When Uncle Ike’s Pot Shop opened in Seattle, owner Ian Eisenberg said he couldn’t compete with medical dispensaries’ lower prices, but he did have one advantage.
“Ours is tested and you know what you’re getting,” Eisenberg said.
He’s right on the first point. State rules require a small sample tested from every lot of marijuana up to five pounds.
But do consumers know what they’re getting? That’s murkier. As the state market develops, so does its testing program.
The program is having success screening substances like yeast, mold and bacteria. About 10 percent of marijuana buds fail tests and can’t be sold in recreational pot stores, according to Liquor Control Board data.
Potency testing, meanwhile, shows Washington’s recreational pot is all over the map. It averages about 16 percent THC, but ranges widely. About 2.5 percent of marijuana tests above 28 percent THC. Some samples climb into the 30s and 40s.
For perspective, High Times reports the “heaviest-hitting strains” at conventions it hosted in 2013 maxed out at 28 percent. In Colorado, scientists at CannLabs said they require a retest for results higher than 27 percent THC.
Does that mean Washington is growing some of the world’s strongest weed?
Dear god, back in the late 70's early 80's when I used to smoke it it was 4% -6% THC if you were lucky!
Re: Not weedy weed
Posted: Mon Jan 12, 2015 1:57 pm
by oldr_n_wsr
Dear god, back in the late 70's early 80's when I used to smoke it it was 4% -6% THC if you were lucky!
This ain't your daddy's pot.
Re: Not weedy weed
Posted: Mon Jan 12, 2015 7:42 pm
by Big RR
I'm not sure it makes that much of a difference to the high; as I recall pot isn't like alcohol, when you've had enough (which depends on how often you smoked), you got high and more didn't really change that high much. So if pot is 6 times more potent it would mean you'd need 1/6 of the amount to get high.
Re: Not weedy weed
Posted: Mon Jan 12, 2015 8:44 pm
by MajGenl.Meade
Who cared about % of THC? We used to smoke hash, tea-leaves, bananas, grass (real grass), coffee once (I think) and were far too out of it to worry about numbers - it either got you there or it didn't.
Re: Not weedy weed
Posted: Mon Jan 12, 2015 9:31 pm
by Big RR
I'll throw this question out to those who were bigger heads than me--will ingesting and excess amount of pot beyond that needed to achieve the high have any effect, positive or negative. My recollection is no, but then I'm no Tommy Chong.
Re: Not weedy weed
Posted: Mon Jan 12, 2015 10:39 pm
by wesw
not really. if its the really strong type it chokes you anyway. you don t want too much. if you smoke too much you get sleepy.
I guess if you were inexperienced, you could get paranoid and freak out a bit, like always. if you ate huge amounts of the edible stuff I would think that that would be unpleasant. I wish the edible stuff was available here tho. I hear that it acts more like a body pain reliever that way, and not as euphoric.
I would really like it to be grown as a farm crop. the fibres and oils are useful, and then it would be plentiful enough to be able to make my own brownies
Re: Not weedy weed
Posted: Mon Jan 12, 2015 11:23 pm
by MajGenl.Meade
I don't know. The Lakewood EMTs and the police carted me away once after I'd had rather too many interesting brownies. I was paralyzed - couldn't move a muscle except to blink. Couldn't speak. They had to stretcher me down the stairs to the ambulance and awf to orspital, innit? The cure was time. Laid out in a room on a table and some hours later, up you get and off you go.
Re: Not weedy weed
Posted: Tue Jan 13, 2015 2:30 pm
by Big RR
that sugar and chocolate overdose will kill you. It would have been even worse if some of those ingredients were not cut with the "interesting" one.
Re: Not weedy weed
Posted: Tue Jan 13, 2015 3:03 pm
by TPFKA@W
Yes it's Toby Keith, but it's still funny. Willie should write a weed advice column.
Re: Not weedy weed
Posted: Tue Jan 13, 2015 8:48 pm
by oldr_n_wsr
after I'd had rather too many interesting brownies. I was paralyzed - couldn't move a muscle except to blink. Couldn't speak.
Sure they weren't laced with something else? An opiod perhaps?
I smoked and ate a whole lot of pot back in the day and never had that happen to me or anyone else I know.
Re: Not weedy weed
Posted: Tue Jan 13, 2015 11:00 pm
by MajGenl.Meade
Yeah that's possible. I did some opium/hash in London some years before with similar results. Burned a nice hole in my chest from a lit cigarette too - those were the days when hospitals let you lay on their gurneys and smoke with no supervision.
Re: Not weedy weed
Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2015 9:10 pm
by oldr_n_wsr
Opium and it's offspring are nasty stuff. Heroin is the new (current) drug of choice now. Cheaper than any other drug out there and the purity is way up. Kids move from the pills to heroin as it's cheaper and more readily available. See a lot of them in my meetings and in my outpatient groups.
Re: Not weedy weed
Posted: Fri Jan 16, 2015 2:03 pm
by rubato
There are rapidly diminishing returns with higher-potency pot.
yrs,
rubato
Re: Not weedy weed
Posted: Fri Jan 16, 2015 2:05 pm
by rubato
oldr_n_wsr wrote:
after I'd had rather too many interesting brownies. I was paralyzed - couldn't move a muscle except to blink. Couldn't speak.
Sure they weren't laced with something else? An opiod perhaps?
I smoked and ate a whole lot of pot back in the day and never had that happen to me or anyone else I know.
There are a mixture of cannabinoids in different pot strains with quite different cognitive effects. Some are much more soporific.