tstick
Well-Known Member
-just a bit of a stoned-rant....
Being the old guy that I am, I grew up in an era with the kinds of marijuana that are now legendary....so I'm kind of suspicious when it comes to modern-day weed "experts". There was a period of time when other recreational drugs took a front seat for me and I lost touch with the marijuana scene for awhile. When I came back to it, I went through the MMJ system and started buying dispensary weed. I was expecting it to blow me away. It didn't.
Nowadays, in WA state, everything is prepackaged and there is no way -other than to visually check the look of the buds. You can't smell anything or check the texture for stickiness, etc. You just have to accept what you can see and nitpick your way through all the names and companies until you settle on something. It might take awhile because, in my experience, a LOT of the marijuana for sale these days is nothing but show-bud. In other words, it looks like it should be great....but isn't, in reality.
Much of the bud purports to be tested....but, how do we, as consumers, really know those tests are accurate? After all, there isn't a standardized testing procedure. Different testing labs use different machines and get different results. The numbers seem to be crawling up every year -indicating that the weed is getting more and more potent all the time. But, what''s to prevent a grower from fudging the results by, say, taking a sample, rolling it in kief, and then sending that in for testing? Meanwhile, the un-kiefed buds that the consumer purchases are nowhere near the posted test results. Is it fair for the grower to be the one to select the test buds? Or, should that be done by an independent tester -kind of like what the health department does when they send someone out to check food prep? A tester could visit a grow op, take a random sample of outgoing buds and test those instead of relying on the grower to do the selection. No grower is going to send a larf bud in for testing....but they sure as Hell will package them and sell them!
On the other hand, marijuana is SO cheap now...less than $5 per gram in some cases! At that price, I guess it doesn't really matter if the test results are lies or not!
I wish they'd just allow anyone to grow a few plants, legally, without having register as a marijuana patient. That would save a lot of people a lot of trouble. And maybe, eventually, the real quality marijuana would make a comeback if people who could grow it weren't strapped to the strains that grow fast and are pest resistant and produce the types of yields important for doing big business. Eventually, I think we'll get there. But, in the meantime, it's "caveat emptor" (buyer beware!).
At the very least, an independent "directory" could be made whereby consumers register the strains they believe are really legit and post the names of the companies that are doing things right, as well.
Your thoughts?
Being the old guy that I am, I grew up in an era with the kinds of marijuana that are now legendary....so I'm kind of suspicious when it comes to modern-day weed "experts". There was a period of time when other recreational drugs took a front seat for me and I lost touch with the marijuana scene for awhile. When I came back to it, I went through the MMJ system and started buying dispensary weed. I was expecting it to blow me away. It didn't.
Nowadays, in WA state, everything is prepackaged and there is no way -other than to visually check the look of the buds. You can't smell anything or check the texture for stickiness, etc. You just have to accept what you can see and nitpick your way through all the names and companies until you settle on something. It might take awhile because, in my experience, a LOT of the marijuana for sale these days is nothing but show-bud. In other words, it looks like it should be great....but isn't, in reality.
Much of the bud purports to be tested....but, how do we, as consumers, really know those tests are accurate? After all, there isn't a standardized testing procedure. Different testing labs use different machines and get different results. The numbers seem to be crawling up every year -indicating that the weed is getting more and more potent all the time. But, what''s to prevent a grower from fudging the results by, say, taking a sample, rolling it in kief, and then sending that in for testing? Meanwhile, the un-kiefed buds that the consumer purchases are nowhere near the posted test results. Is it fair for the grower to be the one to select the test buds? Or, should that be done by an independent tester -kind of like what the health department does when they send someone out to check food prep? A tester could visit a grow op, take a random sample of outgoing buds and test those instead of relying on the grower to do the selection. No grower is going to send a larf bud in for testing....but they sure as Hell will package them and sell them!
On the other hand, marijuana is SO cheap now...less than $5 per gram in some cases! At that price, I guess it doesn't really matter if the test results are lies or not!
I wish they'd just allow anyone to grow a few plants, legally, without having register as a marijuana patient. That would save a lot of people a lot of trouble. And maybe, eventually, the real quality marijuana would make a comeback if people who could grow it weren't strapped to the strains that grow fast and are pest resistant and produce the types of yields important for doing big business. Eventually, I think we'll get there. But, in the meantime, it's "caveat emptor" (buyer beware!).
At the very least, an independent "directory" could be made whereby consumers register the strains they believe are really legit and post the names of the companies that are doing things right, as well.
Your thoughts?
