% THC?

[djonkoman]

I find it hard to believe 20% of the weight would be THC. I have heard weightratios of bud vs. concentrate as 1:4 and 1:10 for hash and oil, and that still contains other cannabinoids, terpenes, waxes etc. so then 20% wouldn't be possible.

I think I once read it means 20% of total cannabinoids is thc, but I can't remember where I read it so don't regard it as reliable information.

personally I've already decided a while ago to just disregard these percentages, here in the shops they don't test so the only instance where I see these percentages is on seedselling sites(or in the news with the ridiculous law to ban all >15% thc-weed and hash), and the percentages on those sites are almost consistently >20% anyway

 

[Tripsick]

if i had 95% thc BHO wax would that be 950mg of thc per 1 gram of total weight?

I see 100mg eatables but i highly doubt there is that much thc in the eatable.

Now if i made them there would be...

 

[flubnutz]

these number get thrown around, they're crazy, dumb crazy. or at least nobody gives much of an explanation.

and i screwed up, now that im smoking the og i see that, if 5-10% of the weight is trichomes, and 20% of the total weight is thc, then the other 10-15% must be in the rest of the bud.

or are they saying that 20% of the weight of cannabinoids is thc, with 80% being something else ... independent of the amount on a gram of bud?

 

[headband 707]

Do you think this is a typo and should be a test/picture for hash oil, wax, budder or something?? I find it very hard to believe that they have a BUD that tested at over 60% THC!!!!

I hear Sam the Skunkman has some crazy numbers with his hash aswell but hash,oils and concentrates willl bring these high numbers I'm talking about cannabis with no tricks lol stay safe headband 707

 

[HempKat]

you guys are all missing the point. if a bud weighs 1 gram, does 20% THC mean that there is .2 grams of THC? or, do they shake it down to hash (trichomes), then out of *that* weight determine that 20% of the weight is THC?

When you say "20%", you have to specify 20% of the weight, or the volume, or something, of some stuff, e.g. bud, trichomes, total weight of cannabinoids, whatever. 20% by itself does not have any meaning.

if that can't be answered, then the 20% has no meaning. anybody?

Well my answer then would have to be that I don't know because never have I seen anything that lists THC percentages, describe in detail how they obtain those percentages. I would guess they take a sampling of the resin and test that in which case I would say that the 20% is refering to the resin or that 20% of the resin is THC rather then 20% of the bud weight.

 

[Jungle.Microbes]

as far as I always understood it, it's 20% of the resin.. Think about it, you have a 4g sativa bud, and 2g of that bud is stem, which has very little concentration of trichomes. If the % came from weight, it would vary greatly from bud to bud. popcorn may even test at a higher % due to lower stem weight than the main cola, even though the main cola technically contains a higher concentration of trichomes.

 

[zymos]

It really is that simple. Those numbers are percentage of the dry weight that is THC.

None of these other convoluted explanations make any sense- what good would it do anyone to report that 10% of the resin of a bud is THC, for example, when nobody knows how much resin is in the bud?

http://pureanalytics.net/faq

Here's something else I found from a post by a lab
"It is helpful to review some often used terms when addressing this question. Terms are frequently interchanged when talking about strength, potency, concentration, and dosage.


INTERPRETING YOUR LABORATORY DATA
Percent Concentration
The cannabinoid profile analysis gives you the concentration of cannabinoids expressed in %. This is the weight of the cannabinoid divided by the total plant weight. What this means is that 15% THC contains 0.15 grams of THC for every 1 gram of plant matter. Percentage is a concentration; a concentration in its simplest form is just a ratio of two things, like salt in water. The ocean, for instance, has a salt concentration of about 3.5%. This means that in a hundred pound of seawater, there are three and a half pounds of salt. The concentration can be expressed in other ways besides %, for instance, 3.5% is the same thing as 35 mg/g, or it could be expressed as 35 parts per 1000. These are all the same ratios."

 

[Grobot2010]

I would contact High Times and ask them about their new scoring method that includes % THC and find out whether it refers to the level of THC in the trichomes or the quantity of THC in the total dried flower material.

I have a feeling that they are measuring the level of THC in the resin glands rather than in the entire bud material, but I could be totally wrong. They always talk about doing an analysis, but I haven't seen where the details of the method and protocols are disclosed.

 

[zymos]

Jeez Louise, y'all are really complexifying this...


If a lab analyzes a steak and says it is 20% fat, do you think they cut off the strips of fat on the sides and then just test thosefor fat content?
It's no different for bud.

The labs are reporting the results from a sample of marijuana, not some fraction of it.

 

[headband 707]

This was somthing they said they could not do..

This was somthing they said they could not do..

It really is that simple. Those numbers are percentage of the dry weight that is THC.

None of these other convoluted explanations make any sense- what good would it do anyone to report that 10% of the resin of a bud is THC, for example, when nobody knows how much resin is in the bud?

http://pureanalytics.net/faq

Here's something else I found from a post by a lab
"It is helpful to review some often used terms when addressing this question. Terms are frequently interchanged when talking about strength, potency, concentration, and dosage.


INTERPRETING YOUR LABORATORY DATA
Percent Concentration
The cannabinoid profile analysis gives you the concentration of cannabinoids expressed in %. This is the weight of the cannabinoid divided by the total plant weight. What this means is that 15% THC contains 0.15 grams of THC for every 1 gram of plant matter. Percentage is a concentration; a concentration in its simplest form is just a ratio of two things, like salt in water. The ocean, for instance, has a salt concentration of about 3.5%. This means that in a hundred pound of seawater, there are three and a half pounds of salt. The concentration can be expressed in other ways besides %, for instance, 3.5% is the same thing as 35 mg/g, or it could be expressed as 35 parts per 1000. These are all the same ratios."

The aim of this study was to develop a dry powder formulation that stabilises the chemically labile lipophilic Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), that rapidly dissolves in water in order to increase the bioavailability and that opens new routes of administration. It was investigated whether these aims can be achieved with solid dispersions consisting of a matrix of inulin, an oligo-fructose, in which THC is incorporated. These solid dispersions were prepared by lyophilisation of a solution of THC and inulin in a mixture of water and tertiary butyl alcohol (TBA). Both 4 and 8 wt.% of THC could be incorporated in a glassy matrix of inulin. In the solid dispersions only 0.4–0.5 wt.% of residual TBA was present after storage at 20 °C/45% relative humidity (RH) for 7 days. Unprotected THC was completely degraded after 40 days of exposure to 20 °C and 45%RH. However, solid dispersions exposed to the same conditions still contained about 80% non-degraded THC after 300 days. Dissolution experiments with tablets compressed from inulin glass dispersion material showed that THC and inulin dissolved at the same rate. Tablets weighing 125 mg and containing 2 mg THC were prepared from a mixture of THC containing solid dispersion, polyvinylpolypyrrolidone (PVPP) and mannitol. Dissolution tests revealed that from these tablets 80% of the THC was dissolved within 3 min, which makes them promising for sublingual administration. It was concluded that THC can be strongly stabilized by incorporating it in a matrix of inulin. The aqueous dissolution rate was high which may improve bioavailability.

 

[HempKat]

It really is that simple. Those numbers are percentage of the dry weight that is THC.

None of these other convoluted explanations make any sense- what good would it do anyone to report that 10% of the resin of a bud is THC, for example, when nobody knows how much resin is in the bud?

http://pureanalytics.net/faq

Here's something else I found from a post by a lab
"It is helpful to review some often used terms when addressing this question. Terms are frequently interchanged when talking about strength, potency, concentration, and dosage.


INTERPRETING YOUR LABORATORY DATA
Percent Concentration
The cannabinoid profile analysis gives you the concentration of cannabinoids expressed in %. This is the weight of the cannabinoid divided by the total plant weight. What this means is that 15% THC contains 0.15 grams of THC for every 1 gram of plant matter. Percentage is a concentration; a concentration in its simplest form is just a ratio of two things, like salt in water. The ocean, for instance, has a salt concentration of about 3.5%. This means that in a hundred pound of seawater, there are three and a half pounds of salt. The concentration can be expressed in other ways besides %, for instance, 3.5% is the same thing as 35 mg/g, or it could be expressed as 35 parts per 1000. These are all the same ratios."

Well if all this is correct then as the post above yours points out, it's not very accurate and is going to vary widely from bud to bud even among buds from the same plant. If perhaps every bud of a plant was tested and all results were averaged together that might give you an accurate representation of THC concentration? Basing things off the dry weight of a bud seems foolish. It's like basing alcohol content of a beer off the weight of the hops used to make it.

 

[zymos]

Well if all this is correct then as the post above yours points out, it's not very accurate and is going to vary widely from bud to bud even among buds from the same plant. If perhaps every bud of a plant was tested and all results were averaged together that might give you an accurate representation of THC concentration? Basing things off the dry weight of a bud seems foolish. It's like basing alcohol content of a beer off the weight of the hops used to make it.

No offense, but that's a terrible analogy.
If anything, it's like analyzing the alcohol content of 2 separate batches of beer.

It's up to the person submitting the sample to insure that it is representative of the whole plant.

I'm not vouching for any specific numbers anybody has seen, but it is a simple fact- when they are reporting %THC, it is just the weight of the THC divided by the weight of the marijuana. There is nothing fancy about it....

 

[HempKat]

No offense, but that's a terrible analogy.
If anything, it's like analyzing the alcohol content of 2 separate batches of beer.

It's up to the person submitting the sample to insure that it is representative of the whole plant.

I'm not vouching for any specific numbers anybody has seen, but it is a simple fact- when they are reporting %THC, it is just the weight of the THC divided by the weight of the marijuana. There is nothing fancy about it....

Who ever said there was anything fancy about it? I said that it seemed logial to me it would be the percent of the resin that is THC which is merely factoring the non psycho active elements out of the equation. Nothing terribly fancy about that. That's actually quite logical.

Nor is it anything at all like measuring the alcohol content of two batches of beer because it would be somewhat reasonable to discover two seperate batches of beer would have radically different numbers. Within the same batch of beer though or when comparing buds from the same plant it is not at all reasonable to expect widely different results. Yet if the THC% is based on plant weight then that's exactly what you would get, redically different results if you compared a cola bud with a secondary bud. You would also get radically different results comparing one bag of weed trimmed by one person to that trimmed by another simply because one person leaves more stem on their buds then another. Which makes it about as scientific as the police when they weigh the rootball to determine the amount of weight so they can calculate street value.

 

[zymos]

Whatever. You are over thinking something that is ridiculously simple.

What good would a test based on some extract of resin be? What would that even mean?
How is the resin extracted? What if lab A extracts everything soluble in ether and lab B extracts everything soluble in IPA?

Any kind of analysis of anything is going to have variability caused by differences in sampling, it's just a fact of life. There is an art and a science to selecting a representative sample, whether it is people, buds, or grapes. That still doesn't mean a THC test is purporting to be anything other than what every lab says it is- % THC by weight that is in the sample they received.

 

[magiccannabus]

What has me skeptical that the actual numbers are anywhere near what these various sources report is how the cannabinoids form in the trichome heads. They form in small pockets held in resinous webbing inside the trichome heads. The actual size of the drug relative to the trichome or the resin is tiny comparatively. The plant is like 70% water, but buds are heavier dry than leaves or stems are. So by volume, the dry bud will represent a disproportionate amount of the total dry plant volume. The weight difference is the resin, but it would be good to actually get someone to measure the stem weights, bud weights, hash output per gram of bud, and oil per gram of bud. Resin isn't a drug itself, but rather a medium containing drugs, so the resin must weigh more than the THC does....

I'm tired I could have written this better, but if I understand the math correctly, the following would be true:

One ounce of trimmed buds from a "20% THC" strain should produce:
5.76 grams of pure THC(that's 1.5 eighths of pure THC!)
2 grams at least of other cannabinoids(assuming normal ratios)
8 grams or more of resin
13.04 grams plant matter.

If you counted the entire plant, it's quite likely that you'd need double that many cannabinoids per ounce of bud to reach that 20% THC content rating. See what I mean? Are we to believe that half the weight of the trimmed buds is pure THC? Seems hard to imagine that being true.

 

[flubnutz]

zymos, thanks for the links and explanation, that is crystal clear now.

if its an accurately done measurement, even if there are variables such as the stem in the bud etc., that doesn't make it a number that's not useful. it would probably be an average over a number of buds, and it would give you a good idea on how much thc to get per gram of the bud, which is what is interesting to some people.

 

[HempKat]

Whatever. You are over thinking something that is ridiculously simple.

What good would a test based on some extract of resin be? What would that even mean?
How is the resin extracted? What if lab A extracts everything soluble in ether and lab B extracts everything soluble in IPA?

Any kind of analysis of anything is going to have variability caused by differences in sampling, it's just a fact of life. There is an art and a science to selecting a representative sample, whether it is people, buds, or grapes. That still doesn't mean a THC test is purporting to be anything other than what every lab says it is- % THC by weight that is in the sample they received.

I'm not over thinking anything. I'm saying that the test is flawed if it's based on the weight of the entire bud including things like stems, untrimmed leaves and seeds. Basing it that way one could in theory get different results on the same exact bud depending on how it was trimmed. Yet in reality if it's the exact same bud the THC content is the same regardless of how the bud is trimmed.

If you test just the resin then you're exploring the content of the resin, which in fact is where the THC is. So the good of testing a sample of resin extract is you'll get a more precise, more accurate representation of the THC content and it will be the same regardless of if the bud it came from was trimmed or not.

As for your what if of labs extracting resin differently, that's why they create standards and procedures for testing so that different labs will get the same results. They don't just hand things for analysis to labs and say "figure this out for me however you see fit". DNA science wouldn't be what it is today if every forensic lab had different procedures for testing DNA.

When they test alcoholic content of a bottle of wine the percentage of the alcohol in the wine isn't a ratio that includes the weight of the bottle it's in. So why include the weight of the bud when figuring the THC content of the resin? The bud is in essence just the container for the resin containing the THC.

 

[magiccannabus]

The problem with just checking the resin is that a lot of plants produce different amounts of resin. Resin also isn't necessarily an indicator of potency. How do you compare two plants when one makes resin twice as potent, but makes ten times less resin?

 

[Floridian]

I prefer 20 gaggles of THCV with a 4.5 scoobycentage of CBD. Although There is something to be said about the amount of smorch contained within the CBN

 

[big twinn]

They are referring to the cannabinoids in general, which are terpophenolic compounds. The mevalonic pathway moves from Olivetolic Acid --> to Cannabigerolic Acid and then to either Tetrahydracannabolic Acid (later converts to THC and then d9THC), or Cannabidiolic Acid (later converts to Cannabidiol; CBD) or Cannabinolic Acid (later converts to Cannabinol; CBN), or Cannabichromenic Acid. So I presume that %thc refers the the amount of thc present to the other Terpenes also present in the Trichomes.