Hate to say it but I'm starting to feel the same way. One dispensary here in The Bay Area is selling concentrate for $100 a gram. Fucking Al Qaeda prices, and most of what costs a little less smells and tastes and burns like gasoline. Bubbles like water on Venus. No hit for the first part of the evaporation and then ... uh, was that a hit? Is this stuff any good? It must be, it's a "concentrate."
Fuck that. No doubt about it with a good bud, it smells and tastes good and gets me good and high.
Look, where I live, pot is big business, millions to be had if you run a McDonald's dispensary, verging on billions when Big Tobacco and Big Booze finally get involved and maybe make it suck but maybe make it safer and legal with some legitimate standards, but right now, all I see on the local news is punk ass bitch after punk ass bitch blowing himself up with lighter-fluid/coffee-maker hash oil contraptions and it is just too bad they sometimes burn others up with them. There are a million products on the market, waxes, oils, whips, full melts, super melts, bacon-cheddar melts, ices, smoothies -- stop the insanity -- it isn't meant to be some kind of candy bathtub crap like crack. The black market, remember that on a Federal level the stuff is still illegal here, so there really is no quality control and everyone is out to make a buck and I swear, everyone is full of shit or retarded.
Having said that, I may always rely on a little clean C02 oil in a vape pen for an on-the-go discrete buzz when needed. But here in Oakland, I can smoke anywhere, so what need have I of stealth anyway?
EDIT: Also feel I must point out: I believe at least a few dispensaries are taking their old inventory and "recycling" it as various concentrates like bubble hashes, oils and waxes.
Yeah, I shop for pot a lot, I visit Sticky Guide and Weed Maps several times a week and check half a dozen or a dozen or more dispensaries and delivery services for selection and prices (hint: they all suck, some suck less than others - grow your own if you possibly can). I see what they do with batches that "disappear" for a week or two and miraculously appear as "oil" or "wax" or "Gunter's Grungy Gunk" or whatever flavor of the week appears on the big screen TVs in these monstrosities of commercialism. Anyway, back to Business 101: If crap ain't selling, repackage it and sell it as other crap.
Now, pot loses potency with time and exposure to light and air and handling ... so they take this crappy old not-so-potent pot and what? Magically transform it into new oil? Degraded THC and CBD are just that.
And these THC levels and CBD levels I don't believe any of these tests anymore, I think 90% of them are just made up bullshit or have no bearing on how high you get or how you feel medicinally. And so, some dispensaries do not seem to test their batches, but just list the THC and CBD levels from the seed retailer's data - the same friggin numbers? How is that possible unless growing conditions and even trim styles are EXACTLY the same? It's all bullshit.
THC and CBD testing, even when done right and scientifically correct, means little when strains get over 15% THC, and have a good hunk of CBD in there, and from then on it is all about terpine profiles and taste and synergy of psychoactive chemicals and subjectivity. Each batch must be tested due to varying growing conditions, friggin Science 101, unheard of to these greedy bastards. I swear, I just wish I knew a righteous small-time individual, I would trade all of these dispensaries for one good joe I could score some decent oz's from (just ranting, not soliciting) once in a while. Yeah, the selection here is great, but that also means there are a million ways to get ripped off, and I have purchased my share of bogus buds.
) Everything I made so far has been just okay except one batch which was spectacular! (but tiny) This was after after washing about four grams of fresh bud in ISO91 and doing a slow heat cure at about 140F (in and out of the oven for alternating 30 minute periods) The heat cure was performed after I blew a fan over the ISO until it was totally visually evapped btw...
BC
