Weed, pesticides, heavy metals and mold 😮. What’s in your weed ?

Polarbearboy

Tokin' Away Since 1968
Do you trust your weed source 🤔 ?

Wow. This is extremely disturbing. I read the whole story. Lots of really sleazy people in the legal cannabis industry in Cali. This is going to make ill people even sicker as the greedy scumbags manufacturing and wholesaling poisoned with pesticide products place money over all else. And then there's the swine at so many laboratories overlooking vile pesticides and encouraging companies to send in selected product instead of the actual product. What scumbags, what vile human beings. Really really scary. But the biggest outrage is Newsome's Cannabis regulation agency and its leader his friend Elliot, who seems more interested in the tax revenues than the poisoning of his state's voters. This is outrageous.

I must say that I have more faith in the regulators in Mass and Maine(and Canada) where I buy stuff that I use daily. Both states are home to world-class scientists and after a few scandals have some of the best state labs in the world.

PS: I like Newsome a lot, but if he doesn't get ahead of this immediately, his political future is toast.
 
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bulllee

Agent Provocateur
Wow. I read the whole story. Lots of really sleazy people in the legal cannabis industry in Cali. This is going to make ill people even sicker as the greedy scumbags manufacturing and wholesaling poisoned with pesticide products place money over all else. Really really scary. But the biggest outrage is Newsome's Cannabis regulation agency and its leader his friend Elliot, who seems more interested in the tax revenues than the poisoning of his state's voters. This is outrageous.
It's always about the tax revenue concerning cities, or state governments and their cannabis policies . It makes you wonder about what's going on in your state ;) . There are some sleazy people as you mentioned . Here in Arizona we went medical and there was no testing programs for years. You never really knew what you were getting. And these companies that produce distillates concern me. They use way too much terpenes and the results are agitated lungs I'm well aware of the low quality product they use in their distillates. Test results are suspect, just like California. Your better off finding a grower you trust .
 
bulllee,

Shit Snacks

Milaana. Lana. LANA. LANAAAA! (TM2/TP80/BAK/FW9)
I haven't had good bud here in Southern California in quite some time and I'm sort of sick of trying random things lol wish I knew of a reliable consistent source I could trust that'd easily deliver at a reasonable price
 

Cheebsy

Microbe minion
There's no really way to be totally sure...
Grow your own.

Problem solved.
Only if you still test for yourself sadly... But it's certainly a good place to start!

Your growing media could contain heavy metals, so could your amendments and fertilisers.. Just look at seaweed amendments for that. Seaweed is a mass accumulator just like cannabis.

At least you know what's being sprayed on those plants though which is certainly a large advantage.

Tbh, even if you make your own fertilisers you can still fall foul to the growing media, or the inputs for the fertiliser, so you need to trust the suppliers test results (if they have any) at the very least.
 

topographic

Active Member
It's probably no comfort that California weed is cleaner, in general, than the food in the supermarkets -- lead in ground cinnamon and baby food, cadmium in dark chocolate have both been reported of late. People have the reasonable expectation that something sold in a licensed dispensary isn't going to harm them, even if the branding might give a thoughtful person pause. (There's an example of this in r/BayAreaEnts from five days ago.)

There are cannabis brands in California whose products you couldn't pay me to take home, because their issues aren't new. You'll find test reports on the Internet going back to 2018, long before the California Cannabis Control folks got to setting up a page about product recalls. Here's an example:

 

katabatic

Member
This makes me think of supplements getting tested for purity and mercury levels. Maybe its more important to test stuff that gets vaporized and inhaled since it has a much shorter path to your blood stream than having to go through the digestive tract. I also sometimes wonder if the weed I vape is cleaner than the air I breathe living in nyc...at least I have a better idea of whats inside the weed lol
 
katabatic,
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topographic

Active Member
I'm no chemist, but this bit of citizen science caught my eye:

"This tool may hold the key to avoiding heavy metals from weed"

If valid, great news for dry herb vapers as well as ice hash buffs. Home-made edibles from ABV may be problematic.
 

florduh

Well-Known Member
I'm no chemist, but this bit of citizen science caught my eye:

"This tool may hold the key to avoiding heavy metals from weed"

If valid, great news for dry herb vapers as well as ice hash buffs. Home-made edibles from ABV may be problematic.

This article is fantastic. One of the best arguments for dry herb vaping over combustion I've seen.

It's probably no comfort that California weed is cleaner, in general, than the food in the supermarkets -- lead in ground cinnamon and baby food, cadmium in dark chocolate have both been reported of late.

Yeah, we live in a world awash in poison. I will say, the difference between our poisonous food supply and heavy metal laden weed is: the stuff I eat is at least somewhat filtered by my liver. There's no similar filtration system for inhalation. Major L for God when you think about it :disgust:

Although, since this is about Cali, my guess is every deep breath you take in LA is likely full of heavy metals. I went to a friend's apartment that was basically on I-5 (or "the Five"). Brake pads don't blink out of existence when they dissolve. They go into our lungs.
 

topographic

Active Member
Since it sounds like LA Times content may be inaccessible to some folks, here are a couple further items from SFGate news.

The presence of pesticides in California oilpens has led one doctor to tell folks they'd be safer smoking flower:

(Inhaling smoke is a terrible idea, of course. I've wondered why dry herb vaporizers and concentrate vaporizers don't get mentioned as an alternative. My current theory is that this journalistic silence has something to do with FDA/FTC rules about health claims for gadgets.)

Meanwhile, the California Department of Cannabis Control is being sued after firing a whistleblower involved in laboratory oversight:
 
topographic,

Photonic

Lesser-Known Lurker
I'm no chemist, but this bit of citizen science caught my eye:

"This tool may hold the key to avoiding heavy metals from weed"

If valid, great news for dry herb vapers as well as ice hash buffs. Home-made edibles from ABV may be problematic.
Pretty cool. Those results might suggest it's even better for those that home grow, vape at low temps and finish with lighter colored ABV. :D
 
Photonic,

cannasoor

Well-Known Member
I think we have fairly good testing and vetting in Oregon, though there was apparently a short lacuna/gap on mold testing (not sure of the details).

The other day a budtender gave me a copy of the docs they get (required by law, etc.) on a particular crop/offering: something like 15-20 pages (not at home to check, but a significant stapled sheaf of paper), densely filled with test results, etc., at a very detailed level. She also gave me a free gram+ of one of their top-tier GMO cuts (the strain), as I was buying only a $3-5 low-end offering—excellent stuff (I still have a half gram or so), and I shall have to stop by again soon and thank her.

Maybe I can scan/snapshot a few pages when I get back home, if people are interested.
 
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