds to the results of these tests, and they're readily available on our website here. 

Many believe that a good initial serving is 5-10mg of cannabinoids, and I recommend that you begin in that range, and increase from there as necessary as you work to determine the proper amount for your body. It’s easier (and better for the body) to start with a smaller amount and increase from there than it is to start with too much and work your way back down.
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FECO from Sun God Medicinals
We manufacture Full Extract Cannabis Oil in our Ra Hemp product line using Oregon-grown whole hemp or cannabis flower.  Available in convenient 1 gram syringes, you can find our FECO in OLCC-licensed cannabis retailers all over Oregon!