herbivore21
Well-Known Member
Thanks for clearing up that it is BHO my friend! I understand that the term is often used to describe BHO but strictly speaking, you can make live resin using most techniques out there (QWISO, QWET, BHO, Bubble etc).It's live resin so it's BHO. Moxie is good but expensive.
Would be fantastic to see a review of Bubbleman's material Chase! Good news!
Danksta and anyone consuming terps - please be aware that dabbing straight cannabis terpenes can easily result in an inhalation of hydrocarbons beyond safe limits as observed in the literature for exposure by inhalation. Some terpene profiles in high concentrations will do you damage. Some in low concentrations can do you damage too.
After you finish reading the rest of my post, if you don't TLDR it, you will understand that there is a hell of a lot of work to be done by researchers to dig up data on safe levels of exposure to terpenes found in cannabis and mixtures of various such compounds or similar in concentrates, as well as whole terpene profile fractions (such as the Blue River terpenes) - these compounds may of course act differently together than apart. Also, some terpenes thermally oxidize into entire other terpenes. I know of processes that can convert simple monoterpenes into rich herby sequiterpenes with heat alone in this way! It is important to determine the extent to which this takes place in vaporization via the various ways that people use terps.
I'll give the example of alpha pinene here. This is a compound that is found in many varieties of cannabis and is responsible for the signature pine flavor of those varieties. Alpha pinene is also the major constituent found in turpentine (yes, the majority of a given turpentine is made up of alpha pinene - I have seen scholarly literature citing turpentines that are 55% alpha pinene and more.
Now alpha pinene is not alpha pinene for the purposes of inhalation exposure limits. There are two enantiomers of alpha pinene. The positive and negative enantiomers (+ and - respectively). These have different negative effects at different ranges on the individual - this is called stereoselectivity of negative effects. IIRC, the chemotypical expression of the different enantiomers vary on the basis of geographical location, and some plants will contain mixtures of the two.
Alpha pinene is known to cause more sensory irritation than the other terpene that we know to act as a solvent in high concentrations (Limonene, see Larson et al., 2000 - DOI: 10.1191/096032700682694233 ).
It is cited to have a no-effect threshold in humans of 40ppm. That, for those who are not sure is a total of 0.004%. Obviously, we do not do safety testing of chemicals on humans when they are identified to cause serious injury or death. For this reason, data on health risks for the purposes of MSDS and regulatory limits are taken from experiments with rats. Rats have a higher no-effect threshold than humans at 70ppm. At 200ppm, Alpha Pinene (+) causes significant airflow restriction in the rat's respiratory tract (Neilsen et al., 2005). For rats, "[t]he (+) enantiomer showed persistent sensory irritation effect on the upper respiratory tract during exposures in the range of 100 to 3691 ppm" (Neilsen et al., 2005 10.1111/j.1742-7843.2005.pto_96604.x).
For the - enantiomer (Alpha Pinene (-)), airflow limitation appeared consistently from ∼2000 ppm. "The (−) enantiomer also induced anesthesia/and or pulmonary irritation as well as sudden death at concentrations above 2600 ppm" (Neilsen et al., 2005 10.1111/j.1742-7843.2005.pto_96604.x).
I do not believe that testing labs typically tell us which alpha pinene enantiomer is detected in a given mmj product yet, so we are at a disadvantage in discerning the safety of the concentrations of this terpene. I would advise acting on the basis that any detected alpha pinene is the (+) enantiomer, since it is the more dangerous one and we should always lean on the side of caution in these scenarios where crucial data is missing.
Also remember that rats were found to be less sensitive to the onset of negative effects than humans so the above data may be providing higher exposure levels than would cause the same effects in a human subject. I would encourage all to be very careful. Alpha Pinene (+) at .02% concentration in a given substance is already present in enough concentration to cause substantial respiratory airflow restriction in rats. Given that less may achieve the same in humans - yikes.
I do not recommend consumption by inhalation of terpene-only fractions (ie: Blue River terps not mixed with anything else) on an ongoing basis or at all really. You are in danger of consuming very large concentrations of terpenes that have low thresholds for serious health effects or even death if you vape and inhale terps straight. The danger will vary based on the chemotype of the plant processed, since I believe Blue River extract the entire terp profile from a given chemovar. Mixing the terps with other concentrates/cannabinoids etc in reasonable ratios similar to what are found in cannabis plants of course is the safer bet
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