Rick Simpson Oil (RSO) is a concentrated cannabis extract high in THC.
RSO has earned a reputation on online forums as a pain reliever, cancer cure, and overall “miracle cure” for a variety of ailments. Although this product is of great interest to many seeking alternative medicine treatments, only anecdotal evidence supports these claims. There are no clinical studies of RSO.
So what exactly is Rick Simpson Oil?
Rick Simpson Oil is a highly concentrated crude cannabis oil. The oil is thick, dense, thick, more like grease than oil. Rick Simpson’s website defines RSO for pain as “a very potent decarboxylated extract produced from a potent sedative indica strain with THC levels in the 90% range.”
RSO is a common and popularized term that has come to mean all crude cannabis oil that has been decarboxylated and dispensed in a syringe. In practice, there is no official definition of RSO or how to call it.
Most products, called RSO, use some type of alcohol extraction, but there are also products on the market made with hydrocarbon extraction. Even Rick Simpson’s first oil was made from an industrial mixture of hydrocarbons known as naphtha, often found in paint and rubber solvents. RSO is considered a “whole plant extract,” which means it contains THC as well as other cannabinoids, flavonoids, and other plant molecules such as waxy chlorophyll. However, RSOs usually contain low terpene content due to their processing methods.
Due to this process, RSO is usually dark green or brown, in stark contrast to the lighter color of THC distillates and isolates. Mr. According to Simpson, true RSO should be between 90% and 95% THC, so it’s hard to find in the retail market, but it’s also hard to extract at home.
In fact, extracts with a purity of 80-90% or more are difficult to make at home and often require advanced equipment, so it is unlikely that any homemade product will be as effective.
Difference between RSO and FECO
There is a lot of hype and stigma around the term RSO because it is a generic term that is often used to describe highly concentrated crude cannabis oil sold to cancer patients. To be more precise, I prefer the term FECO (full extract cannabis oil). RSO is often used interchangeably with FECO, but they are not necessarily the same product.
FECO and RSO are essentially the same product, a crude cannabis extract often sold in syringes. However, the key difference between the two is that FECO is almost always ethanol, while RSO is a more general term and can be made using isopropyl alcohol, ethanol, hydrocarbon solvents and even CO2. After all, there is no clear definition for these crude extracts, and each solvent has unique properties that extract certain chemicals from plants better than others.