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Saturday, April 24, 2004

Cannabis butter to spread across Europe

Aljazeera

Any shopper can buy cannabis butter in Latvia

The EU may have to keep a watchful eye on Latvian farmers who plan to market a hitherto unknown butter … with a very special ingredient.

Dark green, the butter is described by farmer Dainis Lagzdins as a “miracle of taste and flavour.”

“I love it, especially like my grandma used to make … the taste is heavenly.”

Using centuries’ old recipes to make the butter at home, Latvians use only soaked, roasted and milled cannabis seed, sometimes mixing it together with oil or butter.

And unlike the soft drug cannabis, it is legal.

Going international

Now Lagzdins, the director of the Iecavnieks company, has ambitious plans from this tiny Latvian village Iecava, 44kms south of the capital Riga, to introduce this hitherto unknown product to the world.

“Russian and Finnish salesmen have already shown an interest in our cannabis spread,” Lagzdins said, saying he was slightly concerned about whether he would be able to supply the speciality in large quantities.

He is currently fine-tuning his recipe, but swears by its health qualities — it does not contain milk proteins, or cholesterol, while cannabis seeds are a natural anti-oxidant.

Once prepared, the butter can be stored for half a year. But preparing good cannabis butter is not easy, being done mainly by hand, in 18 different steps.

No highs

Narcologist Janis Strazdins explained that consumers will not have any drug-induced “experiences.”

“Only seeds are used for cannabis butter. The narcotic substance Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) is in the resin and blossoms only.”

And although cannabis butter and the cannabis seeds used to make it are legal, Latvia’s cannabis fields are under strict controls.

Farmers have to get permission to grow cannabis and can only grow it in the open air.

Strazdins added that with Latvia located on the 57th latitude, with short summers and cool and rainy springs and autumns, it was not possible to grow a narcotic variety of cannabis.

Foreign ingredients?

“However, we cannot exclude theoretically that prohibited hybrid from Holland with THC more than four percent could be brought in and sowed together with other seeds.”

But farmer Janis Grinbergs, who produces cannabis in northern Latvia in the village of Burtnieki, believes Latvian cannabis is good with lots of other foods.

“Latvian cannabis has a special taste. One could eat cannabis butter with potatoes, with small salted biscuits, but the best way is to enjoy the unique taste just eating pure, wafer-thin slices of cannabis butter,” he said.

Copyright © 2004, Aljazeera. All rights reserved.

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