It's organic man!!!
Posted on 03/23/2015 5:44:49 PM PDT by Mount Athos
Colorado's legal marijuana is three times stronger than it was a generation ago and is often contaminated with heavy metals, pesticides, fungus and bacteria, a startling chemical analysis of 600 samples has found.
Additionally, modern pot has very low levels of cannabidiol, or CBD, the compound that medical marijuana advocates say gives the drug its healing properties. In most samples, the CBD levels were so small they were undetectable.
The findings come from Andy LaFrate, a Ph.D. chemist and the founder of Colorado testing firm Charas Scientific. LaFrate will present the results of his research today at the national meeting of the American Chemical Society in Denver.
LaFrate's survey of Colorado's marijuana casts doubt on claims that by legalizing the drug for recreational use in 2012, it would make it safer to consume.
It's pretty startling just how dirty a lot of this stuff is,' he told Smithsonian.com.
Also alarming is the fact that people using marijuana for its reported medicinal properties usually have no way of knowing how much CBD is actually in their products.
Colorado only requires marijuana dispensaries to test and advertise the levels of THC - the compound in pot that gets user 'high.' CBD and contaminant levels are not tested.
'I've heard a lot of complaints from medical patients because somebody claims that a product has a high level of CBD, and it turns out that it actually doesn't,' LaFrate says.
Children who are given marijuana to control epilepsy can actually be worse off because they're being given strains of the drug with virtually no CBD and high levels of THC, which can trigger seizures, he added.
LaFrate's tests used liquid chromatography, a highly accurate method of chemical analysis that separates out the component parts of a substance.
LaFrate says he found very small levels of genetic variation between 'strains' of marijuana. This means, the claims of pot with exotic names - 'Skunkberry,' 'Ghost Train Haze,' 'Girl Scout Cookies' - are usually just slick marketing ploys.
Additionally, much of Colorado's marijuana is contaminated with high levels of fungus spores and bacteria. It's not known what levels of those microorganisms are safe for marijuana and more study on the subject is needed, LaFrate says.
Many samples also contained traces of cancer-causing heavy metals, which come from the plants growing in contaminated soil. Others had high levels of pesticides.
Even more troubling were the 200 samples of marijuana concentrates - or pot extract - that LaFrate tested. These are used to make edibles and can contain up to 90percent THC.
Because they are concentrated doses, they can also contain very high levels of heavy metals and pesticides - as the THC level is dialed up, so are the levels of background contaminants.
The solvents used like alcohol and heptane to make the concentrates also contribute startling levels of contaminants, LaFrate warned.
excerpt
Great. Getting lead poisoning and killing their brain cells for a high. Oh well, they weren’t using them anyway.
Heavy metals like AC/DC and Metallica?
But 2-buck chuck has some arsenic.
Keep GROWING that Government is the goal in far too many situations.
legalize a product and soon the Feds will be regulating it.
Sp glad that the government is handling this so folks only have access to legal and healthy dope
OK.
So which has more contaminants:
modern pot or cigarettes?
(or wine)?
Should be pleasing to Dr. John Holdren, the president’s science adviser who advocates reducing the population by 5.5 billion people .... hey, it’s a start!
Great. Getting lead poisoning and killing their brain cells for a high. Oh well, they weren’t using them anyway.
They use those remaining brain cells to vote.
Lots of half truths and omissions.
Is it 10x stronger? I don’t know. There was stronger in the late 70’s then you could come across now.
Pot in the 70’s came in colors. Red, Blond, Green, Brown, Black, Gold, Blue. It was also served a lot drier in the 70’s. No damp, wet, 6 week old buds in variations of Green.
Taste in the 70’s was better too. I can remember the distinctive Vanilla taste at the back of my throat when smoking Columbian, the burst of Cinnamon from Panama, or how your nostrils and sinuses twitched with some good Blond. Green tasted like crap back then, and after 35 year hiatus, its only gotten worse.
The best benefit from today’s medical marijuana is you can isolate certain reputable strains and pick the ‘high’ characteristics you think best fits you.
So, they probably right for the run of the mill commercial grade stuff that’s probably being sold for recreational use. They’re not talking about reputable MMJ growers. And what you do get commercially is no worse than what you’re getting in fruits and vegetables at the store.
Oh,yea I forgot ... If they think
Oh, wow, Dude, it increases the rush, or high, or whatever!
Yeah, but man........uh......my plutius of the paunch feels a lot better man......... (sucks on doobie)...yeah.......like I feel.......wow........... I mean like ........wow man.........(takes another hit) .........uh...........what was the question?
All Natural
Good information. Glad neither I nor my family have any desire or need to smoke the stuff.
Wonder what all the proponents that go on about how safe it is have to say about this...
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