% THC?

[LumpStatus]

I would have to agree...i previously thought it was weight for weight...but it cant possibly be...you can see with your eyes that theres more than 80% plant material on a sample that has 20% thc...hmmmmm would be nice to have a difinitive answer from a reputable lab!

Either way though....a high thc% means absolutely nothing. Why do I get significantly more high from 17% og kush than 27% green ribbon? I would assume it has to do with other compounds in the plant material...

 

[flubnutz]

i thought somebody said sam sez they've bred most of the what, cbd, out of weed nowadays?

 

[LumpStatus]

There are many strains available that contain high cbd content. Several cuts which average 8+% CBd levels. There are also seeds available from places like CBd crew which are testing very high in cbd.

 

[HempKat]

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?

Well this is true, some strains do make lots of resin and yet aren't terribly potent and yet other strains can have hardly any visible trichomes and still peel your wig back. As I see it though if you throw the entire bud into the equation (including leaves, stems and even possibly seeds) it would just throw things off that much more. The resin by itself represents all of the psychoactive ingredients (cannabinoids) and so an analysis of just the resin would be more accurate.

As I pointed out before when THC is expressed as a percent of the total weight two buds from the same plant can have very different percentages of THC simply because of how well trimmed one bud is compared to another. If you examine just the resin though then the percent of THC in the resin should be the same within buds of the same plant because the plant produces the same resin for all the buds. So if it's measured based on total bud weight you could concievably have one bud that comes out at 20%, another that comes out to 18% and another that comes out at 22% even though they all come from the same plant. If however you just examine the resin the THC% should be 20% on each and every bud.

 

[zymos]

I suggest you inform every analytical lab in the world that "they are doing it wrong"...

 

[HempKat]

I suggest you inform every analytical lab in the world that "they are doing it wrong"...

I suggest that just because a lab is involved in analysis you stop assuming the procedures they come up with are correct. Besides I never said they did it wrong I'm merely saying the percentages derived that way are not an accurate relection of the potency.

I also highly doubt you are correct in your assumption that every analytical lab in the world does it the same way. Weren't you the one to question how effective extracting the resin first would be because one lab might go about it differently then another?

Amazing how when it suits your argument all labs do things exactly the same but when it doesn't no two labs do things the same way.

 

[zymos]

Shit man, you're hopeless...

You can argue all you want that a given test may not be representative of a whole plant, and I'd probably agree with you.

That doesn't change the fact that when a lab reports a sample had 15% THC, THEY MEAN THAT 15% OF THE WEIGHT OF THE MATERIAL THEY RECEIVED WAS COMPOSED OF THC.
That's what this thread was about, and that is the answer, not some convoluted way where %THC actually means something else.

 

[LumpStatus]

Is thc in other parts of the plant material besides the visible frosty trichs?

 

[FrameOMind]

I agree with Zymos on this one. A lab merely tests the samples given to them. The real art is collecting samples that accurately represent the test target. In reality, the best sample would be an entire crop of a single strain. Anything else is going to be skewed in one way or another. The main reason that THC % means nothing is that the samples are usually provided by the grower.

 

[flubnutz]

i just asked because once i saw ht was flogging it and without any explanation that i could see i thought, that's the kind of dumb shite i'd expect from them LOL but i see some vendors using it too, so i was curious.

anybody ever smoke a really frosty looking bud then think after, "what a let-down"? can't say i have but i have smoked some buds that didn't look frosty at all but delivered a ko punch.

 

[magiccannabus]

I found this:

http://www.maps.org/news-letters/v09n3/09320gie.html

Sentence worth note: ""standard methanol extraction technique"

 

[zymos]

I found this:

http://www.maps.org/news-letters/v09n3/09320gie.html

Sentence worth note: ""standard methanol extraction technique"

That's because you can't just shove herbs into a mass spectrometer or GLC, not because the final results given are expressed as a percentage of an extract.

 

[magiccannabus]

I, and I think others here as well, get what you are saying. The problem is, where is the standard? I did some rudimentary math in my above post, and I don't see how that can even be possible. Amount of resin varies in plants, THC in tissues varies in plants. Using a solvent to extract makes the most sense, but suggesting that just THC constitutes 20% of the entire plant's weight is hard to believe. Even when I have totally dessicated samples(dehydrator), the stems and fan leaves are still pretty comparable in weight to the buds when it's all gathered up. So if we just simplify it and pretend that it's 50% stem/leaf and 50% bud, that bud would have to be like 35% THC by weight.

So assuming the buds are 35% THC by weight, then the following is likely true:

The average dose of cannabis is considered to be 20-25mg of THC. So each gram of material should provide the average user 14 smoking sessions. At 20% THC in the buds, each bud should provide the user at least 8 sessions. That's 8 good bowls, or joints out of each gram. That seems hard to believe, and 20% is on the low side for what some of these seed companies are claiming for their strains. I would love my herb to stretch that far, but I just don't think it does. At 10% it's more like 4 bowls. That's way more realistic. So maybe it's entire cannabinoid profile in a strong strain is 20% of the total bud weight, but it's very unlikely that what seed companies are listing is accurate. I really think they are doubling the real numbers, and that's just for the buds.

 

[zymos]

I know, I know, it's hard to believe that so much of the plant could be THC- I think that's why the OP started this thread in the first place.
Still doesn't change what the lab results are reporting, believe it or don't....

 

[magiccannabus]

For real. I just doubt the labs are being totally honest in the way they calculate this. This actually could be VERY important for us legally though, because charges for hemp are much lower. If their standard for rating plants is on the high side, forcing the labs to change their technique could mean numbers that come with lower charges. I'm sure the gov will try to adapt, but right now the climate to further prohibition is not good. These labs are scaring people who think THC is harmful. We obviously need to educate those who think that, but we also don't need labs making them think that modern pot is some sort of "super pot". They want the older generation to think the pleasant thing they messed with in the 60's is now some sort of mega drug. They need to be taught that it's the same exact plant as generations of their forefathers smoked secretly while telling their children no. I wonder if these labs are counting all resin weight as THC, because that would explain a lot....

 

[LumpStatus]

The Problem is exactly like I pointed out before... You can smoke 3 bowls of 27 percent thc bud and not get as high as 17 percent thc bud. The total amount of thc does not predict the high or how high one gets. It is the entire thc profile that determines this as well as other compounds with in the plant. Keep in mind there are dozens of different types of thc and some companies test for them, some just llump them all into 1 big number.

 

[headband 707]

The Problem is exactly like I pointed out before... You can smoke 3 bowls of 27 percent thc bud and not get as high as 17 percent thc bud. The total amount of thc does not predict the high or how high one gets. It is the entire thc profile that determines this as well as other compounds with in the plant. Keep in mind there are dozens of different types of thc and some companies test for them, some just llump them all into 1 big number.

Yeah I will have to agree with this LumpStatus ,, Somehow atleast for me the numbers just don't add up.. I don't know if it's the lab or me or what is going on I just know now,, I don't trust the numbers,, headband 707

 

[HempKat]

Shit man, you're hopeless...

You can argue all you want that a given test may not be representative of a whole plant, and I'd probably agree with you.

That doesn't change the fact that when a lab reports a sample had 15% THC, THEY MEAN THAT 15% OF THE WEIGHT OF THE MATERIAL THEY RECEIVED WAS COMPOSED OF THC.
That's what this thread was about, and that is the answer, not some convoluted way where %THC actually means something else.

Just because you gave the correct answer as to what the % is based on does not mean nobody else is allowed to express an opinion about how the labs do it. You really need to get over yourself dude you're not the last word. Now if I was saying the THC% means what I've been saying it should mean you might have a valid reason for getting your panties all twisted up in a knot. I didn't say that though, I said that basing it on total bud weight is inaccurate and that if they did it the way I suggest the number would be more representative and have more real meaning.

It's real simple to reason out just imagine one starts with a bud that's been dried with all it's leaves still intact and attached and lets say an inch long stem. That's the bud that gets tested and the percentage of THC is determined based on the weight of the bud with all those leaves and that long stem attached. The percentage is X%. Now take the exact same bud but this time trim off some of the leaves. The percentage based on the bud with less leaves but still a long stem would be Y% because the weight to determine the ratio has now changed. Take the exact same bud and now trim off all the leaves and chop off that inch long stem, the percentage would then calculate out to Z% because the weight for the ratio has now changed even more. If the lab's way of doing things was accurate then that would mean that the mere act of triming increases the potency but in reality what is happening is some of the "impurities" if you will are being removed making the bud seem more concentrated. Now look at how these numbers are being used as a way to determine the value, there's good motivation for the labs to do it they way they do as it gives their customers more marketable data.

 

[zymos]

You really need to get over yourself dude you're not the last word.

I am now!


( at least temporarily )

 

[HempKat]

I am now!


( at least temporarily )

That's real mature of you there buddy.