I originally developed the Cannapop lollypops for Granny, a patient with jaw damage that left her with limited movement and constant pain. The lollypop allowed her to place the medication where the pain was, worked well and once word got out, developed a following.
The recipe and procedure follows, but first lets look at how hazardous a sticky 300F syrup is to handle and be around, because of their propensity to spatter in contact with moisture, and to stick to the skin. I recommend wearing long sleeves and eye protection when working with fluids that hot.
We are also using cinnamon candy flavoring oil, as well as hot chili oil, both of which can burn both your skin and eyes. The hot vapors from them can also seriously irritate your sinuses and lungs, so work under an exhaust hood or in a well-ventilated area.
Wash your hands after handling and keep your hands away from your eyes.
We are also using a 375F oil bath, which also reacts violent in contact with water, so precautions should be made to insure everything placed in it is dry.
My recipe is simple, modified from a standard hard candy recipe:
Cinnamon Cannapops:
2 Cups granulated sugar
2/3 Cup Honey
3/4 Cup Water
1 Dram Loranne Oils Cinnamon candy oil concentrate
1 Tsp Loranne Oils Hot Chili flavor booster (optional for more heat)
1 Dose Cannabis essential oils per lollypop
* Powdered sugar as required to coat
This recipe will produce about 550 grams of lollypops, but lollypop molds come in different sizes, so first step is to locate the ones you are planning to use. You can find them on line or at candy supply stores.
I typically use from 100 to 300 mg decarboxylated cannabis Absolute per dose, depending on the patient, but you can also standardize the dose and just eat more.
Our lollypop mold produced about a 25-gram pop, so we got about 22 lollypops per run. We used 2.2 grams Absolute for a low tolerance batch, 4.4 grams for medium tolerance, and 6.6 grams for the high tolerance batch.
We’ve used both decarboxylated and winterized BHO (Absolute) as well as QWET extractions using Ethanol. Either one works well. See the threads by those titles for more details on extraction:
We decarboxylate the essential oil so that the THC can pass the blood brain barrier to reach the CB-1 receptors there. See the Decarboxylation thread for details, but note that during decarboxylation, you can produce either psychoactive or sedative oils, depending on temperature and time, so choose the one that best suits your needs.
I warm up the essential oil and add the Cinnamon flavoring concentrate, as well as the hot chili oil where applicable, and set aside.
Install sticks in lollypop molds and set aside.
Add the sugar, honey and water to your cooking pot and place in a 375F hot oil bath. Mix thoroughly by stirring while warming and once mixed, stop stirring and allow the mixture to reach 300F.
Candy mixture cooking in hot oil bath.
Remove from hot oil bath, wiping the oil from the outside of the pot, and let cool to about ~230F. Stir in cannabis essential oil and flavoring mixture. Keep face and eyes away from the pot during stirring and do not inhale the fumes that come off.
Spoon the mixture into the lollypop molds and set aside to cool.
Filled molds cooling.
Remove from the molds when semi rigid and coat with powdered sugar.
Finished Cannapop
If you don’t need the lollypop stick, you can also make lozenges, with molds being readily available as well. As an alternative method where molds are not available, you can pour the candy mixture onto a cookie sheet that has been lightly coated with PAM.
Scored sheet.
As it cools and becomes semi rigid, score into a suitably sized grid pattern using a PAM lubricated knife. Coat with powdered sugar and break into squares at grid marks. You can compute the dosage by the amount of materials added, divided by the number of pieces.
Scored and powdered.
Unless the lozenges are made for a specific patient, we usually keep dosage at 50 mg essential oil, and titrate up to the required dose.
The chili addition is a personal thing, but for ya’ll what like it hot, the patient that I first requested more heat and was pleased with the results from a teaspoon added. In her immortal words, “It gave me a speech impediment from a cleft pallet, but as soon as it quits burning, I can’t keep from sticking it in my mouth again.”
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