Herb with mold and vaporizing!

[Nycdeisel]

A dreaded subject, that I thought this section would be the perfect host for. I know that nowadays the medical scene is becoming more sophisticated but many of us still continue to medicate without any kind of regulated system.

If you are not aware, mold on cannabis CAN be very dangerous to people who are ill or have a compromised immune system, etc.

I am not even completely sure how to tell if my herb has mold, because its freakin microscopic! (I will soon order a high powered USB microscope so i am not hunched over a tiny pocket microscope straining my eyes, hopefully this will give a better picture!)

Finally, my questions:
Is it more dangerous to vaporize moldy herb then to smoke it?
I dont smoke anymore, but I have heard rumors that the fire and combustion can help to kill mold, but I have zero evidence of this and can not find concrete info on this other places online. It would be interesting to know if we are possibly putting ourselves in danger by choosing a seemingly healthier alternative of vaporizing.

How can you really tell? its microscopic and all, but how can I tell once I have it under a good close up scope? What does it look like on the buds? I have had a lot of trouble searching for pictures of this.

OH! and what about eating it? in fresh or ABV? I know this is a sensitive area but I thought may as well, it applies to the mold topic.

Please help, FC community, I am counting on you. I have become increasingly obsessed with this topic! I would like this thread to be able to become a guide of sorts on how to determine mold on your medicinal herbs, after all, how can us patients reap the benefits if its countered by dangerous fungi?


Discuss!

 

[djonkoman]

I once read that aflatoxins(toxins produced by a certain variety of mold) can be spotted under a blacklicht

 

[Abysmal Vapor]

I wont eat mold , so i wont vape it either..
I can imagine it as a potential dead trap if directly inhaled..
I think also that low level of mold can be cure via water.

 

[Nycdeisel]

really? how long of a water cure and any particular threads on it here?

I heard about blacklight for some kinds but that seems iffy..

 

[J.R.R.Tokin']

A friend gave me a big stem the other day off a plant that got neglected in the final week of flower and got mould. I picked off the buds at the top and bottom of the stem avoiding the clearly visible mouldy area. I thought I would vape a bowl to see how it was. One pull and I had to dump it, it had a clearly nasty taste that no bud should give. That night I had a friend that combusts over, he rolled and smoked the bud and enjoyed it, so I gave him the rest.
I know this isn't anything conclusive, but IMO combusting hides the foul taste of mould whereas vaping heightens the taste, so the nasty mould becomes even nastier.
Nycdeisel, you asked if it's safer to smoke or vape mouldy bud, my answer is 'IMO Don't smoke or vape it!'.
Mould is bad. It can have seriously bad effects on your respiratory system if inhaled and can make you sick.
I know it's a hard thing to throw bud away and times are tough, but you only get one body so treat it well.

 

[StickyShisha2]

what about making BHO from it?

 

[J.R.R.Tokin']

To be honest I don't know if the alcohol would kill off the mould spores. I personally wouldn't bother trying unless I was desperate. Starting with an inferior product to begin with will lead to an inferior end product.

 

[t-dub]

I wouldn't recommend inhaling any fungus of any kind. My next door neighbor works with wood. He had a nice piece of spalted maple that he kept on sniffing. Turned out he got fungal meningitis from it and almost died. Now I understand this is extremely rare, but . . . stuff happens.

t-dub

 

[gb902]

I would not encourage anyone to vape some molded weed, but some months ago I started a topic for this reason and I have experimented it on myself.
I had about 5g of fresh moist weed and put it into an airtight jar. I opened the jar 2 times a day just for refreshing the air inside, but it was not enough.
In fact, the 3rd day I've found many white mold spots on it, so I asked here on the forum if it would be possible to remove the mold in any way and vape it safely.
Many users had discouraged me to do this, but I couldn't accept to toss it away so I tried the watercure.
First I removed with care all the white spots and then saved only the few parts that were not in contact with the mold. Then I did the watercure, and it worked prefectly
I vaped that herb so many times in the last months (and still vaping it), and never felt bad.
However I've had many researches on it before putting my health at risk, and I have discovered that the white mold (known as cobweb mold), is very common on foods and should not represent a big risk until your immune system is bad.
However I've removed the mold a few hours after it appeared, and watercured it immediately so I think I avoided every risk to inhale any spores.
I've been lucky, but I don't know if I would risk twice, so I think that I would rather to spend more money and be safe if it would happen again.

 

[Mathair Naduir]

I worry about this constantly. It obviously lead me to only vape through water and only through water. Although I feel like vaping through water is a bit less satisfying I still do it for simply cleanliness. I do miss the flavor as well...

 

[hogleg]

If your vaping you will know if there is mold present it has a very different flavor and I have also tried the water cure method but unless you dry completely and immediately the mold will be back and almost for certain there is mold spores or some kind of remnants still left inside

 

[AGBeer]

Dudes (and dudeettes) It hit me the other day, but seriously - Id be willing to bet that a good portion of us have been smoking/vaping moldy weed but really never gave it much thought.

Two words for you (and Ill even hyphenate them) : Mexi-Brick

You know, the stuff that "Drives the Cartels Profit Margins"
The shit that us 'non-med' folk sometimes have to choose
The shit that is harvested in bulk, dried in bulk, pressed into bales and stuffed into a storage container for an unspecified period of time.

Yeah, Im sure we ALL have had our share of mold on our haydays of cannasumption. Does it make me give a shit less about the quality of my cannabis nowdays? Of course not.

But its one of those things that in retrospect wasn't a HUGE deal - now that we have technology and learnedid ourselves to the ways of the vape, it becomes more of a priority.

 

[t-dub]

The fact that I now have to take drugs to suppress my immune system helps to focus my mind on this topic, although I must admit I don't really "worry" about it much. I wonder when the cartels are gonna start extracting all that brick weed into oil. Would make transporting large quantities of medicine easier I would think.

t-dub

 

[darkrom]

Mold = throw it out

 

[Ethnobotanist]

Just out of curiousity, how long do you think it would take after vaporizing moldy herb until you get sick (assuming your immune system didn't take care of it)? The acedotal info I've seen online seems to point towards people being quite ill within a little over a week after smoking moldy herb. I've been looking up incubation period, fungal infections etc online but am still confused. e.g. If it's been a couple of weeks since the mouldy herb was vaped but there's no symptoms, should it be fine? Or one month, longer? Thanks

As others have said, if there's mold it's better to just throw it out rather than risk getting ill and just learn from the mistake.

 

[OhTheAgony]

Even though some may think we are ahead over here we are in fact way behind on the Americans with their dispensaries at the moment. Because of our vague laws and ever changing rules it is financially impossible for cofeeshops to have their weed tested. Officially they are only allowed to hold a small stock of every strain which means they would have to get it tested per every few 100 grams or so which makes it basically undoable. Growing is completely illegal thus it is impossible to make it obligatory to have everything tested right at the source. We probably won't have tested and labeled weed over here until the growing is completely regulated by the government, which I'm sure is where we're heading eventually.

I did recently saw a test on a dutch tv program though (spuiten en slikken for the dutchies): They bought 5 bags of White Widow at different coffeeshops to test them for THC, CBD, mold an bacterias. It turned out that even though they were from the same strain the THC level varied from 12,5 to 17,5%, non of them had any measurable CBD left in them (according to the chemist that was doing the tests this is common over here now high THC levels are the main focus of most growers), and all of them were invested with different kind of bacterias and molds. Nice to know that that represents what I've been smoking for 2 decades, I'm never vaping without water filtration again now for sure. Most of contaminations came from the soil and nutritions btw, something to keep in mind if you're a grower yourself.

 

[Nycdeisel]

Interesting post, Agony. thank you

Best of luck, ethnobotanist, sorry i can not answer your questions. Its very hard to find info on this which is why i just had to start a thread for it here.

 

[Ethnobotanist]

No worries Nycdeisel, thanks for answering anyway. I'm just interested in getting this info into the public domain since I've looked on and off online and have yet to see a definitive answer on the topic of the incubation period between smoking/vaping mouldy bud and time to develop an actual illness. I saw a thread over on GC where someone had asked the same thing sometime back but all someone said was that it depends on the type of mould.

 

[Nycdeisel]

Yup i have found some info but it wasnt easy and i only get so much info and not a lot is really helpful.

I figure if the good people of FC dont have any ideas im really not sure where else to look now...

 

[Ethnobotanist]

That's cool, thanks again for starting this topic. In terms of one of your questions with regards to how to indentify something microscopic, I've seen some info about looking out for an ammonia-like odour. Or, if you leave it long enough you get the more obvious white/grey growths which people have mentioned.

Anyway, from my various searches over time, it seems like most people (who are posting their personal experiences anyway) are ill within a couple of weeks of smoking moldy weed so I'll just have to assume that for now.