Why Most Pot Sucks

So, this is a bit synchronistic for me today because I've been reading the political and commercial tea leaves over the last 72hrs and your concerns are being referenced in multiple countries at different levels of gov't with some specificity. Off the top let me apologize for not having the referenced links and footnotes @ this second. I hate it when people say that but I don't want to forget. I'll revisit.

  • A new German govt has been prepping to take power post-electn. and they have a legalization-focused suite of bills which is great but more to the point they were keen to address, unprompted, concerns that micro-growers won't have a leg to stand on and two officials in this period have touched on it in prepared remarks.

  • The US govt is likewise expressed specifics supportive of micros, which is urea in the wind. More to the point, red-state Republicans have been expressing support for micro grows and an effective 'farmer's market' this past week.

  • Canadian federal officials prepared statement focused on their concern that people who 'fell behind' as a result of social and economic ostracisation as a by-product of charges during prohibition ought not to be kept from catching up as MJ sector participants, in particular as micro suppliers. More urea in the breeze I know, but the BC government then publicized the fact that they have been running a pilot program for cost-effective micro quality assurance, co-ops and micro grower direct 2 consumer marketplaces, among other initiatives, in the North Kootenay region. It is a program, only 12 months and really a study, that's made a lot of mistakes, but that's the idea. It's also had some great success and our complex world means you have to run experiments in controlled conditions, you can't model everything. I'm intimately aware of this region having owned property and had family there, dragged bat guano up mountains and waterworks to and from glaciers. It wasn't chosen for its beauty but, wow, there's an embarrassment of riches back that way.
That's a lot of overlapping discussion internationally and it's not a conspiracy or altruist coordination. My guess is that on the left, all is as it ever has been, "Duuude, like, hemp will save the planet. Get on the bus, man... huh-huh, huh-huh". On the right is where there's been a development. The crushing economic realities of conservative dominant heartland America, rural Canada and Europe, mean that this is where production can be accomplished at the lowest cost. Meanwhile, the severe need to start producing something valuable again to reduce dependence on service-sector jobs with dim futures and awful pay has eroded "Just Say No" concerns over the feared reefer madness. Look, there are a lot of Republicans, conservative Canadians and Europeans growing weed. Stars have aligned and conservative politicians have figured out what we've been tryin' to tell 'em for decades: There's f%$#-all downside to growing weed and a s#$%!-ton of up.
 
It really depends on how the dispensaries are supplied. In Holland it was all done by smaller 4 plant grows. And people rented those grows as every person got 4 flowering plants allowed. It meant that smokers and growers where the same people. Now legalisation is a hot topic. It's massive corporations with a board of members ,non of which have ever smoked,
Are making the decisions. Weed can't be grown for profit first quality 2nd.

The reason black markets exists in Canada and USA is 2 reasons. Quality and cost.

Tax raises prices to areas people don't want to pay. Especially for shitty product that pops as you smoke it because of the chems.

In the UK we have no legal options. There's 2 kinds of growers. Massive "warehouse" grows and private smaller growers like me.

The warehouse grows are very hit and miss. They are needed to cope with demand but greed and risk means they use growth hormones like rock resonator. Which increases the chance of you getting cancer and makes the buds rock solid but in an artificial way. It's shit.

So unless USA and Canada starts allowing smaller scale growers to sell to dispensaries the quality will keep going down and black market with continue to thrive.
I mean, that's the way our agriculture went in the US. Everything is being cranked out of massive farms where they dump all kinds of chemicals on the crops to get their "commodity" out the door.
Now there's a small but growing demand for organic produce but even a majority of those farmers are only "organic" come inspection time. I hope that now more folks are gardening during the pandemic they've experienced how much better their food tastes when grown with love and care and will be demanding that quality from the market.
Just like with cannabis where we growers see it as mother nature's medicine and all of the greedy green rush folks just see it as another commodity to make a dollar off of. Maybe there will be enough demand for better quality that a niche market will open up.
But it may go the same route as tobacco. Our great grand parents used to grow his own but once the big players got involved it wasn't worth the effort when you could get pre-made smokes and snuff for super cheap
 
Well consider what was available for source, what info was present to be used, studied or referenced. The amount of internet info was just getting started ie.- Google it

In 2008 most still used a pager and had to use a landline to reply back. An app was a small starter portion on the front page of most restaurant menus.

LEDs existed, were used to indicate if a device was on or off. Most street corner nickel bags were maybe 4 to 6 percent THC. With 12 to 16 percent THC sinsemilla (seedless female flower) considered " top shelf ", Kripi bud.

But all in all, a lot of what was common sense back then is still relative. I do think soil gives more improved turp's and flavor characteristics. All nuit's have have gained in quality and performance. And glad for what has improved and what is next to come.

The 7-week flush part is hard to swallow, I was introduced a few years back to the process of not flushing. Yes, you will remove accumulated soils out of the medium. But why not feed till first signs of trich's clouding. Then just adjust your water to a PH of over 8 to 8.5 for the last 2 to 3 weeks??

Stop with all nuit's and anything remaining in the medium will get locked out. It is counter intuitive to what you would normally want to happen. But it now gets flipped to be an asset. The plant maintains it cycle, no stress or root rot being the watering schedule doesn't change.

The way above PH doesn't limit the plants up take of water, only causes the roots ability to absorb the dissolved particles and micro nuit's. If it restricts uptake in the beginning it will do the same at the end // last 2 to 3 weeks. Forcing the plant to purge out what is left inside it. You are causing a deficiency on purpose. Not what is left in the 5 gallon or whatever pot / hydro reservoir you are using.

Washing it into the sewer system??

Just 2 cents in 2022 Keep'em Green!!

Peace ... :surf:
:Namaste: :420:
 
Well consider what was available for source, what info was present to be used, studied or referenced. The amount of internet info was just getting started ie.- Google it

In 2008 most still used a pager and had to use a landline to reply back. An app was a small starter portion on the front page of most restaurant menus.

LEDs existed, were used to indicate if a device was on or off. Most street corner nickel bags were maybe 4 to 6 percent THC. With 12 to 16 percent THC sinsemilla (seedless female flower) considered " top shelf ", Kripi bud.

But all in all, a lot of what was common sense back then is still relative. I do think soil gives more improved turp's and flavor characteristics. All nuit's have have gained in quality and performance. And glad for what has improved and what is next to come.

The 7-week flush part is hard to swallow, I was introduced a few years back to the process of not flushing. Yes, you will remove accumulated soils out of the medium. But why not feed till first signs of trich's clouding. Then just adjust your water to a PH of over 8 to 8.5 for the last 2 to 3 weeks??

Stop with all nuit's and anything remaining in the medium will get locked out. It is counter intuitive to what you would normally want to happen. But it now gets flipped to be an asset. The plant maintains it cycle, no stress or root rot being the watering schedule doesn't change.

The way above PH doesn't limit the plants up take of water, only causes the roots ability to absorb the dissolved particles and micro nuit's. If it restricts uptake in the beginning it will do the same at the end // last 2 to 3 weeks. Forcing the plant to purge out what is left inside it. You are causing a deficiency on purpose. Not what is left in the 5 gallon or whatever pot / hydro reservoir you are using.

Washing it into the sewer system??

Just 2 cents in 2022 Keep'em Green!!

Peace ... :surf:
:Namaste: :420:
Exactly! I'm usually growing perpetually so all the girls in flower get the same strength nutes. Sometimes towards the end when the tricks get cloudy I'll just dump water on them to keep the plant alive a little long or sometimes if I'm REALLY busy I'll stop watering too and start the drying process early LOL. She'll suck up all the moisture from the coco and most of the leaves will drop with a few good shakes of the stem.
There's probably a bunch of reasons to not do that but eh, I'm busy
 
Exactly! I'm usually growing perpetually so all the girls in flower get the same strength nutes. Sometimes towards the end when the tricks get cloudy I'll just dump water on them to keep the plant alive a little long or sometimes if I'm REALLY busy I'll stop watering too and start the drying process early LOL. She'll suck up all the moisture from the coco and most of the leaves will drop with a few good shakes of the stem.
There's probably a bunch of reasons to not do that but eh, I'm busy
I do the same thing - as ripening progresses, I lower nute strength and zero it after a week or two and just allow the plant to bring itself forward to harvest-time and milky trichomes. I also drought some too as the window for harvest is within 2-to-4-weeks.
 
Stop Making These Mistakes!


As my appreciation for fine cannabis grows, I have become more aware of the shortcomings of most of today’s herb. Upon careful examination, I have determined that the same four problems plague a surprisingly high percentage of today’s “kind bud.” And it’s not the genetics! Most of the strains nowadays would produce amazing medicine if grown, flushed, cured, and handled properly.

This article will address these steps that so many growers worldwide often neglect. After many years, I have concluded that due to these steps being improperly attended to, when I sample or judge herb I am ultimately judging the grower, rather than the strain itself. And most growers are not addressing these four crucial steps properly, therefore rendering their finished product inferior to what is ultimately possible.

1. Herb must be organically grown

In order for ganja to express its full dazzling array of flavor and all the subtle tones that are available, it simply must be grown organically. I know that many hydro growers would disagree until the end of time with me on this one, but it’s true. Being the author of The Cannabible 1 and 2, I have been fortunate enough to sample many different growers’ attempts at the same strain, even from clone, and with the exception of the Chem strain, the organic always tastes better. (For the full story of the Chem, see Cannabible 2.)

This is not to say that properly grown hydro can’t taste delicious. Sometimes it can be very delicious indeed. But that same strain grown organically will have a more diverse and, well, satisfying flavor, and certainly a better aftertaste. Ten or twenty years ago, I can understand why hydro growers would have been resistant to switch to organics – too heavy, stinky, and messy. Luckily, this is not the case today. There are many brands of organic fertilizers and liquified nutrients that are potent and easy to use, manageable, not too messy or smelly, and affordable as well. Any good grow store should have a selection of such products.

The big reason why most chemical hydro growers keep on using chemicals is they think their bottom line – yield – would be lower with organics. This is simply not the case. Properly grown organics will yield just as much – or more – as using chemicals. I have conducted experiments that have proven this time and time again. And even if the yield is a little less, it would still be worth it, considering the quality is greatly enhanced. Better herb is worth more money, if that’s what you’re looking for.


Bottom line is this. Plants, like humans, do not want to be fed (or treated with) chemicals. And just like a human can live (for a while) on fast food, cigarettes, and beer, they will not be thriving. It’s the same with a plant. Though chemically fed hydroponic plants might look healthy on the outside for a while, they are not thriving on the inside. All the chemicals only serve to weaken the defenses of the plant, just like they do in a human.

Nature’s way of dealing with these weakened plants is to send bugs, viruses, molds, and other pathogen to eliminate the weak specimens. (Survival of the fittest, remember?) Again, this is the same way it works with humans. The answer, contrary to what the chemical peddlers will tell you, is not to spray on more chemicals! One only needs to take a brief glimpse at what chemical agriculture has done to modern farming and farmers to understand this. Millions of acres of rich, fertile farmland have been reduced to barren, toxic, dead wasteland.


All this from being repeatedly doused (drowned) with what our government calls “safe” chemicals and fertilizers. Why repeat this destructive cycle in your grow? Consider this – one of the main techniques I use to judge herb is to roll a joint (with a Club rolling paper) and pay particular attention to the second half of the joint. This is where the true test comes in. Any decent herb can taste good on the first few hits of a joint, but it’s truly special herb that tastes great right down to the last hit, with the roach burning your fingers! Most of the herb I come across tastes like hot tarry smoke by the second half of a joint, and this loses major points in my books. Properly grown (and flushed!) organic herb almost always tastes great down to the end of a joint. Chemically grown herb almost always tastes like ‘schwill’ by the second half. Try this experiment yourself, and I think you will agree.

The second half of a bowl or bong hit also clearly reveals the benefits of organics. With chemically fed hydro, you end up with a black cruddy ball of harsh carcinogens by the second half of your bowl. With properly grown organics, it tastes delicious down to the last hit, when it will easily blow away as a clean gray ash.


2. Herb must be flushed properly

In order for ganja to reach its ultimate potential quality, the plants must be cut off from food and thoroughly flushed with clean water for several weeks or more before harvest. Of course this step is much more important when harsh chemical fertilizers are used than with organics. But if ultimate quality is to be reached it is necessary with any setup. The amount of flush time varies depending on the situation, but I generally recommend stopping all feeding and switching to pure water approximately one month before harvest. This timing can be shortened for indoor plants or lengthened for outdoor plants, depending on container size, the fertilizers used, the strains grown, and a number of other things. This gives the plant time to finish all remaining food, and the leaves will then start changing colors and the plant yellowing. Yes, you might be able to crank out another few grams or so by feeding them up to the end or close to it, but we are going for ultimate quality here, not quantity. Cannabis plants that are allowed to yellow on their path to senescence have a much more beautiful and complex flavor when smoked or vaporized than plants that are fed and are bright green right up to harvest. Again, I have done experiments that have proven this again and again. Skipping this step is one of the main factors that has ruined most Canadian and Dutch herb. There are many connoisseurs who completely agree with me on this point!


3. Herb must be cured properly

Curing is such an important step to producing fine herb, but sadly it is so often ignored or neglected. I believe this is because the demand for ganja is so great that people will buy herb that hasn’t even been dried properly, let alone cured! Also, I believe many growers are ignorant not only of the importance of this step, but how to do it as well. I am constantly amazed at how often I see herb that is genetically excellent, grown very well, harvested properly, dried properly, then sold and/or consumed without being cured and therefore half as tasty as it could have been. The curing process is quite simple. Here is how it’s done.

After the herb is done drying, when a stem will snap if bent, the medicine is transferred to glass jars, preferably. (Plastic Tupperware or other clean and sealable containers can be used if the quantity is too large to jar.) Over the next couple of weeks, at least several times per day if possible, the jars are opened briefly. This allows the trapped gasses inside the jar to escape, essentially ‘sweating’ the nugs to golden perfection. This process also allows the last moisture deep inside the buds to find its way out. During the curing process, the ganja’s smell will change from a slightly vegetative stink to a near-orgasmic and lusciously diverse aroma (depending on the strain of course)!

Not only is the flavor greatly enhanced by curing, but the high also improves. The medicine will smoke better as well, burning more evenly. Most importantly, a multitude of delicious flavors will reveal themselves that otherwise would have gone unnoticed and unappreciated.


One last point – herb that has been cured properly doesn’t even need to be squeezed, and therefore degraded, to smell its best. Just opening a jar of properly cured cannabis and smelling the jar will make your mouth water!


4. Herb must be handled delicately

Don’t even get me started on this one! Cannabis flowers are INCREDIBLY fragile and delicate. I cannot stress this point enough.

This is the single biggest reason that most pot sucks. By the time it reaches the smoker’s lungs, most herb has been manhandled to the point where it is probably half as potent and tasty as it would have been if handled properly. This degradation usually starts when the plants are still alive, as people will squeeze the buds to get a smell, bump into them, drag them along the ground, etc. During and after harvest they are manhandled even more as they are broken down, transported, hung, trimmed, moved around, dropped, etc. Every time they are touched they degrade. It’s that simple.

In order to produce what I call connoiseur-grade herb, incredible care must be taken at every single step of the process to ensure that the flowers are touched, disturbed, and molested as little as possible. This means all the way to the bong, joint, or vaporizer, where most people will roll up a little ball and put it in the bowl, getting their fingers nice and sticky in the process. That lovely smelling sticky feeling on your fingers, that’s the best part of your hit, which will now be wasted. Take it from me: I spend a lot of time looking at fine cannabis under the microscope at high magnification, so I have become hyper-aware of just how delicate the flowers are, noticing how each time they are even just barely touched, that so many resin glands are knocked off or explode. And what is the first thing most people do when packed a bong hit? They stick their finger on it and smash it down into the bowl, even if it didn’t need it, thereby removing pretty much all the resin from the top! (This is my pet peeve!)

Believe it or not, most of the compressed shwaggy herb from Mexico, Jamaica, Africa, and many other commercial herb centers of the world would have been absolutely fantastic if you or I would have harvested them and cared for them from that point on.

Even the simple process of ripping off and packing a bong hit, if not done with the utmost of care, can seriously degrade the herb. Personally, I use scissors (always the same pair) to cut off the piece I am going to smoke and use the metal blade to push the herb into the bowl, not even letting my fingers/hands get sticky at all. Yes, you lose a little on the scissors but at least it stays there and builds up for easy collection, unlike if you use your fingers.

And rolling a joint? This pretty much decimates the herb if you break it up with your (very sticky) fingers. I highly recommend the use of an herb grinder (available everywhere) for breaking up the herb. Yes, it does knock off resin, but again, it builds up inside the grinder and can be collected, unlike if you use your fingers.

None of these four crucial steps costs any more money to take, yet they are so often skipped or neglected with the herb commonly grown and smoked by most people. It does not have to be this way. Please grow or demand cannabis that is organic, flushed, cured, and handled like the delicate flowers that they are, and we will watch the worldwide quality of marijuana shoot way up to the highest heights!

And lastly, please love your plants, as this has been proven to have a wonderful effect on gardens and their growers!

by Jason King
Great advice, Smokin' Moose. Appreciate your effort to the forum.
 
Re: fertilizer...its not a complicated concept. Plants can only absorb nutrients in their elemental form. Organic nutrients are broken down by microbes to yield inorganic elements that roots can absorb.. There is no advantage to the plant to use organic feed. It is better for microorganisms and soil health, but in a synthetic environment like growing in a container where microbiology is unstable, then inorganic could be a better way to go.
I think you're kinda rite in theory a there, I believe there's more variables involved than what you might be considering when stuff gets growing.
If space is limited hydro is hard to beat but
there's stuff in organic not in the bottles.
Consider nutrients like lightspectrum you can do well with just a couple parts of the light spectrum Or possibly better with a full well rounded spectrum.
With Chem nutes only narrow concentrated spectrum missing some nutrients but super concentrated and easy to work with.
With organic a wider spectrum but more diluted= takes more space.
The organic provides a more diverse nutrient available.
+Living Soil can be a big booster to organic.
 
Stop Making These Mistakes!


As my appreciation for fine cannabis grows, I have become more aware of the shortcomings of most of today’s herb. Upon careful examination, I have determined that the same four problems plague a surprisingly high percentage of today’s “kind bud.” And it’s not the genetics! Most of the strains nowadays would produce amazing medicine if grown, flushed, cured, and handled properly.

This article will address these steps that so many growers worldwide often neglect. After many years, I have concluded that due to these steps being improperly attended to, when I sample or judge herb I am ultimately judging the grower, rather than the strain itself. And most growers are not addressing these four crucial steps properly, therefore rendering their finished product inferior to what is ultimately possible.

1. Herb must be organically grown

In order for ganja to express its full dazzling array of flavor and all the subtle tones that are available, it simply must be grown organically. I know that many hydro growers would disagree until the end of time with me on this one, but it’s true. Being the author of The Cannabible 1 and 2, I have been fortunate enough to sample many different growers’ attempts at the same strain, even from clone, and with the exception of the Chem strain, the organic always tastes better. (For the full story of the Chem, see Cannabible 2.)

This is not to say that properly grown hydro can’t taste delicious. Sometimes it can be very delicious indeed. But that same strain grown organically will have a more diverse and, well, satisfying flavor, and certainly a better aftertaste. Ten or twenty years ago, I can understand why hydro growers would have been resistant to switch to organics – too heavy, stinky, and messy. Luckily, this is not the case today. There are many brands of organic fertilizers and liquified nutrients that are potent and easy to use, manageable, not too messy or smelly, and affordable as well. Any good grow store should have a selection of such products.

The big reason why most chemical hydro growers keep on using chemicals is they think their bottom line – yield – would be lower with organics. This is simply not the case. Properly grown organics will yield just as much – or more – as using chemicals. I have conducted experiments that have proven this time and time again. And even if the yield is a little less, it would still be worth it, considering the quality is greatly enhanced. Better herb is worth more money, if that’s what you’re looking for.


Bottom line is this. Plants, like humans, do not want to be fed (or treated with) chemicals. And just like a human can live (for a while) on fast food, cigarettes, and beer, they will not be thriving. It’s the same with a plant. Though chemically fed hydroponic plants might look healthy on the outside for a while, they are not thriving on the inside. All the chemicals only serve to weaken the defenses of the plant, just like they do in a human.

Nature’s way of dealing with these weakened plants is to send bugs, viruses, molds, and other pathogen to eliminate the weak specimens. (Survival of the fittest, remember?) Again, this is the same way it works with humans. The answer, contrary to what the chemical peddlers will tell you, is not to spray on more chemicals! One only needs to take a brief glimpse at what chemical agriculture has done to modern farming and farmers to understand this. Millions of acres of rich, fertile farmland have been reduced to barren, toxic, dead wasteland.


All this from being repeatedly doused (drowned) with what our government calls “safe” chemicals and fertilizers. Why repeat this destructive cycle in your grow? Consider this – one of the main techniques I use to judge herb is to roll a joint (with a Club rolling paper) and pay particular attention to the second half of the joint. This is where the true test comes in. Any decent herb can taste good on the first few hits of a joint, but it’s truly special herb that tastes great right down to the last hit, with the roach burning your fingers! Most of the herb I come across tastes like hot tarry smoke by the second half of a joint, and this loses major points in my books. Properly grown (and flushed!) organic herb almost always tastes great down to the end of a joint. Chemically grown herb almost always tastes like ‘schwill’ by the second half. Try this experiment yourself, and I think you will agree.

The second half of a bowl or bong hit also clearly reveals the benefits of organics. With chemically fed hydro, you end up with a black cruddy ball of harsh carcinogens by the second half of your bowl. With properly grown organics, it tastes delicious down to the last hit, when it will easily blow away as a clean gray ash.


2. Herb must be flushed properly

In order for ganja to reach its ultimate potential quality, the plants must be cut off from food and thoroughly flushed with clean water for several weeks or more before harvest. Of course this step is much more important when harsh chemical fertilizers are used than with organics. But if ultimate quality is to be reached it is necessary with any setup. The amount of flush time varies depending on the situation, but I generally recommend stopping all feeding and switching to pure water approximately one month before harvest. This timing can be shortened for indoor plants or lengthened for outdoor plants, depending on container size, the fertilizers used, the strains grown, and a number of other things. This gives the plant time to finish all remaining food, and the leaves will then start changing colors and the plant yellowing. Yes, you might be able to crank out another few grams or so by feeding them up to the end or close to it, but we are going for ultimate quality here, not quantity. Cannabis plants that are allowed to yellow on their path to senescence have a much more beautiful and complex flavor when smoked or vaporized than plants that are fed and are bright green right up to harvest. Again, I have done experiments that have proven this again and again. Skipping this step is one of the main factors that has ruined most Canadian and Dutch herb. There are many connoisseurs who completely agree with me on this point!


3. Herb must be cured properly

Curing is such an important step to producing fine herb, but sadly it is so often ignored or neglected. I believe this is because the demand for ganja is so great that people will buy herb that hasn’t even been dried properly, let alone cured! Also, I believe many growers are ignorant not only of the importance of this step, but how to do it as well. I am constantly amazed at how often I see herb that is genetically excellent, grown very well, harvested properly, dried properly, then sold and/or consumed without being cured and therefore half as tasty as it could have been. The curing process is quite simple. Here is how it’s done.

After the herb is done drying, when a stem will snap if bent, the medicine is transferred to glass jars, preferably. (Plastic Tupperware or other clean and sealable containers can be used if the quantity is too large to jar.) Over the next couple of weeks, at least several times per day if possible, the jars are opened briefly. This allows the trapped gasses inside the jar to escape, essentially ‘sweating’ the nugs to golden perfection. This process also allows the last moisture deep inside the buds to find its way out. During the curing process, the ganja’s smell will change from a slightly vegetative stink to a near-orgasmic and lusciously diverse aroma (depending on the strain of course)!

Not only is the flavor greatly enhanced by curing, but the high also improves. The medicine will smoke better as well, burning more evenly. Most importantly, a multitude of delicious flavors will reveal themselves that otherwise would have gone unnoticed and unappreciated.


One last point – herb that has been cured properly doesn’t even need to be squeezed, and therefore degraded, to smell its best. Just opening a jar of properly cured cannabis and smelling the jar will make your mouth water!


4. Herb must be handled delicately

Don’t even get me started on this one! Cannabis flowers are INCREDIBLY fragile and delicate. I cannot stress this point enough.

This is the single biggest reason that most pot sucks. By the time it reaches the smoker’s lungs, most herb has been manhandled to the point where it is probably half as potent and tasty as it would have been if handled properly. This degradation usually starts when the plants are still alive, as people will squeeze the buds to get a smell, bump into them, drag them along the ground, etc. During and after harvest they are manhandled even more as they are broken down, transported, hung, trimmed, moved around, dropped, etc. Every time they are touched they degrade. It’s that simple.

In order to produce what I call connoiseur-grade herb, incredible care must be taken at every single step of the process to ensure that the flowers are touched, disturbed, and molested as little as possible. This means all the way to the bong, joint, or vaporizer, where most people will roll up a little ball and put it in the bowl, getting their fingers nice and sticky in the process. That lovely smelling sticky feeling on your fingers, that’s the best part of your hit, which will now be wasted. Take it from me: I spend a lot of time looking at fine cannabis under the microscope at high magnification, so I have become hyper-aware of just how delicate the flowers are, noticing how each time they are even just barely touched, that so many resin glands are knocked off or explode. And what is the first thing most people do when packed a bong hit? They stick their finger on it and smash it down into the bowl, even if it didn’t need it, thereby removing pretty much all the resin from the top! (This is my pet peeve!)

Believe it or not, most of the compressed shwaggy herb from Mexico, Jamaica, Africa, and many other commercial herb centers of the world would have been absolutely fantastic if you or I would have harvested them and cared for them from that point on.

Even the simple process of ripping off and packing a bong hit, if not done with the utmost of care, can seriously degrade the herb. Personally, I use scissors (always the same pair) to cut off the piece I am going to smoke and use the metal blade to push the herb into the bowl, not even letting my fingers/hands get sticky at all. Yes, you lose a little on the scissors but at least it stays there and builds up for easy collection, unlike if you use your fingers.

And rolling a joint? This pretty much decimates the herb if you break it up with your (very sticky) fingers. I highly recommend the use of an herb grinder (available everywhere) for breaking up the herb. Yes, it does knock off resin, but again, it builds up inside the grinder and can be collected, unlike if you use your fingers.

None of these four crucial steps costs any more money to take, yet they are so often skipped or neglected with the herb commonly grown and smoked by most people. It does not have to be this way. Please grow or demand cannabis that is organic, flushed, cured, and handled like the delicate flowers that they are, and we will watch the worldwide quality of marijuana shoot way up to the highest heights!

And lastly, please love your plants, as this has been proven to have a wonderful effect on gardens and their growers!

by Jason King
Great read Jason! Thanks for posting it!
 
Maybe have your wife try suppositories, gets lots of cannabinoids in the system without the high.
update...she's been able to handle it now in mild doses, definitely helping her sleep and with pain. I've been making olive oil infusions of her favorite strains and dosing 5ml at a time through her feeding tube which has helped a lot. Mango in the morning, purple haze at lunch, and northern lights before bed time.
She can eat again (mostly soft foods) but still has a hard time swallowing pills so we still do her meds and such through the feeding tube.
 
I'd agree, with my own grows as proof, except for your "flush". I grow in LSO and DO NOT flush. Now if you said "drought induced shock resulting in increased cannabinoid production" around week 7 with a reference to Guelph University.....
 
Don't flush LSO. Flushing does not remove anything from an already developed bud.

I like facts. Like the research journal published recently talking about the increase in cannabinoid production due to drought. Increasing Inflorescence Dry Weight and Cannabinoid Content in Medical Cannabis Using Controlled Drought Stress


Here are the facts:

High nitrogen in final weeks, specifically Nitrate, reduces desirable metabolites: Sugars and oils that synthesize terpenoids. Crops fed a high nitrogen diet before harvest has diminished flavor, diminished shelf life, and diminished overall value. Boveda weed. Bad flavor lame smell, can't cure, neither improve.

High calcium is no different from high nitrogen. In fact every single clawed, twisted, burnt tipped plant on this website is calcium toxic, not Nitrogen toxic. Calcium is absolutely the yield and quality killer of modern Cannabis. Earthy, chalky, creamy, bitter, soapy. Pepto bismal. Weird "flavors" arise from the high calcium diets.

Potassium moves photosynthetic carbohydrates from source to sink. Removing potassium will leave raw carbohydrates in your leaves, instead of being metabolized into terpenoids in the trichomes. Common antagonists to potassium include Calcium and phosphorus.

Boron transports photosynthetic lipids from source to sink. Removing boron will cause lipids to be left in the leaves instead of being metabolized into terpenoids in the trichomes. Common Boron antagonists include ridiculous calcium levels, lack of UV-b spectrum, low organic content, poor Vpd, and underwatering.

Sulfur is required to synthesize the large amounts of oils formed by Cannabis cones. Removing sulfur will remove flavor from aliphatic crops such as garlic and Cannabis. Common Sulfur antagonists include Selenium, Molybdenum, Zinc. (Brix vs acids vs fats is a topic no one wants to touch.)

Sulfur is unfortunately synergistic with Nitrate. To limit this synergism, molybdenum must be used to further antagonize Nitrate,but at levels not detrimental to Sulfur. Most fertilizer brands have obviously gave up on oil production, opting to chase Brix and vegetation.

Magnesium speeds up the production of oil synthesis. Removing magnesium will lower overall metabolite levels. Removing Magnesium will also allow excess calcium in the end product.

Phosphorus moves photosynthates from leaves to trichomes. For whatever reason people want purple leaves,but that indicates energy has been wasted producing cannabinoid precursors that will not be transported to the trichomes for cannabinoid synthesis. Perhaps purple trichomes will catch on, no other part of plant should have untapped energy.


Summary: Flush out Calnit. Stop pushing all trace minerals across the board. Grow weed with green tips at harvest and stop trying to refrigerate a handful of lame terpenes. Your bud will be MUCH better when it smells like thiols and carboxlic acids that get more abundant as the plant continues to metabolize after harvest, while everyone else's bud is breaking its fatty acid bonds, producing hay aromas and magic disappearing weed aroma.
 
here are the basic's Genetics, Light and Medium are the three important things for sucess in cultivating. Now when we tie in the "human factor" that's when the issues start !!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
Here are the facts:

High nitrogen in final weeks, specifically Nitrate, reduces desirable metabolites: Sugars and oils that synthesize terpenoids. Crops fed a high nitrogen diet before harvest has diminished flavor, diminished shelf life, and diminished overall value. Boveda weed. Bad flavor lame smell, can't cure, neither improve.

High calcium is no different from high nitrogen. In fact every single clawed, twisted, burnt tipped plant on this website is calcium toxic, not Nitrogen toxic. Calcium is absolutely the yield and quality killer of modern Cannabis. Earthy, chalky, creamy, bitter, soapy. Pepto bismal. Weird "flavors" arise from the high calcium diets.

Potassium moves photosynthetic carbohydrates from source to sink. Removing potassium will leave raw carbohydrates in your leaves, instead of being metabolized into terpenoids in the trichomes. Common antagonists to potassium include Calcium and phosphorus.

Boron transports photosynthetic lipids from source to sink. Removing boron will cause lipids to be left in the leaves instead of being metabolized into terpenoids in the trichomes. Common Boron antagonists include ridiculous calcium levels, lack of UV-b spectrum, low organic content, poor Vpd, and underwatering.

Sulfur is required to synthesize the large amounts of oils formed by Cannabis cones. Removing sulfur will remove flavor from aliphatic crops such as garlic and Cannabis. Common Sulfur antagonists include Selenium, Molybdenum, Zinc. (Brix vs acids vs fats is a topic no one wants to touch.)

Sulfur is unfortunately synergistic with Nitrate. To limit this synergism, molybdenum must be used to further antagonize Nitrate,but at levels not detrimental to Sulfur. Most fertilizer brands have obviously gave up on oil production, opting to chase Brix and vegetation.

Magnesium speeds up the production of oil synthesis. Removing magnesium will lower overall metabolite levels. Removing Magnesium will also allow excess calcium in the end product.

Phosphorus moves photosynthates from leaves to trichomes. For whatever reason people want purple leaves,but that indicates energy has been wasted producing cannabinoid precursors that will not be transported to the trichomes for cannabinoid synthesis. Perhaps purple trichomes will catch on, no other part of plant should have untapped energy.


Summary: Flush out Calnit. Stop pushing all trace minerals across the board. Grow weed with green tips at harvest and stop trying to refrigerate a handful of lame terpenes. Your bud will be MUCH better when it smells like thiols and carboxlic acids that get more abundant as the plant continues to metabolize after harvest, while everyone else's bud is breaking its fatty acid bonds, producing hay aromas and magic disappearing weed aroma.
in relation to flushing - consider a product called "fish Shit" no flushing agent's use it the last weeks before harvest
 
Stop Making These Mistakes!


As my appreciation for fine cannabis grows, I have become more aware of the shortcomings of most of today’s herb. Upon careful examination, I have determined that the same four problems plague a surprisingly high percentage of today’s “kind bud.” And it’s not the genetics! Most of the strains nowadays would produce amazing medicine if grown, flushed, cured, and handled properly.

This article will address these steps that so many growers worldwide often neglect. After many years, I have concluded that due to these steps being improperly attended to, when I sample or judge herb I am ultimately judging the grower, rather than the strain itself. And most growers are not addressing these four crucial steps properly, therefore rendering their finished product inferior to what is ultimately possible.

1. Herb must be organically grown

In order for ganja to express its full dazzling array of flavor and all the subtle tones that are available, it simply must be grown organically. I know that many hydro growers would disagree until the end of time with me on this one, but it’s true. Being the author of The Cannabible 1 and 2, I have been fortunate enough to sample many different growers’ attempts at the same strain, even from clone, and with the exception of the Chem strain, the organic always tastes better. (For the full story of the Chem, see Cannabible 2.)

This is not to say that properly grown hydro can’t taste delicious. Sometimes it can be very delicious indeed. But that same strain grown organically will have a more diverse and, well, satisfying flavor, and certainly a better aftertaste. Ten or twenty years ago, I can understand why hydro growers would have been resistant to switch to organics – too heavy, stinky, and messy. Luckily, this is not the case today. There are many brands of organic fertilizers and liquified nutrients that are potent and easy to use, manageable, not too messy or smelly, and affordable as well. Any good grow store should have a selection of such products.

The big reason why most chemical hydro growers keep on using chemicals is they think their bottom line – yield – would be lower with organics. This is simply not the case. Properly grown organics will yield just as much – or more – as using chemicals. I have conducted experiments that have proven this time and time again. And even if the yield is a little less, it would still be worth it, considering the quality is greatly enhanced. Better herb is worth more money, if that’s what you’re looking for.


Bottom line is this. Plants, like humans, do not want to be fed (or treated with) chemicals. And just like a human can live (for a while) on fast food, cigarettes, and beer, they will not be thriving. It’s the same with a plant. Though chemically fed hydroponic plants might look healthy on the outside for a while, they are not thriving on the inside. All the chemicals only serve to weaken the defenses of the plant, just like they do in a human.

Nature’s way of dealing with these weakened plants is to send bugs, viruses, molds, and other pathogen to eliminate the weak specimens. (Survival of the fittest, remember?) Again, this is the same way it works with humans. The answer, contrary to what the chemical peddlers will tell you, is not to spray on more chemicals! One only needs to take a brief glimpse at what chemical agriculture has done to modern farming and farmers to understand this. Millions of acres of rich, fertile farmland have been reduced to barren, toxic, dead wasteland.


All this from being repeatedly doused (drowned) with what our government calls “safe” chemicals and fertilizers. Why repeat this destructive cycle in your grow? Consider this – one of the main techniques I use to judge herb is to roll a joint (with a Club rolling paper) and pay particular attention to the second half of the joint. This is where the true test comes in. Any decent herb can taste good on the first few hits of a joint, but it’s truly special herb that tastes great right down to the last hit, with the roach burning your fingers! Most of the herb I come across tastes like hot tarry smoke by the second half of a joint, and this loses major points in my books. Properly grown (and flushed!) organic herb almost always tastes great down to the end of a joint. Chemically grown herb almost always tastes like ‘schwill’ by the second half. Try this experiment yourself, and I think you will agree.

The second half of a bowl or bong hit also clearly reveals the benefits of organics. With chemically fed hydro, you end up with a black cruddy ball of harsh carcinogens by the second half of your bowl. With properly grown organics, it tastes delicious down to the last hit, when it will easily blow away as a clean gray ash.


2. Herb must be flushed properly

In order for ganja to reach its ultimate potential quality, the plants must be cut off from food and thoroughly flushed with clean water for several weeks or more before harvest. Of course this step is much more important when harsh chemical fertilizers are used than with organics. But if ultimate quality is to be reached it is necessary with any setup. The amount of flush time varies depending on the situation, but I generally recommend stopping all feeding and switching to pure water approximately one month before harvest. This timing can be shortened for indoor plants or lengthened for outdoor plants, depending on container size, the fertilizers used, the strains grown, and a number of other things. This gives the plant time to finish all remaining food, and the leaves will then start changing colors and the plant yellowing. Yes, you might be able to crank out another few grams or so by feeding them up to the end or close to it, but we are going for ultimate quality here, not quantity. Cannabis plants that are allowed to yellow on their path to senescence have a much more beautiful and complex flavor when smoked or vaporized than plants that are fed and are bright green right up to harvest. Again, I have done experiments that have proven this again and again. Skipping this step is one of the main factors that has ruined most Canadian and Dutch herb. There are many connoisseurs who completely agree with me on this point!


3. Herb must be cured properly

Curing is such an important step to producing fine herb, but sadly it is so often ignored or neglected. I believe this is because the demand for ganja is so great that people will buy herb that hasn’t even been dried properly, let alone cured! Also, I believe many growers are ignorant not only of the importance of this step, but how to do it as well. I am constantly amazed at how often I see herb that is genetically excellent, grown very well, harvested properly, dried properly, then sold and/or consumed without being cured and therefore half as tasty as it could have been. The curing process is quite simple. Here is how it’s done.

After the herb is done drying, when a stem will snap if bent, the medicine is transferred to glass jars, preferably. (Plastic Tupperware or other clean and sealable containers can be used if the quantity is too large to jar.) Over the next couple of weeks, at least several times per day if possible, the jars are opened briefly. This allows the trapped gasses inside the jar to escape, essentially ‘sweating’ the nugs to golden perfection. This process also allows the last moisture deep inside the buds to find its way out. During the curing process, the ganja’s smell will change from a slightly vegetative stink to a near-orgasmic and lusciously diverse aroma (depending on the strain of course)!

Not only is the flavor greatly enhanced by curing, but the high also improves. The medicine will smoke better as well, burning more evenly. Most importantly, a multitude of delicious flavors will reveal themselves that otherwise would have gone unnoticed and unappreciated.


One last point – herb that has been cured properly doesn’t even need to be squeezed, and therefore degraded, to smell its best. Just opening a jar of properly cured cannabis and smelling the jar will make your mouth water!


4. Herb must be handled delicately

Don’t even get me started on this one! Cannabis flowers are INCREDIBLY fragile and delicate. I cannot stress this point enough.

This is the single biggest reason that most pot sucks. By the time it reaches the smoker’s lungs, most herb has been manhandled to the point where it is probably half as potent and tasty as it would have been if handled properly. This degradation usually starts when the plants are still alive, as people will squeeze the buds to get a smell, bump into them, drag them along the ground, etc. During and after harvest they are manhandled even more as they are broken down, transported, hung, trimmed, moved around, dropped, etc. Every time they are touched they degrade. It’s that simple.

In order to produce what I call connoiseur-grade herb, incredible care must be taken at every single step of the process to ensure that the flowers are touched, disturbed, and molested as little as possible. This means all the way to the bong, joint, or vaporizer, where most people will roll up a little ball and put it in the bowl, getting their fingers nice and sticky in the process. That lovely smelling sticky feeling on your fingers, that’s the best part of your hit, which will now be wasted. Take it from me: I spend a lot of time looking at fine cannabis under the microscope at high magnification, so I have become hyper-aware of just how delicate the flowers are, noticing how each time they are even just barely touched, that so many resin glands are knocked off or explode. And what is the first thing most people do when packed a bong hit? They stick their finger on it and smash it down into the bowl, even if it didn’t need it, thereby removing pretty much all the resin from the top! (This is my pet peeve!)

Believe it or not, most of the compressed shwaggy herb from Mexico, Jamaica, Africa, and many other commercial herb centers of the world would have been absolutely fantastic if you or I would have harvested them and cared for them from that point on.

Even the simple process of ripping off and packing a bong hit, if not done with the utmost of care, can seriously degrade the herb. Personally, I use scissors (always the same pair) to cut off the piece I am going to smoke and use the metal blade to push the herb into the bowl, not even letting my fingers/hands get sticky at all. Yes, you lose a little on the scissors but at least it stays there and builds up for easy collection, unlike if you use your fingers.

And rolling a joint? This pretty much decimates the herb if you break it up with your (very sticky) fingers. I highly recommend the use of an herb grinder (available everywhere) for breaking up the herb. Yes, it does knock off resin, but again, it builds up inside the grinder and can be collected, unlike if you use your fingers.

None of these four crucial steps costs any more money to take, yet they are so often skipped or neglected with the herb commonly grown and smoked by most people. It does not have to be this way. Please grow or demand cannabis that is organic, flushed, cured, and handled like the delicate flowers that they are, and we will watch the worldwide quality of marijuana shoot way up to the highest heights!

And lastly, please love your plants, as this has been proven to have a wonderful effect on gardens and their growers!

by Jason King
Good read, I am flushing now and I want to harvest before my trichomes turn amber. My leaves never really yellow very much. I grow in a small 10x13 room, any guidance on how to prolong the flush and still keep the cerebral effect?
 
Stop Making These Mistakes!


As my appreciation for fine cannabis grows, I have become more aware of the shortcomings of most of today’s herb. Upon careful examination, I have determined that the same four problems plague a surprisingly high percentage of today’s “kind bud.” And it’s not the genetics! Most of the strains nowadays would produce amazing medicine if grown, flushed, cured, and handled properly.

This article will address these steps that so many growers worldwide often neglect. After many years, I have concluded that due to these steps being improperly attended to, when I sample or judge herb I am ultimately judging the grower, rather than the strain itself. And most growers are not addressing these four crucial steps properly, therefore rendering their finished product inferior to what is ultimately possible.

1. Herb must be organically grown

In order for ganja to express its full dazzling array of flavor and all the subtle tones that are available, it simply must be grown organically. I know that many hydro growers would disagree until the end of time with me on this one, but it’s true. Being the author of The Cannabible 1 and 2, I have been fortunate enough to sample many different growers’ attempts at the same strain, even from clone, and with the exception of the Chem strain, the organic always tastes better. (For the full story of the Chem, see Cannabible 2.)

This is not to say that properly grown hydro can’t taste delicious. Sometimes it can be very delicious indeed. But that same strain grown organically will have a more diverse and, well, satisfying flavor, and certainly a better aftertaste. Ten or twenty years ago, I can understand why hydro growers would have been resistant to switch to organics – too heavy, stinky, and messy. Luckily, this is not the case today. There are many brands of organic fertilizers and liquified nutrients that are potent and easy to use, manageable, not too messy or smelly, and affordable as well. Any good grow store should have a selection of such products.

The big reason why most chemical hydro growers keep on using chemicals is they think their bottom line – yield – would be lower with organics. This is simply not the case. Properly grown organics will yield just as much – or more – as using chemicals. I have conducted experiments that have proven this time and time again. And even if the yield is a little less, it would still be worth it, considering the quality is greatly enhanced. Better herb is worth more money, if that’s what you’re looking for.


Bottom line is this. Plants, like humans, do not want to be fed (or treated with) chemicals. And just like a human can live (for a while) on fast food, cigarettes, and beer, they will not be thriving. It’s the same with a plant. Though chemically fed hydroponic plants might look healthy on the outside for a while, they are not thriving on the inside. All the chemicals only serve to weaken the defenses of the plant, just like they do in a human.

Nature’s way of dealing with these weakened plants is to send bugs, viruses, molds, and other pathogen to eliminate the weak specimens. (Survival of the fittest, remember?) Again, this is the same way it works with humans. The answer, contrary to what the chemical peddlers will tell you, is not to spray on more chemicals! One only needs to take a brief glimpse at what chemical agriculture has done to modern farming and farmers to understand this. Millions of acres of rich, fertile farmland have been reduced to barren, toxic, dead wasteland.


All this from being repeatedly doused (drowned) with what our government calls “safe” chemicals and fertilizers. Why repeat this destructive cycle in your grow? Consider this – one of the main techniques I use to judge herb is to roll a joint (with a Club rolling paper) and pay particular attention to the second half of the joint. This is where the true test comes in. Any decent herb can taste good on the first few hits of a joint, but it’s truly special herb that tastes great right down to the last hit, with the roach burning your fingers! Most of the herb I come across tastes like hot tarry smoke by the second half of a joint, and this loses major points in my books. Properly grown (and flushed!) organic herb almost always tastes great down to the end of a joint. Chemically grown herb almost always tastes like ‘schwill’ by the second half. Try this experiment yourself, and I think you will agree.

The second half of a bowl or bong hit also clearly reveals the benefits of organics. With chemically fed hydro, you end up with a black cruddy ball of harsh carcinogens by the second half of your bowl. With properly grown organics, it tastes delicious down to the last hit, when it will easily blow away as a clean gray ash.


2. Herb must be flushed properly

In order for ganja to reach its ultimate potential quality, the plants must be cut off from food and thoroughly flushed with clean water for several weeks or more before harvest. Of course this step is much more important when harsh chemical fertilizers are used than with organics. But if ultimate quality is to be reached it is necessary with any setup. The amount of flush time varies depending on the situation, but I generally recommend stopping all feeding and switching to pure water approximately one month before harvest. This timing can be shortened for indoor plants or lengthened for outdoor plants, depending on container size, the fertilizers used, the strains grown, and a number of other things. This gives the plant time to finish all remaining food, and the leaves will then start changing colors and the plant yellowing. Yes, you might be able to crank out another few grams or so by feeding them up to the end or close to it, but we are going for ultimate quality here, not quantity. Cannabis plants that are allowed to yellow on their path to senescence have a much more beautiful and complex flavor when smoked or vaporized than plants that are fed and are bright green right up to harvest. Again, I have done experiments that have proven this again and again. Skipping this step is one of the main factors that has ruined most Canadian and Dutch herb. There are many connoisseurs who completely agree with me on this point!


3. Herb must be cured properly

Curing is such an important step to producing fine herb, but sadly it is so often ignored or neglected. I believe this is because the demand for ganja is so great that people will buy herb that hasn’t even been dried properly, let alone cured! Also, I believe many growers are ignorant not only of the importance of this step, but how to do it as well. I am constantly amazed at how often I see herb that is genetically excellent, grown very well, harvested properly, dried properly, then sold and/or consumed without being cured and therefore half as tasty as it could have been. The curing process is quite simple. Here is how it’s done.

After the herb is done drying, when a stem will snap if bent, the medicine is transferred to glass jars, preferably. (Plastic Tupperware or other clean and sealable containers can be used if the quantity is too large to jar.) Over the next couple of weeks, at least several times per day if possible, the jars are opened briefly. This allows the trapped gasses inside the jar to escape, essentially ‘sweating’ the nugs to golden perfection. This process also allows the last moisture deep inside the buds to find its way out. During the curing process, the ganja’s smell will change from a slightly vegetative stink to a near-orgasmic and lusciously diverse aroma (depending on the strain of course)!

Not only is the flavor greatly enhanced by curing, but the high also improves. The medicine will smoke better as well, burning more evenly. Most importantly, a multitude of delicious flavors will reveal themselves that otherwise would have gone unnoticed and unappreciated.


One last point – herb that has been cured properly doesn’t even need to be squeezed, and therefore degraded, to smell its best. Just opening a jar of properly cured cannabis and smelling the jar will make your mouth water!


4. Herb must be handled delicately

Don’t even get me started on this one! Cannabis flowers are INCREDIBLY fragile and delicate. I cannot stress this point enough.

This is the single biggest reason that most pot sucks. By the time it reaches the smoker’s lungs, most herb has been manhandled to the point where it is probably half as potent and tasty as it would have been if handled properly. This degradation usually starts when the plants are still alive, as people will squeeze the buds to get a smell, bump into them, drag them along the ground, etc. During and after harvest they are manhandled even more as they are broken down, transported, hung, trimmed, moved around, dropped, etc. Every time they are touched they degrade. It’s that simple.

In order to produce what I call connoiseur-grade herb, incredible care must be taken at every single step of the process to ensure that the flowers are touched, disturbed, and molested as little as possible. This means all the way to the bong, joint, or vaporizer, where most people will roll up a little ball and put it in the bowl, getting their fingers nice and sticky in the process. That lovely smelling sticky feeling on your fingers, that’s the best part of your hit, which will now be wasted. Take it from me: I spend a lot of time looking at fine cannabis under the microscope at high magnification, so I have become hyper-aware of just how delicate the flowers are, noticing how each time they are even just barely touched, that so many resin glands are knocked off or explode. And what is the first thing most people do when packed a bong hit? They stick their finger on it and smash it down into the bowl, even if it didn’t need it, thereby removing pretty much all the resin from the top! (This is my pet peeve!)

Believe it or not, most of the compressed shwaggy herb from Mexico, Jamaica, Africa, and many other commercial herb centers of the world would have been absolutely fantastic if you or I would have harvested them and cared for them from that point on.

Even the simple process of ripping off and packing a bong hit, if not done with the utmost of care, can seriously degrade the herb. Personally, I use scissors (always the same pair) to cut off the piece I am going to smoke and use the metal blade to push the herb into the bowl, not even letting my fingers/hands get sticky at all. Yes, you lose a little on the scissors but at least it stays there and builds up for easy collection, unlike if you use your fingers.

And rolling a joint? This pretty much decimates the herb if you break it up with your (very sticky) fingers. I highly recommend the use of an herb grinder (available everywhere) for breaking up the herb. Yes, it does knock off resin, but again, it builds up inside the grinder and can be collected, unlike if you use your fingers.

None of these four crucial steps costs any more money to take, yet they are so often skipped or neglected with the herb commonly grown and smoked by most people. It does not have to be this way. Please grow or demand cannabis that is organic, flushed, cured, and handled like the delicate flowers that they are, and we will watch the worldwide quality of marijuana shoot way up to the highest heights!

And lastly, please love your plants, as this has been proven to have a wonderful effect on gardens and their growers!

by Jason King
A man after my own heart! So we'll said.
 
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