Forty teams of medical marijuana growers put themselves to the test in the Grow Off, a competition that gives commercial marijuana cultivations the same genetics and then tests their harvests for potency, terpenes and yield. And now we know the results.
Search Results: terpenes (21)
Who doesn’t like the word “juicy”? Besides being the name of one of Biggie’s most recognizable songs, almost everything sounds better when described as “juicy.” Fruits, steaks, derrieres, bits of information — they’re all more desirable when juicy. Just hearing the word makes me imagine something ripe and refreshing. Something like Strawberry Banana — the cannabis strain, not the smoothie.
Although not yet as popular as Tangie or Strawberry Cough, Strawberry Banana is one of the juiciest strains I’ve ever come across. It quickly fills a room with a blend of terpenes that smell like a cross between a box of Fruit Loops and a bag of chopped strawberries and bananas that you left in the sun too long. Trying it for the first time is a real eye-opener, but the high will close those eyes soon enough.
Dear Stoner: I’ve noticed that the grogginess/hangover/comedown/whatever isn’t always the same. Does it change depending on what kind of weed you smoke?
Doug
Dear Doug: Effects vary from strain to strain, and those variations don’t end after the peak of your high. Various cocktails of cannabinoids and terpenes offer a wide range of characteristics and potencies, and everyone’s brain reacts differently. Certain indicas will leave you much sleepier than others during the comedown; the same goes for sativas. A budtender recently told me that Durban Poison, a pure sativa, makes him tired and grouchy after he smokes it — despite an energetic high for the first few hours. It makes sense when you think about other substances: Some people are fine after a night of whiskey but get splitting headaches after drinking wine.
Want to take your weed-snob knowledge to the next level? Under president Max Montrose and CEO Jim Nathanson, theTrichome Institute offers a series of cannabis courses, culminating with the “weed sommelier,” or interpening, class.
In his interpening — technically “interpreting terpenes” — class, Montrose regularly guides cannabis enthusiasts through the ins and outs of cannabis. For four solid hours, everyone from managers of dispensaries to growers, budtenders and owners learns how to pick up a plant and detect everything they need to know about the cannabis from its smell, bud structure and leaves. If you pay attention and pass a test at the end of the class, you’ll win official certification as a weed sommelier.
In a new study published this week in Nature Neuroscience, European researchers claim to have proven that smoking weed does, in fact, give you the munchies. Beyond that, they appear to have isolated the specific region of the brain that is affected by THC consumption, and identified the process through which that desire to eat an entire box of Lucky Charms at 2am comes from.
| Flickr.com/enerva |
| So many choices… |
In their study, the team of neuroscientists used a mischief of mice to conduct their herbal experimentation on, due to the cognitive similarities that mice share with humans. Roughly half the time, the mice got to get super baked, the other half they had to sit around sober as churchmice, and then…well…what happened to some of the poor critters near the end is downright freaky.
| Library Foundation of Los Angeles |
Editor’s note: Los Angeles writer Mark Haskell Smith’s new book Heart of Dankness sprang from his news coverage of the Cannabis Cup for the L.A. Times. Novelist Smith sampled varieties of marijuana that were unlike anything he’d experienced before, unlike any typical stoner weed. In fact, it didn’t get you “stoned,” as such. This cannabis possessed an ephemeral quality known as “dankness.”
Haskell began a journey into the international underground where super-high-grade marijuana is developed. He tracked down the ragtag community of underground botanists, outlaw farmers, and renegade strain hunters who pursue excellence and genetic diversity in cannabis. The dank journey climaxes at Amsterdam’s Cannabis Cup, which Mark portrays as the Super Bowl/Mardi Gras of the world’s largest cash crop.
Cannabis writer and connoisseur Caitlin Podiak got a chance to chat with Haskell Smith about the book, about good cannabis, and about what, exactly, constitutes a state of dankness. Enjoy!
Discussing Dankness
By Caitlin Podiak
Special to Toke of the Town
Caitlin Podiak: Your quest for the “heart of dankness” centers on the annual High Times Cannabis Cup event in Amsterdam. But how relevant do you think those awards are to cannabis users in California? I know many of the strains we have here come from Dutch seeds, but beyond that, I wonder how much the Amsterdam Cannabis Cup results should matter to us in the United States.
Mark Haskell Smith: Oh, I think they’re very relevant to what goes on in California. The strains that win the Cannabis Cup ultimately become the popular strains you find in medical dispensaries or being sold by dealers. AK-47, Super Silver Haze, Willie Nelson, Lavender, LA Confidential… these are all fairly common strains nowadays, but they were first introduced at the Cannabis Cup. I imagine Kosher Kush, which is originally a SoCal strain, will become huge in the next year or two because it just won the Indica Cup in Amsterdam. It’s sort of like Coachella for cannabis. It’s where the unknowns get their shot at the big time. And that resonates in California. We want those seeds.
| Dumb As A Blog |
Think American cops are dumb? From time to time, police in other countries step up to the plate and prove that they can make statements every bit as stupid as those from their American brothers in blue.
Case in point: After a “drugs factory” (what the Harborough Mail chose to call a pot patch) was raided, local yokel police passed on this dire admonition to a wide-eyed public:
Police are warning that when cannabis plants reach the final stages of maturity the odour they release has carcinogenic properties … Officers who deal with the plants use ventilation masks and protective suits and people who have plants in their home, especially anyone with young children, may be exposing their family to a health risk.
Yep, and remember you read it here, first, folks: Just smelling one of those horrible cannabis plants can give you cancer!
Of course, that’s complete horse shit, and anybody who’d believe it either hasn’t looked into the subject or is a damn fool… or likely both of the above, in the case of most police officers.
| LA Weekly |
Edible cannabis medicine is highly effective and can be engineered to fight specific and highly targeted ailments and symptoms
Treatment Trends
By Ben Reagan
Co-Founder, The C.P.C
Grandma may not smoke a joint to relieve chronic arthritis pain, but she sure does enjoy her pumpkin pie pastry pop that not only tastes great but also provides her with hours of daily, pain-free relief for her hands and fingers. On other days she eats her bacon and cheddar cheese pastry pop.
That does sound yummy, but hold on: a pastry pop?
| SportsxInjury |
When you injure yourself playing a sport, why cover up the injury when you can actually start the healing process?
Treatment Trends
By Ben Reagan
Co-Founder, The C.P.C
Weekend warriors, serious athletes, obsessive golfers, all ye with active lifestyles, if you’re reading this article you probably have first-hand experience with the side effects associated with opiate narcotics, analgesics, muscle relaxants, and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medications (NSAIDs) typically prescribed for sports injuries or the wear and tear from a lifetime of “staying fit” or “playing hard.”
Take opiates (please), which interrupt pain signaling to the brain by flooding pain receptors with damping effects. The long term effect is a down regulation of endogenous opiate production.
Technically speaking, “this down regulation appears to have cross over effects across the pituitary gland and hypothalamus, triggering something called panhypopituitarism, with symptoms of fatigue, obesity, diabetes, insomnia, depression, GI inhibition and decreased libido often resulting,” according to Dr. Zach Sparer of Green Wellness.
| All Photos: No Longer Sad |
Whenever aging stoners gather around a burning bush and discuss the legendary strains of yore, it’s a sure bet that the mighty Panama Red will be mentioned. Along with Acapulco Gold, Panama Red was one of the first cannabis “brand names” that caught the imagination of the American public, becoming a, well, “hit” nationwide.
While hippies in the late 1960s thought that Panama Red was so strong because of the rain-forest climate in which it was grown, we know today that its legendary potency was due to genetics — and thank Jah, those genetics have been preserved for modern smokers to enjoy, despite the fact that the culture of cannabis in Panama was mostly blown away during the cocaine-fueled 1980s.