The rise of THCA

Smoker's Lounge
#63

For a bit. One thing about us potheads is our creativity in finding new ways to get stoned.

Its happened a few times in midwest states and thats why we went from delta8 to 10 and then THCA. With money involved they’ll find a way to skirt regulations, but it also means a lot of chemicals floating around that are critically understudied.

Good luck with VA! It reminds me of places like TN and Northern Cali in the 90s, cannabis is such an important part of local community economies and has saved numerous people from poverty but those in control would rather make money from incarceration instead of the constant stream of income from sales

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#64

I don’t disagree. While I am politically an extreme anarchist I don’t believe my views work in a society, so instead i look for consistency and am willing to follow any law that is consistent for all. So I am glad they are getting it straightened out. I’m mostly bummed that they originally had 2024 as when dispensaries were supposed to be approved and they pushed that back on us. We currently as far as I’ve seen don’t have a date for dispensary legality in the state.

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#65

Even Cookies sells Thca hemp flowers on their website, they just won’t ship to any states that they sell product rec or med in to not undercut their retail partners.

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#66

one of the first things i plan on studying is how much of the soil toxins get stored in hemp. no way i would ever eat hemp seed anything without knowing that. they say it is mostly stored in the roots and lower plant material but we don’t know enough about it for me to eat yet.

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#67

Cannabis in general is a known hyper-accumulator. It will rapidly take up any heavy metals in the soil like cadmium, mercury, lead, etc.

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#68

Hemp seed tends to be pretty safe. It is also tested when its sold for HM levels. I know at least one farmer who has had their harvest rejected because of cadmium. But there is pretty stringent testing in hemp.

The hyperaccumulator stuff is a little overblown in my opinion. I feel comfortable saying this as my first PhD project was testing this claim. It certainly does accumulate soil pollutants, but so do most plants, to a degree. If you look at metal accumulation in Cannabis and compare it to other known hyperaccumulators then it falls woefully short

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#69

and this is why my first and ongoing project is researching this. i trust nobody. too many foods deemed safe have ended up not so safe. besides, they may pay me to do it. not this year, i missed the sare deadline of dec, but am in touch with them. meeting next week to start planning.

how much does it cost for soil analysis? ball park.

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#70

They’ve been using Hemp around Chernobyl, among other polluted soil remediation, to help clean up the radiated soil and heavy metals.
Hemp and the Decontamination of Radioactive Soil - Sensi Seeds.
Yeah they’re using two different Brassica’s, maize, and sunflowers too, but they’ve still added hemp and have noted it’s usefulness in doing so

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They’re using Hemp in italy to clean up some of the “most polluted soil in europe”.

Here’s a paper on its ability to uptake Cadium

Here’s a paper on it’s ability to uptake large quantities of zinc, something sunflowers failed at
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01904161003728669

Here’s a paper on some gene’s found in Hemp that specifically deal with it’s ability to handle and respond to heavy metals
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/clen.201500117

None of those deal with transference to seed, but this one found large amount of cadmium in the seeds of 5 different romanian hemp varieties

This was the Chinese study one of you mentioned about it being a higher concentration in the roots

Here’s a few more papers
Investigating the potential of heavy metal accumulation from hemp. The use of industrial hemp (Cannabis Sativa L.) for phytoremediation of heavily and moderated polluted soils

Industrial hemp (Cannabis sativa L.) for phytoremediation: Energy and environmental life cycle assessment of using contaminated biomass as an energy resource

Phytoremediation of Radionuclides with Hemp (Cannabis sativa L.)

Ability of phytoremediation for absorption of strontium and cesium from soils using Cannabis sativa

#71

@HolyAngel i agree people are using it, but im saying compared to other plants hemp is on the low end. There are plants that accumulate 100-1000x more metals than hemp.

The reason people are trying with hemp is because depending on HM storage, hemp could offer a product to sell as well as remediate land. Most of the articles will show that while hemp is OK, other plants are much more efficient. I promise you I have read all those papers and have cited them in both research articles and my thesis. Is hemp an option? Yes. Is it the best option? No.

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#72

Regular soil analysis runs like $15-20 per sample, HM analysis is expensive and depending on testing site and analysis done can be up to $100 per sample or more depending on the standards panel used.

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#73

For sure. And all I’m saying is it does indeed uptake them pretty well and probably shouldn’t be smoking or eating any cannabis that was grown in the presence of heavy metals, radionuclei, etc.

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#74

Not wrong about that. I believe this is related to nutrient acquisition and the reason it is high is because of active uptake and transporter slippage when accumulating nutrients. I can’t share too much on that until my paper gets published, but I essentially recommend that if cannabis is going to be used for remediation there needs to be a focused breeding effort on increasing the accumulation potential and make it clear they are separate cultivars with specific uses.

I would say that for anyone weary you can feel mostly good about buying stuff that been tested. Testing for HMs is strict. If we aren’t going to use any hemp products because of that, then logically we need to stop consuming drug type cannabis. They have the same issues.

We aren’t worried though because we test. Interesting fact, the only growers I know who have had HM problems are those growing on soil that hemp has been cultivated on repeatedly with no rotation. The majority of contaminants stay in Cannabis roots, like 70-80%. I think the bigger risk is in leaving these roots in the ground to break down and release what they’ve collected.

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#75

Sounds like composting your own plants is a bad idea then :thinking:

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#76

There certainly seems like there will be issues there, but I will say we need more information on that. There are groups looking at composting cannabis and this is definitely something I hope someone is looking at.

This is the real part where we need the cannabis community and scientists to work together. I see that more and more everyday at my University so I am hopeful .

Edit to add: the most pressing research we need right now is a better understanding of the fate of accumulated contaminants in Cannabis.

Further edit to add: this is gonna be unpopular but after getting out of a meeting discussing these results with my committee, I am not sure hyperaccumulator is the right term for Cannabis. Even though it does accumulate, most is stored in roots. Effective hyperaccumulators translocate most metals from root tissue to shoot tissue and that just isn’t seen as much in cannabis as other plants. I think its more likely to be a scavenger plant with nonspecific nutrient transporters into root tissue or transporters that are “leaky”. Either way, lots of interesting information and plenty to discuss and debate still on this topic!

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#77

I have that covered for him… :sweat_smile: :rofl: :joy:

I was gonna ask about this.
If you leave it in your trunk on a hot day…

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#78

The problem here is decarboxlatying them successfully. I have not found yet a good formula for such.

#79

@JerseyW2 The only reason you would need to decarb THCA is for edibles. When THCA is heated during smoking or vaping it naturally decarbs itself. If you do want to decarb your flower it can be baked in the oven or boiled in a sous vide bag at 250 for about two hours. Decarbing can also be accomplished low and slow at 150 degrees for 24- 48 hours if you want to persevere some of the taste and flavor

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