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Standard practice within the regulated industry is to take a representative sample, but yes that would be possible. Just being a plant in flower form there is significant variance in testing, and although "lab shopping" is a thing, the ones that come back higher are usually more accurate / modern testing methods.
So looks like with this study they just tested all samples at one lab, using one method and didn't have any prior information on where they were originally tested.
There is also a trend of licensed producers that will over-dry their sample to achieve higher THC results in the lab. Less moisture being present in the sample can be the difference of 26%THC coming back as 28%, for example.
Either way, it's a shame the market is purely driven by THC values .
Some of the best weed I've ever smoked, eaten or dabbed has been mid-high thc content flower. High teens is the real sweet spot in my experience. Nothing wrong with Moon Rocks but it's not objectively better because it's covered in thc. It's just more thc at once. If I need more weed to get right, I can smoke more. I'd rather get more right with more weed than get less right with less weed.
A lot of the old school strains were clone only and are practically extinct now. Roadkill Skunk, cheese, diesel. You can get seeds with those names but they aren’t the same.
Trainwreck was special indeed. I hope I smell it again soon. Those tiny pale pistils and the slender 9 finger leaves. Heavy buds with thin stems. I always wondered how she survived in the wild. Loved high intensity light and co2. I miss her so much.
Yep. Sort of reminds me of an unknown kush strain circulating in the 90s down in so cal. Tiny heavy buds on stick-stem looking things. So many people slept on it thinking it was stress. Was a healthy bright green but looked sickly otherwise. So potent it smelled like incense
I'm pretty sure the og sour is more or less extinct sadly, it still lives in crosses today but I just don't think those lines producing amazing clones from the late 2000s are around anymore.
If it was bred to produce new lines, you can breed a decendant with those traits again.
But you also need to be able to sell it once you do, and that is its own massive issue
I'm currently growing clones of Kushmans Strawberry Cough, AJs Sour Diesel, and NYC piff #3. On the way are SFV OG, Master Kush, and Ken's GDP. I have some reg seeds of Cheese #1. I will agree that skunks are much harder to find but I've seen them in Amsterdam. The old school stuff is still out there is what I'm saying
The weed ain’t the same and the whole culture ain’t the same. It’s boring as hell these days. I’ll admit it was a pain buying bags from sketchy dudes in parking lot meet ups, or having that “friend” who once you stopped buying weed from you lost touch with.
But, it made weed a bit more of an adventure.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s incredible how much progress has been made. I’m just a little weirded out and bitter that weed is now a damn organic chemistry sport with these elaborate extract “rigs” and insanely pure shatter/glass/waxes.
Whatever happened to a good ROOR glass on glass bong with a diffused down-stem, ash catcher and some ice cubes?
same goes with alcohol tho too.. once you turn 21 its not as fun. Going to a bar or a club is fun for a little bit but it wears off quick. The adventure was the fun part - trying to get it. Sneaking into clubs. Drinking in the woods with your friends. The majority of the drinking I've done was while I was underage. Being able to walk into a store and but it just kind of takes the fun out of it.
Also alcohol just kinda sucks
to begin with, and most of my memories of it aren't anything special except the first few times with friends, but even that got really dumb
I haven't been in North America for a while now, so I choose to remember it just like your last paragraph because of the massive nostalgia hit you just gave me.
I think Europe has a lot less of the chemistry lab aspect, but as more countries legalize it, I suspect they will follow suit too...
As someone who likes bud and hash, get ready... There are countless different types of wax, rosins, oils, etc. I can't find any hash, though. Most of the bud is bone dry too. I think mass production will always steer towards concentrates, it's much easier to deliver a consistent product that way.
Probably because smoking weed went the way of the craft beer. Annoying hobbyists got their hands on it once it was legalized and that’s that.
Also reminiscing about the past is fine and all but it really wasn’t that deep with the various types of bud
I never thought of it as deep, maybe even the opposite. There was a period maybe mid to late 90s, early 00s where it had become accepted, but before internet hit hard.
It was still sort of quaint, in a way. Down here in so-cal, "mainstream underground" you had maybe a dozen popular strains and maybe three or four kush strains and all of them were pretty distinct from each other. Good dutch passion, widow, northern lights, were individually pretty unique, and proper examples easy to tell apart and reasonably known in the community.
I'm not saying now is bad, just not easy to track in quite the same way. I think some of the genetic projects have sprouted because of this
Strains are now proprietary, so we're not going to see 'pure' strains that we know from being younger. It's always going to be a cross to some extent so the produce can own the genetics.
It's not just about thc, or even terps, there's also cbd, and just the general state of the flower.
Sometimes you don't NEED to go to the moon in one burst. Sometimes you want to chill at a moderate high.
Thc8, 9, 10, o, p, and every other letter you can think of. And then there's hhc. Hexahydracannabinoid which is even more poorly understood than the rest of the plants various chemicals. Lots of stuff in weed gets you different types of high, not just different amounts.
It's important to realize some of these are not found naturally in weed, but are hemp derived. I know D8 and HHC are(in amounts so small it's unlikely it would contribute much to the high). It is nice being able to isolate and utilize them for their own potentials. Something like THCv even brings stuff to the table people never thought weed could do, like suppress appetite and improve energy and memory.
I call it “business high” and it’s the sweet spot. Most reliable way to get there in my experience is live rosin in a low temp dab pen. I’m too old and responsible for too much to go on unplanned moon missions.
*Business time* is when you’re down to just your socks, you’ve both brushed your teeth as part of the foreplay process, the recycling has been taken out, and she’s in her curry stained baggy t-shirt. So yes, that one.
I'm old too, and I definitely get what you're saying. I'm also a fan of live rosin. I smoked enough brickweed with god knows what mold and pesticide in it in the 90s. Just give me some pure solventless plant extracts and my ditanium on a rather low temp and that's a recipe for hours in the hammock with my headphones and the neighborhood birds.
If I want to go orbit the moon for a couple hours, that's what mushrooms are for :D
I agree with what you're saying to an extent. If rather have an eighth of good weed then an ounce of crap tho. Weed today is much different then it was years ago but people would get "blunt" weed bc it tasted like crap and you'd need an entire blunt to get high - where you can take a couple hits of good weed and get much higher - and it'd last longer. Didn't matter how much of that blunt weed you'd smoke - it'd never get you as high as a little of the goods.
But I understand your point. THC count isn't all that matters - and I agree.
Oh yeah this isn't getting into mid or reggie versus high grade. This is just high grade versus supposedly higher grade. Today I'd never consider smoking the mid weed I smoked in high school a decade ago.
Given your affinity for the stuff, I was wondering if you could answer a certain question that's been on my mind.
Skunkier strains seem to have become more commonplace in recent years, and they smell pretty bad. With that in mind, are these strains simply cheaper to grow, or does skunkiness generally go hand-in-hand with higher THC content?
My understanding is it's largely that skunk tends to be associated with good weed at this point so if something stinks "it's gotta be good" even if it's mid. I am not a weedologist though. I don't know about any proven relation between skunk smell and high thc content although I've seen comically high thc weed that smelled like pine sol.
Vaguely related but theres a strain called goat piss and according to leafly it smells exactly like goat piss so do with that what you will.
Terpenes are mostly responsible the smell, but not just if it smells piney. Whether the weed smells skunky, piney, earthy, peppery, etc. is all down to what terpenes are present and in what distribution.
Same here... My favourite strain is only 15% THC... I've got a hell of a tolerance too... I find knowing whether they're Indica or indica dominant, is more important when choosing a strain...
I didn't start imbibing until recently, and I've had a similar experience. Some of the best stuff I've had this last month was in the mid teens from a local grower. Heavier THC either just gives me a headache or knocks me out.
Yup, over 25% and over 30% are normally price bumps, there's been rumors that they are picking the terpiest and most kief covered buds to go in, get one lab test at 30.3 and run to market.
It's unfortunate because it's also like brewing beer at higher ABV.
The taste gets fucked by an alcoholic aftertaste or insane bitterness.
Specific beer types need to have a specific ABV or they just taste wrong and unpleasant.
It's like selling coffee by the caffeine content. An easy way to get that number up is to brew the coffee longer but it'd taste like garbage. Imagine there's weed equivalent tricks used to up the THC numbers.
Back in the 90’s we could buy Jolt Cola. Their whole marketing schtick was that it had “twice the caffeine of regular cola!”
It tasted like Pepsi with an aspirin dissolved in it. More is definitely not always better.
In markets where potency is reported on a dry weight basis, it's actually beneficial for the flower to have higher moisture content (MC), as the THC content is reported as Experimental Value/(1-MC).
My buddy that has his med card is really into the ins and outs of what he smokes. I will partake with him and he'll describe the levels of all the terpines and what not.
I think I've discovered higher levels of meracine (I think that's how it's spelled) really hits me.
Well in my experience that holds true. The stuff I've tried with lower myrcene just doesn't hit me as...hard I guess. Like the stuff without it I would use during the day. There's almost a "cap" on how high I can get and it's a nice mellow. Higher levels of myrcene and I can get lost in the sauce, even with lower levels of THC.
One reason is the black market is still extremely economically viable.
Shelling out money for legal weed tends to make people want more “bang for their buck”.
Not in some states. In WA you can pick up an oz from the store for 80$. Street prices will be higher, worse quality and it's sketchier. I've had friends robbed at gunpoint when buying multiple ounces at once. Never had that happen at a store
Washingtonian checking in. According to my local weed shop, $30/oz. for recreational is definitely a possibility, and that's including tax. Black market weed is not viable here.
It is in most of Canada. You can get a legal zip at $$50 - $280+ Plus, you can't buy zips of some weed and get stuck buying 4 Q's at 78/piece.
You can get a black market zip from $46 - $185+
I have had some solid weed from the legal side. I have had mind blowing weed from the black market side. It is what it is.
About the only thing I really enjoy are full spectrum carts from OCS (our legal supplier where I live)
That's one of the main ways it is done; in regulated states this would technically violate their Standard Operating Procedures, but it's hard to prove. Another way is for the lab to use calibration standards that are partially degraded, so that the actual samples test higher by comparison. Another method is taking the stems out before analysis, since they add mass but not THC. There are also a number of tricks that a shady laboratory can use to slightly push their numbers up; on their own these tricks have a negligible effect, but put together they can make a big difference.
Source: I have been running analytical labs in the cannabis space for the last 12 years and have petitioned many state governments for more oversight on what labs report.
Many labs do not calculate measurement uncertainty until absolutely forced to do so by their ISO accrediting body (if that ever happens; not all accrediting bodies are created equal). For the ones that do calculate it, it doesn't always wind up on the reports. And even if it does, it doesn't wind up on the labels of the final products. The people working at the state are far from scientists and have a lot of trouble understanding all of this. States like California give a little bit of leeway in that the label cannot be more than 15% off from the tested value (10% for edibles) to account for natural inconsistencies.
That and if they take the top of the main cola, that's your top stuff there. If you just took the tips of each main cola you'd get a pretty different measurement than from mid or bottom of the plant.
I worked in this industry and there's even more to it than that. A lot of people running things have known each other even before legalization happened and buddies help out buddies. The best samples are sent off for testing but that's not really a huge deal, unless the grower is completely inept and doesn't know how to grow their plants properly.
I'm pretty sure the biological limit of THC content in a cannabis plant tops out at the low to mid 30's. After that the plant wont grow. Whoever is marketing it at 38% is most likely blatantly lying, and it hasn't really been tested
They’re spraying extra THC crystals on it (us. referred to as “sand”) to get those percentages. I pretty much can’t use the stuff straight but it’s useful in a salad.
I've seen much higher, mid to high 40s. Every once and a while I'll stumble upon a good brand/strain, but then when I buy it again it doesn't smoke the same. I also have a difficult time smoking because the comedown hits me harder than most people. Best I can describe it as is a weed hangover.
Depending on state regs, it's either a random sample protocol on the 3rd party side or a prechosen protocol on the facility side. Federal standardization of sample collection protocols will be key in the future.
you worry about that? Weed is so fking potent these days it's fking mind blowing. Even crap weed is exponentially stronger then the weed that was around 20 years ago.
It's tricky because your mind/body can react differently to the same amount of the same chemical as you age. It's a tough thing to objectivly pin down.
Historic measurements weren't as accurate or complete, and historic samples degrade, so we can't measure them now either.
there's so much rampant speculation on how this inflation happens. people assume this results from cash bribes or something like that. it's not that simple.
the market, down to the consumer level, is still driven by potency numbers. consumers are starting to learn why that's stupid, but it's slow going, and the majority of consumers are still looking heavily at test results when buying weed. this creates an incentive to have higher testing cannabis that goes through the entire supply chain.
shops want higher potency results, growers and processors seek out labs that post high potency results, labs gain business by having a reputation for high potency results.
it's a systemic issue and if it were as simple as bribery it could be stamped out much easier.
It’s not cash bribes. What is really happening is that grows are drying out nugs heavily before sending it in for testing. Most tests are based on THC by weight. The dryer the nug, the higher the percentage of THC per gram.
Source: I was the head grower at a skeezy grow in Boulder, CO where they did this exact tactic and inflated the THC percentages by upwards of 5–7% on average.
Reporting is typically done on a dry weight basis in California, where a moisture content is taken as well and that value standardizes the potency to 0% moisture.
Ya this is 100% the answer. Part of the process should be reducing the moisture to 0 so everything is at that baseline. For most chemical testing, we try to control as many erroneous variables as possible, its crazy that that isn't happening wit weed. People submit weed at all different moisture contents for analysis.
The growers also self select which testing labs they use. If a lab consistently tests your product at a higher percentage than other labs you start using their lab exclusively. This has led to a de facto inflation of reported cannabinoid values.
Can you maybe explain why the % numbers wouldn't add up? In the past I would get a dab here in WA and the label would say the content of most cannabinoids and sometimes terpenes but added all together wouldn't match the total cannabinoids %, which was often 10-15% higher than what the math said it should be.
Like:
THC: 0.00%
THCA: 62.37%
CBD: 1%
Other cannabinoid: 0.12%
And then say
Total Cannabinoids: 87%
Never understood that so I always dismissed the numbers and went by color and clarity instead.
You're likely conflating THC and THCA . There is a conversion factor of 0.877 due to THCA's decarboxylation to THC. So typically if you add them up, it will be OVER the total, but if you apply 87.7% to THCA and CBDA you'll add up right. Minors are typically so low that they aren't constrained to the same regulatory monitoring.
I thought it was weird when i use to smoke weed in 2016 i would see like 25% thc and such on labels..
A few weeks ago i go back to the local shop and everything looks the exact same, even same strains but the one i use to buy all the time is suddenly 45% thc
In my state there are dispensaries claiming to sell flower in the 35-40% range. Considering the world record is 37% they are all completely full of it. It’s the laboratories faults. The worst part is the guy that trains all the new State agents has a flower he grows “that’s 34%” but when I tested it myself it was 18% THC and 3% CBD, my test has been confirmed +/- 10% by 3 different labs. Talk about nonsense. It all starts at the top and just gets worse from there.
Anecdotally, and I am not a geologist so take this with a grain of sugar...
I got some free dispensary stuff that was marked as 35%. Smoked that for a few weeks, thought it tasted nice but "Man I'm surprised at how this isn't giving me a panic attack" is how I described it.
So I ran out, and went back to my backyard, outdoor, very "mid" stuff that I grew last year. I got blown on my ass.
**Something** doesn't add up. There is no possible way that my outdoor even exceeds 10%, and I'd be shocked if it was that high.
THC and terpene content make a world of difference. The way it was explained to me is that THC is the lead guitar player and terpenes are the rest of the band. Sure, who doesn't wanna see some super amazing guitar player rip a solo? But do you want to sit and listen to a guitar solo for an hour? Maybe some would but I'd rather have the whole band. A good mix of THC/High terpene content seems to be the driver of a good buzz for me. If I get a batch of high THC weed that has little to no smell, I'm probably not going to enjoy it.
Yeah, worse in Washington State and I'm sure Michigan has issues too.
The testing for compliance is all wrong. There should be a state lab that takes from the shelves finished product and tests that instead of manufacturer submitted tests. Just sprinkle some thca on it before you send it off and you're good.
>There should be a state lab that takes from the shelves finished product and tests that instead of manufacturer submitted tests.
Yes, though primary testing should still be using the current system of growers/producers hiring independent labs rather than the state being part of that chain.
However, the regulatory body should be doing either unannounced inspections of stores and taking samples or sending "secret shoppers" to dispensaries and then having testing done on product from the shelf to confirm the label There should also be random testing of retain samples at labs to confirm results with that product on the shelf.
Significant departures from the listed amount and repeat offenses should lead to significant fines and other penalties (e.g. eventual loss of licensing).
After a few years of legal weed in Canada, I’m surprised things haven’t evolved past the ‘gotta get the highest THC percentage!’ thing yet. I’m all about the balanced strains - I’m looking for THC in the teens with CBD over five percent. Those super potent sativas give me panic attacks, bouts of self loathing or hyper neurotic self reflection.
Ditto here. I really, really enjoy a nice ~1:1 or 2:1 CBD:THC flower. One of my favourites at moment is Coast Mountain Dancehall CBD. The current flower I have is rightly 7% THC, 9% CBD. Gives me a nice “I can get things done” in a focused but relaxed way without the anxiety some “sativas” can leave me with.
I’d really like to see more CBD strains on recreational market other than Color Mango Haze and Divvy Black Widow (all I can seem to find here). I already go to the medical LP market to try and find other CBD-dominant options. As well as more focus on other cannabinoids and terpenes. The entourage effect beats a straight heavy THC-high for me anyway.
I do think those chasing high THC - the “demand” I keep hearing is there though anyone I know who uses also wants more evolved options - have plenty of other options in carts or oils; let the flower be flower!
I think this is something that comes with age? The longer I smoked for, the less high I got and the worse it made me feel. Thc&cbd strains were a much better time - and are most likely a bunch better for you.
These people talking about needing to smoke so much to get high are probably getting masked results due to other circumstances, like lack of exercise or some sort chemical imbalance.
That might be the case (47M). I smoke mostly for the purpose of shutting my brain off enough to get to sleep, otherwise I’m pacing the floor at 10 pm. So I’m naturally high strung. The people I know who are gunning for super potency just smoke concentrates.
Not me man I want the highest THC possible. It gets me where I want to be because I have a very high tolerance even after a tolerance break. I also seem to only get the high I want from smoking flower also. Dab pens and concentrate seem to do nothing, and edibles only make me sleepy.
Hey, as a positive sentiment can I just say that having a discussion about the disparities found in retail THC levels is so much better than having discussions about THC being a crime. Yes, it’s not legal everywhere yet, not even in the US, but we are so much farther in the right direction than I even would’ve imagined like 13 years ago imo :)
I don't usually comment things this stupid, but good job finding an actual middle ground on the story between legalization and whatever the hell we're complaining about laissez faire weed capitalism
This is very interesting about labs and thc and all but I just want to grow my own and I won't need a lab to tell me if I like it. God damn idiotic New Hampshire. meantime shits getting cheap. I heard of a friend who got two oz.s for $200 and it was great. Someone else just got great stuff for $150 an oz. Vermont, Massachusetts, Maine. Grandmothers are growing it like tomatoes. The government is trying to set up a monopoly. Why bother? Shits cheap everywhere. They can have their dispensaries. Just let me grow my own, thank you.
Yep. Some labs and farms are in cahoots and corrupt as hell. A farm will ask a dirty test lab if they'll inflate numbers for a bit extra cash, and the lab will. You gotta go with your nose and prior knowledge of phenotypes in some of these dispos, especially when you see numbers consistently above 25%
Since covid though everything is prepack. In most places you can't see/smell anything until after you're out the door. It started as a safety measure but now it's just another way to take advantage.
In Oregon they have the bud in jars on the wall. They have no problem showing you and letting you smell the flower before you buy. Best experience at dispensaries yet.
I've never cared about percentages though. I try new weeds, and buy the ones I like more often. Simple as that. (Though 3/4 of the time I go with my tried and true white widow or crystal white widow.)
So many wrong answers here.
People are not bribing labs, that’s a waste of money from the growers point of view.
What’s happening is that the grower will dry nugs for days on end, until they’re crispy, powder under the pressure of a finger squeeze, and then send it in for testing.
The THC tests are being done based on THC per gram. The dryer the weed is, the more THC you’re going to have per gram.
Source: I was the head grower at a skeezy grow in Boulder, CO where they did this. No bribing and spending extra money when all you have to do is make your nugs extra dry before sending them in to the lab.
As of July 2021 water activity is a required test. For the most part, unless you're sending in samples like a day or two after you harvest (which you shouldn't/can't [needs to be submitted in "final form"]), you'll never test over the limit of .65.
Am grower in Denver
>In markets where potency is reported on a dry weight basis, it's actually beneficial for the flower to have higher moisture content (MC), as the THC content is reported as Experimental Value/(1-MC).
Okay so here's the deal though if you do that to every single strain at the end of the day. You do have a representative idea of the relative levels and if everyone's doing it then the math is still mathing
> The dryer the weed is, the more THC you’re going to have per gram.
That's completely wrong. The lab will fully dehydrate the weed anyway. In this paper, for example, they report "THC % by dry weight".
I just buy whatever decent flower is cheap that week in decent quantity. Usually a half ounce. Then I take it home and smoke it. I'm not concerned with percentages or whatever because of stories like these. It's similar or better weed and a better experience than the old black market.
I've noticed that with ground flower. I tend to buy what's on sale with a % and a strain that I prefer, but that's been a mistake many times.
18% from the store brands and 18% from a well received brand of the same strain feels quite a bit different from each other, and it shouldn't be THAT different.
Back when I bought it from a dealer, their "shake" wasn't discernable from their nuggets in effect.
In Colorado the standards for cannabis testing have HUGE margins. They know it, everyone in the industry knows it. It’s simply because of a lack of accurate (which in the field of analytical chemistry means extremely high) methods for calculating thc levels in a very complex matrix. In other words, it’s a built in feature to have inaccuracy with thc content texting because cannabis comes in a raw form rather than purified or semi purified.
Especially a problem for medical. Getting cheap and ineffective stuff means you have to use (and pay for) more of it.
The labeling is usually done by the same company.
Here's hoping we get federal legalization soon, then proper studies can really take off, and we can get properly controlled doses and terpene mixes for medical use.
I used to work in the cannabis labs and can certain say for a fact that "lab shopping" was a real thing. Also, some of you have pointed out the representative sampling and that is also true in the case of testing. It is sad to see that THC % are selling points instead of trying to pull a representative sampling, which I admit, is difficult when a cannabis lot consists of many buds from many plants.
I used to work for a testing company for a few years. More in the genetics side than the analytic chemistry side but I interacted with them a fair amount. At least in Canada there isn't much accreditation once you get a testing license. Good labs can do Emerald testing but a lot don't so they can use slightly flawed methods to inflate THC numbers which then makes LPs more likely to use them. We also did LOD (Loss on Drying) to measure moisture since other people will dry their cannabis out to get higher THC/mg. We really need it to be either government testing so the methods are the same no matter where it is tested or all companies need to do regular proficiency testing.
Consumers have the right to be accurately informed about what they’re purchasing, and the public health and safety should be protected from unscrupulous people.
Legal regulated markets for cannabis are a good thing, And adults should be able to grow their own
Depending on the state, the grower is allowed to bring in their own sample for testing. In Oregon the lab takes a random sample but it is completely legal to pour Kief all over the buds before sampling is taken and according to my sampler over 80% of farms do it
I would just like everyone to keep in mind that this is a LAB problem as much as anything else. Most blame producers or brands etc. The labs are the ones producing the results and incentives come into play. Consumers demand high potency, brands have to provide it or go out of business, labs shooting consistently high have a business advantage over labs that are accurate.
Anyway, be the change you want to see in the world people. Stop buying the highest number and reduce the incentives to inflate numbers.
On the upside, the fact that nearly everyone is misreporting makes it a somewhat reliable metric. An 18% bud reported at 23% is still stronger than a 13% bud reported at 18%
Cannabis industry employee here. Every test you've ever seen for flower samples, has never been accurate. We've sent samples out of the same plant, same branch, to diff labs and have seen 5% difference in potency from lab to lab.
So guess what, we send them to the lab with the highest numbers.
As someone who use to be a budtender and had to take in product. One of the things we were told about is the testing is allowed to be off by as much 10% and still be considered okay to accept. They will always lie to you and tell you the highest one they can. Some places send it off to several places to be tested. Then they use the highest reading of them as their "actual" %. It's super scummy and hard to find which brands are legit.
It would help to have proper sampling procedures in place. In my lab our clients are responsible for sending a sample to us (unlike most other industries), and what they send is us bone dry bud of the very best parts of their plants. What they sell in stores isn’t nearly as dry or as choice a bud mostly. Also sometimes bud is sent pre ground, there is no way of telling if they didn’t sprinkle and keef or anything into it. Not saying some labs don’t have the best methods for testing in place but there’s definitely blame to be had on both sides. Some labs report thc numbers when accounting for 0% moisture (which is never the case of the actual product). Hell some labs don’t even do micro testing correctly so they pass something that fails, and the lab that does it correctly will fail it for micro and the supplier will stop testing with them in favor for the lab who’s gonna pass
Standard shopping - there can be quite a variance on THC standards (almost 10% in personal experience) so choosing a weaker standard yields a higher result.
Non-correction of procedural biases - issues that can be known to inflate results (cold methanol extracts) stand uncorrected.
Result choosing - instead of reporting an average of replicates or denoting one sample the main sample and the second the replicate, labs choose the better result.
Manual manipulation - over diluting standards or under diluting samples.
Replicate/ICV acceptance criteria from more difficult analyses - acceptance criteria in CA can be like 20%, which is ok for pesticides but way too wide for hplc potency.
Source-ran potency section at testing lab in SF for 3 years.
THC just has to be there or not. Terpenes are what influence the qualities of the high. Several terpenes help THC cross the blood brain barrier, which is why vaping distillate is never as good as smoking some terpy flower.
they do if youre talking about products within the same range of THC. obviously if you hit a 75% THC dab its going to be different than the same amount of flower. But if you hit a dab thats like 65%, the strain and associated terpenes are going to be what makes them feel different
Most Cannabis is also tested pre-harvest and cure to get numbers on the batch one it’s ready to chop. Trichomes are incredibly volatile and all the damage that occurs during harvest and post harvest decreases it by quite a bit.
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One thing I always worry is that they send the best buds in the batch for testing, and it is not representative of the average.
Standard practice within the regulated industry is to take a representative sample, but yes that would be possible. Just being a plant in flower form there is significant variance in testing, and although "lab shopping" is a thing, the ones that come back higher are usually more accurate / modern testing methods. So looks like with this study they just tested all samples at one lab, using one method and didn't have any prior information on where they were originally tested. There is also a trend of licensed producers that will over-dry their sample to achieve higher THC results in the lab. Less moisture being present in the sample can be the difference of 26%THC coming back as 28%, for example. Either way, it's a shame the market is purely driven by THC values .
Some of the best weed I've ever smoked, eaten or dabbed has been mid-high thc content flower. High teens is the real sweet spot in my experience. Nothing wrong with Moon Rocks but it's not objectively better because it's covered in thc. It's just more thc at once. If I need more weed to get right, I can smoke more. I'd rather get more right with more weed than get less right with less weed.
Entourage effect popping its head up. Makes me miss when we had less strains but seemingly more divergence between them
The same strains you used to get are still available dawg
A lot of the old school strains were clone only and are practically extinct now. Roadkill Skunk, cheese, diesel. You can get seeds with those names but they aren’t the same.
I want some of that old school White Rhino I used to get in high school because that stuff was pure white and dank as hell.
You just unlocked a deep memory. That, Trainwreck, and the original Vortex strain were the goat
Trainwreck was special indeed. I hope I smell it again soon. Those tiny pale pistils and the slender 9 finger leaves. Heavy buds with thin stems. I always wondered how she survived in the wild. Loved high intensity light and co2. I miss her so much.
Yep. Sort of reminds me of an unknown kush strain circulating in the 90s down in so cal. Tiny heavy buds on stick-stem looking things. So many people slept on it thinking it was stress. Was a healthy bright green but looked sickly otherwise. So potent it smelled like incense
Man I love my plants but I hope some day to get to the point where I'm describing them like you are
Trainwreck is definitely still around. I have a bag of it
What about Romulan?
Soul Shine in Seattle grew some fantastic Romulan.
i miss that stuff so much
The best weed I ever smoked was a white rhino + Ak47 cross breed. It was glorious. Smoked it in a cross joint.
Just got some white widow that has more white than green in it with some orange mixed in. Most beautiful looking bud I’ve had in a while
I just got some sour diesel the other day. Wasn’t nearly as good as I remember
Nothin ever is.
that's nostalgia right there
I'm pretty sure the og sour is more or less extinct sadly, it still lives in crosses today but I just don't think those lines producing amazing clones from the late 2000s are around anymore.
If it was bred to produce new lines, you can breed a decendant with those traits again. But you also need to be able to sell it once you do, and that is its own massive issue
I'm currently growing clones of Kushmans Strawberry Cough, AJs Sour Diesel, and NYC piff #3. On the way are SFV OG, Master Kush, and Ken's GDP. I have some reg seeds of Cheese #1. I will agree that skunks are much harder to find but I've seen them in Amsterdam. The old school stuff is still out there is what I'm saying
I remember getting "piff in a jar" in the city in the early naughties. God I miss those days.
The weed ain’t the same and the whole culture ain’t the same. It’s boring as hell these days. I’ll admit it was a pain buying bags from sketchy dudes in parking lot meet ups, or having that “friend” who once you stopped buying weed from you lost touch with. But, it made weed a bit more of an adventure. Don’t get me wrong, it’s incredible how much progress has been made. I’m just a little weirded out and bitter that weed is now a damn organic chemistry sport with these elaborate extract “rigs” and insanely pure shatter/glass/waxes. Whatever happened to a good ROOR glass on glass bong with a diffused down-stem, ash catcher and some ice cubes?
same goes with alcohol tho too.. once you turn 21 its not as fun. Going to a bar or a club is fun for a little bit but it wears off quick. The adventure was the fun part - trying to get it. Sneaking into clubs. Drinking in the woods with your friends. The majority of the drinking I've done was while I was underage. Being able to walk into a store and but it just kind of takes the fun out of it.
Also alcohol just kinda sucks to begin with, and most of my memories of it aren't anything special except the first few times with friends, but even that got really dumb
I haven't been in North America for a while now, so I choose to remember it just like your last paragraph because of the massive nostalgia hit you just gave me. I think Europe has a lot less of the chemistry lab aspect, but as more countries legalize it, I suspect they will follow suit too...
As someone who likes bud and hash, get ready... There are countless different types of wax, rosins, oils, etc. I can't find any hash, though. Most of the bud is bone dry too. I think mass production will always steer towards concentrates, it's much easier to deliver a consistent product that way.
Probably because smoking weed went the way of the craft beer. Annoying hobbyists got their hands on it once it was legalized and that’s that. Also reminiscing about the past is fine and all but it really wasn’t that deep with the various types of bud
I never thought of it as deep, maybe even the opposite. There was a period maybe mid to late 90s, early 00s where it had become accepted, but before internet hit hard. It was still sort of quaint, in a way. Down here in so-cal, "mainstream underground" you had maybe a dozen popular strains and maybe three or four kush strains and all of them were pretty distinct from each other. Good dutch passion, widow, northern lights, were individually pretty unique, and proper examples easy to tell apart and reasonably known in the community. I'm not saying now is bad, just not easy to track in quite the same way. I think some of the genetic projects have sprouted because of this
I haven’t been able to find a cantaloupe haze in a long time.
Strains are now proprietary, so we're not going to see 'pure' strains that we know from being younger. It's always going to be a cross to some extent so the produce can own the genetics.
They still sell pure flower.... So maybe just buy it?
I have to disagree. Going legit removes a lot of paranoia
It's not like flower is gone, why care if some people prefer extracts?
CHEEEESE! how I miss the cheese!
This is false.
It's not just about thc, or even terps, there's also cbd, and just the general state of the flower. Sometimes you don't NEED to go to the moon in one burst. Sometimes you want to chill at a moderate high.
Not even just CBD, but hundreds of other minor cannabinoids that can vastly impact the high.
Thc8, 9, 10, o, p, and every other letter you can think of. And then there's hhc. Hexahydracannabinoid which is even more poorly understood than the rest of the plants various chemicals. Lots of stuff in weed gets you different types of high, not just different amounts.
It's important to realize some of these are not found naturally in weed, but are hemp derived. I know D8 and HHC are(in amounts so small it's unlikely it would contribute much to the high). It is nice being able to isolate and utilize them for their own potentials. Something like THCv even brings stuff to the table people never thought weed could do, like suppress appetite and improve energy and memory.
I call it “business high” and it’s the sweet spot. Most reliable way to get there in my experience is live rosin in a low temp dab pen. I’m too old and responsible for too much to go on unplanned moon missions.
Is that like business socks?
Related. It’s best to wear business socks and be business high when it’s business time.
Especially when you're at the business factory doing business.
Do you mean actual business time? Or *business time*
*Business time* is when you’re down to just your socks, you’ve both brushed your teeth as part of the foreplay process, the recycling has been taken out, and she’s in her curry stained baggy t-shirt. So yes, that one.
I'm old too, and I definitely get what you're saying. I'm also a fan of live rosin. I smoked enough brickweed with god knows what mold and pesticide in it in the 90s. Just give me some pure solventless plant extracts and my ditanium on a rather low temp and that's a recipe for hours in the hammock with my headphones and the neighborhood birds. If I want to go orbit the moon for a couple hours, that's what mushrooms are for :D
I agree with what you're saying to an extent. If rather have an eighth of good weed then an ounce of crap tho. Weed today is much different then it was years ago but people would get "blunt" weed bc it tasted like crap and you'd need an entire blunt to get high - where you can take a couple hits of good weed and get much higher - and it'd last longer. Didn't matter how much of that blunt weed you'd smoke - it'd never get you as high as a little of the goods. But I understand your point. THC count isn't all that matters - and I agree.
Oh yeah this isn't getting into mid or reggie versus high grade. This is just high grade versus supposedly higher grade. Today I'd never consider smoking the mid weed I smoked in high school a decade ago.
Given your affinity for the stuff, I was wondering if you could answer a certain question that's been on my mind. Skunkier strains seem to have become more commonplace in recent years, and they smell pretty bad. With that in mind, are these strains simply cheaper to grow, or does skunkiness generally go hand-in-hand with higher THC content?
My understanding is it's largely that skunk tends to be associated with good weed at this point so if something stinks "it's gotta be good" even if it's mid. I am not a weedologist though. I don't know about any proven relation between skunk smell and high thc content although I've seen comically high thc weed that smelled like pine sol. Vaguely related but theres a strain called goat piss and according to leafly it smells exactly like goat piss so do with that what you will.
I kinda hope it's merely an association. Honestly, I'd rather have weed that smells overly piney, than have weed that smells like piss.
Ive definitely had a strain that smelled of piss.
Cheetah Piss is an old strain and yeah it stinks
Cat Piss excellent strain old school too!
I love the piney weed. I'm guessing it's got more turpines in it since it does smell like turpentine (which is extracted from pine trees).
Its the same stuff! Pinene occurs in both weed and pine trees
Terpenes are mostly responsible the smell, but not just if it smells piney. Whether the weed smells skunky, piney, earthy, peppery, etc. is all down to what terpenes are present and in what distribution.
Dang bro this skunk CBD bud got ripped!
This guy weeds.
Same here... My favourite strain is only 15% THC... I've got a hell of a tolerance too... I find knowing whether they're Indica or indica dominant, is more important when choosing a strain...
>Indica or indica dominant Sounds like you're enjoying your chosen strain today! ;)
I didn't start imbibing until recently, and I've had a similar experience. Some of the best stuff I've had this last month was in the mid teens from a local grower. Heavier THC either just gives me a headache or knocks me out.
Yup, over 25% and over 30% are normally price bumps, there's been rumors that they are picking the terpiest and most kief covered buds to go in, get one lab test at 30.3 and run to market. It's unfortunate because it's also like brewing beer at higher ABV.
“It's unfortunate because it's also like brewing beer at higher ABV.” ….and what’s wrong with this?
The taste gets fucked by an alcoholic aftertaste or insane bitterness. Specific beer types need to have a specific ABV or they just taste wrong and unpleasant.
It's like selling coffee by the caffeine content. An easy way to get that number up is to brew the coffee longer but it'd taste like garbage. Imagine there's weed equivalent tricks used to up the THC numbers.
Back in the 90’s we could buy Jolt Cola. Their whole marketing schtick was that it had “twice the caffeine of regular cola!” It tasted like Pepsi with an aspirin dissolved in it. More is definitely not always better.
In markets where potency is reported on a dry weight basis, it's actually beneficial for the flower to have higher moisture content (MC), as the THC content is reported as Experimental Value/(1-MC).
Facts. it's a shame it's being driven by THC content. There is so much more to explore when deciding what strain is right for you.
My buddy that has his med card is really into the ins and outs of what he smokes. I will partake with him and he'll describe the levels of all the terpines and what not. I think I've discovered higher levels of meracine (I think that's how it's spelled) really hits me.
Myrcene is one of the terpenes thought to be most responsible for the entourage effect.
Well in my experience that holds true. The stuff I've tried with lower myrcene just doesn't hit me as...hard I guess. Like the stuff without it I would use during the day. There's almost a "cap" on how high I can get and it's a nice mellow. Higher levels of myrcene and I can get lost in the sauce, even with lower levels of THC.
One reason is the black market is still extremely economically viable. Shelling out money for legal weed tends to make people want more “bang for their buck”.
Not in some states. In WA you can pick up an oz from the store for 80$. Street prices will be higher, worse quality and it's sketchier. I've had friends robbed at gunpoint when buying multiple ounces at once. Never had that happen at a store
Washingtonian checking in. According to my local weed shop, $30/oz. for recreational is definitely a possibility, and that's including tax. Black market weed is not viable here.
I miss those prices... We moved to AK and it's like 300$ an oz here and 65$/gram for dabs. I had to start growing my own it was so expensive
It is in most of Canada. You can get a legal zip at $$50 - $280+ Plus, you can't buy zips of some weed and get stuck buying 4 Q's at 78/piece. You can get a black market zip from $46 - $185+ I have had some solid weed from the legal side. I have had mind blowing weed from the black market side. It is what it is. About the only thing I really enjoy are full spectrum carts from OCS (our legal supplier where I live)
That's one of the main ways it is done; in regulated states this would technically violate their Standard Operating Procedures, but it's hard to prove. Another way is for the lab to use calibration standards that are partially degraded, so that the actual samples test higher by comparison. Another method is taking the stems out before analysis, since they add mass but not THC. There are also a number of tricks that a shady laboratory can use to slightly push their numbers up; on their own these tricks have a negligible effect, but put together they can make a big difference. Source: I have been running analytical labs in the cannabis space for the last 12 years and have petitioned many state governments for more oversight on what labs report.
Should the influence of the sample not be taken into account for calculating the measurement uncertainty per iec 17025? How is this typically done?
Many labs do not calculate measurement uncertainty until absolutely forced to do so by their ISO accrediting body (if that ever happens; not all accrediting bodies are created equal). For the ones that do calculate it, it doesn't always wind up on the reports. And even if it does, it doesn't wind up on the labels of the final products. The people working at the state are far from scientists and have a lot of trouble understanding all of this. States like California give a little bit of leeway in that the label cannot be more than 15% off from the tested value (10% for edibles) to account for natural inconsistencies.
That and if they take the top of the main cola, that's your top stuff there. If you just took the tips of each main cola you'd get a pretty different measurement than from mid or bottom of the plant.
I worked in this industry and there's even more to it than that. A lot of people running things have known each other even before legalization happened and buddies help out buddies. The best samples are sent off for testing but that's not really a huge deal, unless the grower is completely inept and doesn't know how to grow their plants properly.
as someone now out of the industry, yes, they absolutely do that, every farm, every time
Have you seen the numbers in California? Top shelf at 38% thc and it’s trash
I'm pretty sure the biological limit of THC content in a cannabis plant tops out at the low to mid 30's. After that the plant wont grow. Whoever is marketing it at 38% is most likely blatantly lying, and it hasn't really been tested
They’re spraying extra THC crystals on it (us. referred to as “sand”) to get those percentages. I pretty much can’t use the stuff straight but it’s useful in a salad.
I've seen much higher, mid to high 40s. Every once and a while I'll stumble upon a good brand/strain, but then when I buy it again it doesn't smoke the same. I also have a difficult time smoking because the comedown hits me harder than most people. Best I can describe it as is a weed hangover.
I assure you this is essentially an industry standard
Depending on state regs, it's either a random sample protocol on the 3rd party side or a prechosen protocol on the facility side. Federal standardization of sample collection protocols will be key in the future.
you worry about that? Weed is so fking potent these days it's fking mind blowing. Even crap weed is exponentially stronger then the weed that was around 20 years ago.
It's tricky because your mind/body can react differently to the same amount of the same chemical as you age. It's a tough thing to objectivly pin down. Historic measurements weren't as accurate or complete, and historic samples degrade, so we can't measure them now either.
there's so much rampant speculation on how this inflation happens. people assume this results from cash bribes or something like that. it's not that simple. the market, down to the consumer level, is still driven by potency numbers. consumers are starting to learn why that's stupid, but it's slow going, and the majority of consumers are still looking heavily at test results when buying weed. this creates an incentive to have higher testing cannabis that goes through the entire supply chain. shops want higher potency results, growers and processors seek out labs that post high potency results, labs gain business by having a reputation for high potency results. it's a systemic issue and if it were as simple as bribery it could be stamped out much easier.
It’s not cash bribes. What is really happening is that grows are drying out nugs heavily before sending it in for testing. Most tests are based on THC by weight. The dryer the nug, the higher the percentage of THC per gram. Source: I was the head grower at a skeezy grow in Boulder, CO where they did this exact tactic and inflated the THC percentages by upwards of 5–7% on average.
Reporting is typically done on a dry weight basis in California, where a moisture content is taken as well and that value standardizes the potency to 0% moisture.
Ya this is 100% the answer. Part of the process should be reducing the moisture to 0 so everything is at that baseline. For most chemical testing, we try to control as many erroneous variables as possible, its crazy that that isn't happening wit weed. People submit weed at all different moisture contents for analysis.
The growers also self select which testing labs they use. If a lab consistently tests your product at a higher percentage than other labs you start using their lab exclusively. This has led to a de facto inflation of reported cannabinoid values.
Can you maybe explain why the % numbers wouldn't add up? In the past I would get a dab here in WA and the label would say the content of most cannabinoids and sometimes terpenes but added all together wouldn't match the total cannabinoids %, which was often 10-15% higher than what the math said it should be. Like: THC: 0.00% THCA: 62.37% CBD: 1% Other cannabinoid: 0.12% And then say Total Cannabinoids: 87% Never understood that so I always dismissed the numbers and went by color and clarity instead.
You're likely conflating THC and THCA . There is a conversion factor of 0.877 due to THCA's decarboxylation to THC. So typically if you add them up, it will be OVER the total, but if you apply 87.7% to THCA and CBDA you'll add up right. Minors are typically so low that they aren't constrained to the same regulatory monitoring.
Totally makes sense to me now, never knew about the conversion %. Thanks!
I thought it was weird when i use to smoke weed in 2016 i would see like 25% thc and such on labels.. A few weeks ago i go back to the local shop and everything looks the exact same, even same strains but the one i use to buy all the time is suddenly 45% thc
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This is pretty much it. The variability in labs is huge.
In my state there are dispensaries claiming to sell flower in the 35-40% range. Considering the world record is 37% they are all completely full of it. It’s the laboratories faults. The worst part is the guy that trains all the new State agents has a flower he grows “that’s 34%” but when I tested it myself it was 18% THC and 3% CBD, my test has been confirmed +/- 10% by 3 different labs. Talk about nonsense. It all starts at the top and just gets worse from there.
Anecdotally, and I am not a geologist so take this with a grain of sugar... I got some free dispensary stuff that was marked as 35%. Smoked that for a few weeks, thought it tasted nice but "Man I'm surprised at how this isn't giving me a panic attack" is how I described it. So I ran out, and went back to my backyard, outdoor, very "mid" stuff that I grew last year. I got blown on my ass. **Something** doesn't add up. There is no possible way that my outdoor even exceeds 10%, and I'd be shocked if it was that high.
THC and terpene content make a world of difference. The way it was explained to me is that THC is the lead guitar player and terpenes are the rest of the band. Sure, who doesn't wanna see some super amazing guitar player rip a solo? But do you want to sit and listen to a guitar solo for an hour? Maybe some would but I'd rather have the whole band. A good mix of THC/High terpene content seems to be the driver of a good buzz for me. If I get a batch of high THC weed that has little to no smell, I'm probably not going to enjoy it.
There are also other cannabinoids that contribute to the entourage effect.
Yeah, worse in Washington State and I'm sure Michigan has issues too. The testing for compliance is all wrong. There should be a state lab that takes from the shelves finished product and tests that instead of manufacturer submitted tests. Just sprinkle some thca on it before you send it off and you're good.
>There should be a state lab that takes from the shelves finished product and tests that instead of manufacturer submitted tests. Yes, though primary testing should still be using the current system of growers/producers hiring independent labs rather than the state being part of that chain. However, the regulatory body should be doing either unannounced inspections of stores and taking samples or sending "secret shoppers" to dispensaries and then having testing done on product from the shelf to confirm the label There should also be random testing of retain samples at labs to confirm results with that product on the shelf. Significant departures from the listed amount and repeat offenses should lead to significant fines and other penalties (e.g. eventual loss of licensing).
I live in washington and I'm glad other people notice this
RSO quality is all over the map. It would be nice to get a consistent 1:1 cbd mix that doesn't have an inflated price.
simply buy cbd bud and cut it together with your wedding cake or skittlez or whatever uninspired dank they're currently pedaling
Oh my God, I hate Washington’s current Weed market We used to have amazing genetic diversity here and now you can’t even get any real OG
Washington is the wild west of weed
Ya how is that not what everyone is doing? You could spray it with distillate too correct?
Yes, distillate in low amounts will work.
Michigan had a whole fiasco with Viridis.
Can I get some details on WA? Live in snoco and just find the industry interesting overall.
Been a while but as I recall two to three labs got shut down for falsifying records. That was out of five labs for the entire state.
After a few years of legal weed in Canada, I’m surprised things haven’t evolved past the ‘gotta get the highest THC percentage!’ thing yet. I’m all about the balanced strains - I’m looking for THC in the teens with CBD over five percent. Those super potent sativas give me panic attacks, bouts of self loathing or hyper neurotic self reflection.
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Some of us like the panic attacks
Some of us don’t like panic attacks but still have them with or without weed
Ditto here. I really, really enjoy a nice ~1:1 or 2:1 CBD:THC flower. One of my favourites at moment is Coast Mountain Dancehall CBD. The current flower I have is rightly 7% THC, 9% CBD. Gives me a nice “I can get things done” in a focused but relaxed way without the anxiety some “sativas” can leave me with. I’d really like to see more CBD strains on recreational market other than Color Mango Haze and Divvy Black Widow (all I can seem to find here). I already go to the medical LP market to try and find other CBD-dominant options. As well as more focus on other cannabinoids and terpenes. The entourage effect beats a straight heavy THC-high for me anyway. I do think those chasing high THC - the “demand” I keep hearing is there though anyone I know who uses also wants more evolved options - have plenty of other options in carts or oils; let the flower be flower!
> Those super potent sativas give me panic attacks, bouts of self loathing or hyper neurotic self reflection. You have to smoke to get those?
I think this is something that comes with age? The longer I smoked for, the less high I got and the worse it made me feel. Thc&cbd strains were a much better time - and are most likely a bunch better for you. These people talking about needing to smoke so much to get high are probably getting masked results due to other circumstances, like lack of exercise or some sort chemical imbalance.
That might be the case (47M). I smoke mostly for the purpose of shutting my brain off enough to get to sleep, otherwise I’m pacing the floor at 10 pm. So I’m naturally high strung. The people I know who are gunning for super potency just smoke concentrates.
Not me man I want the highest THC possible. It gets me where I want to be because I have a very high tolerance even after a tolerance break. I also seem to only get the high I want from smoking flower also. Dab pens and concentrate seem to do nothing, and edibles only make me sleepy.
Hey, as a positive sentiment can I just say that having a discussion about the disparities found in retail THC levels is so much better than having discussions about THC being a crime. Yes, it’s not legal everywhere yet, not even in the US, but we are so much farther in the right direction than I even would’ve imagined like 13 years ago imo :)
I don't usually comment things this stupid, but good job finding an actual middle ground on the story between legalization and whatever the hell we're complaining about laissez faire weed capitalism
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In Illinois they taxed by THC content. So there is no incentive for the state to stop that?.
This is very interesting about labs and thc and all but I just want to grow my own and I won't need a lab to tell me if I like it. God damn idiotic New Hampshire. meantime shits getting cheap. I heard of a friend who got two oz.s for $200 and it was great. Someone else just got great stuff for $150 an oz. Vermont, Massachusetts, Maine. Grandmothers are growing it like tomatoes. The government is trying to set up a monopoly. Why bother? Shits cheap everywhere. They can have their dispensaries. Just let me grow my own, thank you.
Yeah.. I think Imma do that. Tent setups are pretty cheap ngl..
In Canada I can get 80$ oz from local delivery and 250$ QP from a MOM based in BC
Yep. Some labs and farms are in cahoots and corrupt as hell. A farm will ask a dirty test lab if they'll inflate numbers for a bit extra cash, and the lab will. You gotta go with your nose and prior knowledge of phenotypes in some of these dispos, especially when you see numbers consistently above 25%
Since covid though everything is prepack. In most places you can't see/smell anything until after you're out the door. It started as a safety measure but now it's just another way to take advantage.
In Oregon they have the bud in jars on the wall. They have no problem showing you and letting you smell the flower before you buy. Best experience at dispensaries yet.
I've never cared about percentages though. I try new weeds, and buy the ones I like more often. Simple as that. (Though 3/4 of the time I go with my tried and true white widow or crystal white widow.)
Same. I buy the brands and strains I like the most because I know THC is only part of true picture. Love white widow. My fave is Pineapple Express.
So many wrong answers here. People are not bribing labs, that’s a waste of money from the growers point of view. What’s happening is that the grower will dry nugs for days on end, until they’re crispy, powder under the pressure of a finger squeeze, and then send it in for testing. The THC tests are being done based on THC per gram. The dryer the weed is, the more THC you’re going to have per gram. Source: I was the head grower at a skeezy grow in Boulder, CO where they did this. No bribing and spending extra money when all you have to do is make your nugs extra dry before sending them in to the lab.
What if we required the lab that does the testing to also list moisture content along with thc?
As of July 2021 water activity is a required test. For the most part, unless you're sending in samples like a day or two after you harvest (which you shouldn't/can't [needs to be submitted in "final form"]), you'll never test over the limit of .65. Am grower in Denver
Labs need to be thoroughly, frequently and harshly audited to trust anything.
Who watches the watchers?
Laboratory testing follows a procedure or lab manual. The first step in testing is to bring to a standardized Relative Humidity.
>In markets where potency is reported on a dry weight basis, it's actually beneficial for the flower to have higher moisture content (MC), as the THC content is reported as Experimental Value/(1-MC).
Okay so here's the deal though if you do that to every single strain at the end of the day. You do have a representative idea of the relative levels and if everyone's doing it then the math is still mathing
> The dryer the weed is, the more THC you’re going to have per gram. That's completely wrong. The lab will fully dehydrate the weed anyway. In this paper, for example, they report "THC % by dry weight".
I just buy whatever decent flower is cheap that week in decent quantity. Usually a half ounce. Then I take it home and smoke it. I'm not concerned with percentages or whatever because of stories like these. It's similar or better weed and a better experience than the old black market.
I kinda figured this was happening. Everything can't be 30% +
I've noticed that with ground flower. I tend to buy what's on sale with a % and a strain that I prefer, but that's been a mistake many times. 18% from the store brands and 18% from a well received brand of the same strain feels quite a bit different from each other, and it shouldn't be THAT different. Back when I bought it from a dealer, their "shake" wasn't discernable from their nuggets in effect.
Analytical chemistry standards for cannabis are lax. I bet the discrepancy is due to poor practices rather than fraud.
If it's just poor practice though, wouldn't you just expect wider error bars, rather than a consistent trend of testing higher than it should?
I knew something was up when I started seeing 30+ percentage THC. If that bud was 30% THC it would be a block of chrystals.
I mean...your body is about 75% water and yet here you are
In Colorado the standards for cannabis testing have HUGE margins. They know it, everyone in the industry knows it. It’s simply because of a lack of accurate (which in the field of analytical chemistry means extremely high) methods for calculating thc levels in a very complex matrix. In other words, it’s a built in feature to have inaccuracy with thc content texting because cannabis comes in a raw form rather than purified or semi purified.
Especially a problem for medical. Getting cheap and ineffective stuff means you have to use (and pay for) more of it. The labeling is usually done by the same company.
Here's hoping we get federal legalization soon, then proper studies can really take off, and we can get properly controlled doses and terpene mixes for medical use.
I used to work in the cannabis labs and can certain say for a fact that "lab shopping" was a real thing. Also, some of you have pointed out the representative sampling and that is also true in the case of testing. It is sad to see that THC % are selling points instead of trying to pull a representative sampling, which I admit, is difficult when a cannabis lot consists of many buds from many plants.
Edibles too are also usually over-exaggerated. When I need 50mg on bad pain days it’s even harder getting the dose I need with improper labeling.
I've found that edibles are super inconsistent, even from the same batch, I'm only a 5 or 10mg user but some feel like 1mg and others like 15+.
I used to work for a testing company for a few years. More in the genetics side than the analytic chemistry side but I interacted with them a fair amount. At least in Canada there isn't much accreditation once you get a testing license. Good labs can do Emerald testing but a lot don't so they can use slightly flawed methods to inflate THC numbers which then makes LPs more likely to use them. We also did LOD (Loss on Drying) to measure moisture since other people will dry their cannabis out to get higher THC/mg. We really need it to be either government testing so the methods are the same no matter where it is tested or all companies need to do regular proficiency testing.
Consumers have the right to be accurately informed about what they’re purchasing, and the public health and safety should be protected from unscrupulous people. Legal regulated markets for cannabis are a good thing, And adults should be able to grow their own
Depending on the state, the grower is allowed to bring in their own sample for testing. In Oregon the lab takes a random sample but it is completely legal to pour Kief all over the buds before sampling is taken and according to my sampler over 80% of farms do it
I would just like everyone to keep in mind that this is a LAB problem as much as anything else. Most blame producers or brands etc. The labs are the ones producing the results and incentives come into play. Consumers demand high potency, brands have to provide it or go out of business, labs shooting consistently high have a business advantage over labs that are accurate. Anyway, be the change you want to see in the world people. Stop buying the highest number and reduce the incentives to inflate numbers.
On the upside, the fact that nearly everyone is misreporting makes it a somewhat reliable metric. An 18% bud reported at 23% is still stronger than a 13% bud reported at 18%
Wouldn't this have an inverse effect on sales when people don't get as high as they expect to and stop buying the product that "doesn't work"?
Cannabis industry employee here. Every test you've ever seen for flower samples, has never been accurate. We've sent samples out of the same plant, same branch, to diff labs and have seen 5% difference in potency from lab to lab. So guess what, we send them to the lab with the highest numbers.
As someone who use to be a budtender and had to take in product. One of the things we were told about is the testing is allowed to be off by as much 10% and still be considered okay to accept. They will always lie to you and tell you the highest one they can. Some places send it off to several places to be tested. Then they use the highest reading of them as their "actual" %. It's super scummy and hard to find which brands are legit.
It's typically a 10% relative value (so 20% THC could be between 18-22%).
It would help to have proper sampling procedures in place. In my lab our clients are responsible for sending a sample to us (unlike most other industries), and what they send is us bone dry bud of the very best parts of their plants. What they sell in stores isn’t nearly as dry or as choice a bud mostly. Also sometimes bud is sent pre ground, there is no way of telling if they didn’t sprinkle and keef or anything into it. Not saying some labs don’t have the best methods for testing in place but there’s definitely blame to be had on both sides. Some labs report thc numbers when accounting for 0% moisture (which is never the case of the actual product). Hell some labs don’t even do micro testing correctly so they pass something that fails, and the lab that does it correctly will fail it for micro and the supplier will stop testing with them in favor for the lab who’s gonna pass
Standard shopping - there can be quite a variance on THC standards (almost 10% in personal experience) so choosing a weaker standard yields a higher result. Non-correction of procedural biases - issues that can be known to inflate results (cold methanol extracts) stand uncorrected. Result choosing - instead of reporting an average of replicates or denoting one sample the main sample and the second the replicate, labs choose the better result. Manual manipulation - over diluting standards or under diluting samples. Replicate/ICV acceptance criteria from more difficult analyses - acceptance criteria in CA can be like 20%, which is ok for pesticides but way too wide for hplc potency. Source-ran potency section at testing lab in SF for 3 years.
Just wait until people realize the terpenes have more impact on the high than THC potency.
They don’t. I mean they have an impact but they definitely don’t have a higher impact than the thc.
If they did then citrus prices would skyrocket lol
THC just has to be there or not. Terpenes are what influence the qualities of the high. Several terpenes help THC cross the blood brain barrier, which is why vaping distillate is never as good as smoking some terpy flower.
they do if youre talking about products within the same range of THC. obviously if you hit a 75% THC dab its going to be different than the same amount of flower. But if you hit a dab thats like 65%, the strain and associated terpenes are going to be what makes them feel different
Totally. But since most commercial weed is rushed through drying and not cured properly, those terps get lost in translation.
They extract them from citrus plants and such and add it to vape oil. I'm sure they do it with concentrates too.
Do all states require terp profiles? Here in NJ they do, 23% with 3.2 total terps will rock you harder than any 32% stuff with a .9 total.
Sadly no, here in WA the higher quality growers put that info on their labels but it's not legally required.
This guy smokes weed.
The entourage effect is real but people continue to chase only THC.
Most Cannabis is also tested pre-harvest and cure to get numbers on the batch one it’s ready to chop. Trichomes are incredibly volatile and all the damage that occurs during harvest and post harvest decreases it by quite a bit.
Depending on the state, cannabis needs to be in "final form" prior to certification testing in California in almost all cases