OK maybe THC CAN kill?!?!

[Tabac man]

Thing is studies done in the past probably mean nothing today. There's a difference between a plant growing in a ditch in India or Afghanistan versus a plant manipulated by some Hong Kong wide boy in a London garage. Messing with THC levels, enhanced growing techniques, cross breeding etc and we have something very different from days gone by. Studies just can't be done on all of them.

As for trusting the legal legit stuff in the States yeah that sounds fine. They must be way more trustworthy than our farmers who fed their cattle bone meal made from...cattle. Yeah they turned their precious herbivores into cannibals, which led to the Mad Cow disease. And we ate it being the trusting sorts which lead to variant CJD. Well I didn't. I was eating German beef fed on...grass. Old skool eh?

I might be wrong but it seems to me the days of cannabis being a well known and understood 'thing' for the consumer, are over.

 

[Sloth Tonight]

I might be wrong but it seems to me the days of cannabis being a well known and understood 'thing' for the consumer, are over.

While I understand the point you're making, I don't fully agree with that last statement. But I do understand and think it's an interesting point. At any rate, we'll certainly learn more than we've ever known in the coming years as more research is able to be done in the States and Canada.

Had an interesting conversation with a "budtender" last time I was in a dispensary. She suggested steering clear of the super-potent strains with high THC. Her point was basically that as they've been bred for such high levels of THC, they're unbalanced with regard to other cannabinoids. In her opinion, this results in an overbearing effect that's not as pleasant as a more balanced strain would provide. I found that interesting.

@Vapntime I'll look into your links, thanks for posting. Also, let me be the first to admit I may have slipped when I said "psychological" vs "psychiatric" - my bad.

 

[Tabac man]

That's my point in part. Unbalanced so no way of knowing long term effects.

To my mind cannabis has gone a bit like synthetic drugs. No way to know when buying exactly what or how much of any ingredient is in it, or the effects when using it. Not without using it first.

This has lead to claims about Cannabis and mental illness in the UK. It's a complex subject and nothing causal has been found despite claims to the contrary. Links though. Links. And it's pretty obvious to me that will depend on exactly what is being smoked.

One thing that has been apparent to me for years observing the youth who stink of green. They just don't look happy. That says something to me. They ain't having fun when stoned.

 

[Vapntime]

I said this in another thread. I will just add adult...

It was once said that the only side effect from cannabis was the high...

An interesting statement, we know a bit more now but I still think this can be effectively true for those of good health (mental/physical) moderate use and medical users.

Remember we are only looking at one end of the spectrum here regarding cannabis and mental illness etc. There are millions and millions of users with no issues throughout the times. Cannabis still looks a hell of alot better than pretty much every other drug out there.

 

[Sloth Tonight]

That's my point in part. Unbalanced so no way of knowing long term effects.

To my mind Cannabis has gone a bit like synthetic drugs. No way to know when buying exactly what or how much of any ingredient is in it, or the effects when using it. Not without using it first.

This has lead to claims about Cannabis and mental illness in the UK. It's a complex subject and nothing causal has been found despite claims to the contrary. Links though. Links. And it's pretty obvious to me that will depend on exactly what is being smoked.

One thing that has been apparent to me for years observing the youth who stink of green. They just don't look happy. That says something to me. They ain't having fun when stoned.

I just realized you're specifically referring to black market product, which makes a lot more sense in my mind and I'm in agreement with you on that. In dispensaries, there are lab reports on each strain. On the street, who knows what's going on. I've been selecting strains with somewhere between 13-20% THC for a more balanced effect and have to agree with the budtender I spoke with. I enjoy those strains more than the 20%+ strains I've tried. Then again, my objective is never to get 'stoned' - only on rare occasion do I enjoy that. So high THC isn't really something I need. I'm more like the person who has a glass of wine with dinner then calls it a night.

 

[Sloth Tonight]

I said this in another thread. I will just add adult...


Remember we are only looking at one end of the spectrum here regarding cannabis and mental illness etc. There are millions and millions of users with no issues throughout the times. Cannabis still looks a hell of alot better than pretty much every other drug out there.

Fully agreed. That said, I for one am always interested in learning everything there is to learn. Please continue to share any information/links you come across. I've been a proponent of legalization since well before I even tried cannabis 13 years ago, but I've always shied away from the argument that it's "harmless" as some advocates suggest. IMO, any drug has potential downsides and I want to learn all about them.

 

[Kprthevapr]

Here's what I think.....
Make everything legal, no warning labels. Let Darwin sort it out

 

[Tabac man]

I just realized you're specifically referring to black market product, which makes a lot more sense in my mind and I'm in agreement with you on that. In dispensaries, there are lab reports on each strain. On the street, who knows what's going on. I've been selecting strains with somewhere between 13-20% THC for a more balanced effect and have to agree with the budtender I spoke with. I enjoy those strains more than the 20%+ strains I've tried. Then again, my objective is never to get 'stoned' - only on rare occasion do I enjoy that. So high THC isn't really something I need. I'm more like the person who has a glass of wine with dinner then calls it a night.

I wasn't specifically referring to 'black market' product. Lab reports, assuming they are trustworthy, show how plants are being manipulated. They don't and can't show long term effects, if any.

I would trust the Middle East farmers of yesteryear over today's Western Alchemists.

 

[Sloth Tonight]

I wasn't specifically referring to 'black market' product. Lab reports, assuming they are trustworthy, show how plants are being manipulated. They don't and can't show long term effects, if any.

I would trust the Middle East farmers of yesteryear over today's Western Alchemists.

Interesting. Care to elaborate on what exactly you're skeptical of (if that's the right word)? Just the fact that it's gotten more potent? Or that cannabinoid profiles have been altered? Cross-breeding has been going on for a very long time, so I'm just trying to understand what you're trying to say. Is this something you're concerned about (not for yourself but for, say, public health)? I'm interested in your perspective, just looking for clarity.

 

[stratus.vaping]

If in doubt grow your own! I used to, a lot. Total control. Can even make hash if you grow enough, it's easy to grow outdoors.

I agree 100% about street weed these days. It's unbalanced and is not full spectrum anymore. Not nice imho.

@Sloth Tonight Today's strains have been developed to produce max THCA but minimum CBDA and the rest. That's what the young street customers in the UK want I am told. Go and look at the seed sellers websites in the Netherlands etc and you will see what I mean.

Manipulation of the light frequency and duration available to grows ( indoor LEDs) will also increase the THCA content and minimise other cannabinoids and terpenes. There are other techniques too including the use of plant hormone additives. It's all big business and science now = max appeal and profit. Alchemy indeed.

Interesting read about the light thing -

An Update on Plant Photobiology and Implications for Cannabis Production

I much prefer hash, someone else here did too, can't remember who.

Another memory- when I was student, way way back, I took a Christmas holiday job as a temporary postman, zillions of greetings cards etc. On my round was the home of a locally well known Doctor of Asian origin. I had a package to deliver to him from Pakistan, it stank of black hash ( one of the best if you go back that far) how it got through the system I do not know, there was no marker card in the sorting office slot saying the cops were following it (that's how it used to work, likely still does). I rang the door, handed it to him and suggested he should be more careful, was invited in for tea and a pipeful or 6. Great guy, not young either.

I had to put the rest of my deliveries back into a post box ( a serious crime, delaying Her Majesty's mail as it is called!) and go and lie down in the park and dream for the rest of the day.

'scuse my rambling.

 

[Tabac man]

Interesting. Care to elaborate on what exactly you're skeptical of (if that's the right word)? Just the fact that it's gotten more potent? Or that cannabinoid profiles have been altered? Cross-breeding has been going on for a very long time, so I'm just trying to understand what you're trying to say. Is this something you're concerned about (not for yourself but for, say, public health)? I'm interested in your perspective, just looking for clarity.

I haven't touched the stuff for nearly 20 years. I stated my opinion that studies done in the past are probably irrelevant to much of today's product because today's product is different. We don't know if Cannabis is safe because we don't know the long term effects of any different new product. Claiming cannabis is safe today is like claiming vaping is safe. We don't yet know. That was my point.

I have concerns yes. I see the youth of today walking around like zombies. They wouldn't know good from bad and that concerns me. Back in the day we didn't concern ourselves with THC or CBD numbers. We smoked it and if it was good it was good. If it was .... the dealer got his head kicked in. Nowadays people seem to be smoking .... and going back for more. I can only conclude they don't know it is ..... That is worrying to me.

I believe synthetic drugs brought about a change in mindset. An example is ecstasy. Ya pop a pill without knowing what's in it. Can't get more just pop someone else's pill. Who care's what's in it.That reckless attitude, previously seen in the few, is now prevalent and it won't go away anytime soon. Synthetic drugs are here to stay and they are predictably unpredictable.

 

[Tabac man]

And I stopped smoking cannabis because the market was saturated with krap.

 

[puffon]

The old days were much simpler.
Home grown
4 finger bag of Mexican
Colombian Gold
Panama Red
Black hash, Blonde Hash
and for a rare treat, Thai Stick

 

[evan le'garde]

Worth considering that THC evaporates. Those potent strains don't stay potent for long really. The more potent it is the longer the shelf life.

 

[evan le'garde]

That don't happen with resin though. Except good resin is hard to find. Well it is around here !.

 

[Sloth Tonight]

I've had bud for up to a year and didn't notice any degradation of potency, but I know you're right. I'm not sure how quickly it degrades though. A lot probably has to do with storage methods. I use mason jars, packed as full as possible to minimize air exposure, and keep them on my closet shelf out of the light. Works well for me but I wouldn't want to keep them around for much longer than a year.

 

[Egzoset]

Salutations Stratus.Vaping,

> OK maybe THC CAN kill?!?!

IMO such formulation excludes crucial factors as the consumption method + its associated ritual, on top of industrial-grade processing combined to genetically promoting extreme cannabinoïd profiles at the expense of sprectrum (e.g. Full-CBD, 1:1 and THC-centric essentially). It seems to me the title itself was inspired by THC "strength" % arguments, recently debunked by activist Dana Larsen who wrote about "The marijuana potency myth" earlier this month, concluding that "science" now claims it to be 12600 times as potent as that of the '60s - which provides a touch of retrospective & humour i could certainly appreciate.

...ventilation... ... ...organic...

Relatively to home growing, until my province's law was declared unconstitutional, the way i thought of "Légaleezation" had to do with tightly-secured (terrorist-proof) indoor (bunker) cultivation which actually rejected decades or skilled artisan expertise, after performing some bogus nation-wide "consultation" culminating with this simple admission:

​

Which should be a reminder that my province's single 1 LP in 2016 even promised "kosher" while it was more reminescent of german Zyklon (...):

[ https:// www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/class-action-lawsuit-medical-cannabis-organigram-1.4986632 ]
CBC: Class-action lawsuit against OrganiGram gets green light (2019-Jan-21)​

It turns out Hexo/Hydropothecary worked hard to publish the non-detection level or myclobutanil, A Mari usque ad Mare:

[ http:// www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/canadians-not-told-about-banned-pesticide-found-in-medical-marijuana-supply/article33443887/ ]
G&M: Canadians not told about banned pesticide found in medical pot supply (2016-Dec-29)

[ https:// www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/banned-pesticide-found-at-medical-marijuana-company/article34882109/ ]
G&M: Banned pesticide found at medical marijuana company (2017-May-3)

Mr. Morris said Hydropothecary had been proactively screening its products for pesticides down to a level of 0.05 ppm...

Which apparently prompted "medical" clients to seek some more answers, eventually:

[ https:// www.theglobeandmail.com/cannabis/article-mysterious-symptoms-and-medical-marijuana-patients-are-looking-for/ ]
G&M - Mysterious symptoms and medical marijuana: patients are looking for answers (2017-Aug-19)​

...

Looking back at the whole sequence of significant events (revolving around Hilary Geller, Joy Davies, Bill Blair, Christian Gilbert, UNGASS 2016, Kevin Sabet/Nora Volkow and more...) i'm forced to believe our PM when he stated at the Toronto Star (on December 3, 2016) that this ain't meant to please recreative users. Overall his plan is brain-dead simple IMO: to VILIFY cannabis in a way to induce fear+suspicion in the consumers themselves, especially legally-vulnerable minors. Or more basically, to reverse the traditional safety reputation of cannabis...



Which is how 4 occurences of dead floating fish in river La Lièvre (so far...) compounded with a prospect of chronic self-poisoning by some "Schedule-3" item of the int'l Chemical Weapons Convention both belong to what i call "mari-caca" indeed.

Now please remember the pesticide list exploded, going from 13 to 96+ and counting (Washington WSDA/WSLCB i502 once had 200+)... This means many more poisons may have got their non-detection levels broadcasted, inviting all producers to explore non-detection soups, "legal" or otherwise.



The good news is that those having access to "cutting edge equipment like a gas chromatograph with a triple-quadrupole mass spectrometer" could probably manage to catch nearly half of the pesticides present on Health Canada's approved list. The bad news is that H.-C. is satisfied to publish a "recall" over contaminated mari-caca, though returns must be in original/unopened condition and take place in a matter of days.

Meanwhile there's still no true science adequately covering chronic pesticide soups inhalation...

Good day, have fun!!

 

[Sloth Tonight]

@Egzoset are you in Quebec by chance? I go to Montreal 1-2 times per year.

 

[evan le'garde]

I've had bud for up to a year and didn't notice any degradation of potency, but I know you're right. I'm not sure how quickly it degrades though. A lot probably has to do with storage methods. I use mason jars, packed as full as possible to minimize air exposure, and keep them on my closet shelf out of the light. Works well for me but I wouldn't want to keep them around for much longer than a year.

We used to store it in a freezer. Vacuum packed and freshly imported it goes in the freezer. Though wouldn't stay there for long. But i think tiny amounts, like personal stash and such, would probably be best in the freezer over night.

PS: Freezing it, wrapped airtight, stops the THC from evaporating. But should only be for short periods like over night.

 

[stratus.vaping]

Hi @Egzoset 8) Very interesting post.

Seeing that pesticides, micro-plastics and the full gamut of man made chemical material are present in the fish we eat from the sea and are found at the top of Everest it's not a surprise that even organic MJ has trace. My ear wax does too.

THCA and the rest are volatile, high temp causes the THCA to become THC ( that's good), over time the same is meant to happen at room temp, and the THC, other canabinoids and terpenes should, science tells us, disappear eventually ( that's bad).

But as stated above careful storage can reduce that loss to virtually zero ( shades of the Nic storage debate!). Anecdotally- I have an airtight jar, stored in the dark at room temp. I grew the contents, it's gone very brown now as the chlorophyl has degraded to whatever it degrades to. It's as potent as I remember it when it was first cured, for use it has to be humidified a little and the taste is a little harsher than it was though.

It's 35 years old and I bring it out at Christmas.

How's that?

ymmv ofc