“Hey HMJ, shatter vs. wax—what’s the deal?” We get asked that question, in one form or another, at least twenty times a day via face-to-face conversations, email, fax (yes, fax), text message, IM, and every other form of conventional and electronic communication you can think of. It’s become so ubiquitous, it recently topped the list of most-common questions (right above the long-time king, “Who are the Grateful Dead and why are they following me?”). To answer that question—shatter vs. wax, not the omnipresence of Jerry Garcia and his cohorts, we’ve put together this article that outlines the difference between cannabis concentrates and talks about why they are so great. But before we can talk about the present, we need to talk about the past and how marijuana consumption morphed into what it is today. Let’s start with smoking.

Smoking marijuana has been around for a long time. It’s an age-old, tried-and-trusted method that probably originated soon after the caveman figured out he could make fire. In fact, after consuming some prehistoric bud, I wouldn’t be surprised if some mile-high caveman had the bright idea to invent the wheel (we’ve all had those strokes of “genius”, right?) because he needed a faster way to make his munchie runs. But what about eating marijuana?

Ingesting marijuana like food (oregano?) may have been the way cannabis was originally discovered. We don’t know for sure if it was ingested or smoked first, but we do know that cannabis was already in use in China between 10,000 and 2,000 B.C. It’s not hard to imagine an ancient Chinese emperor plucking the leaves off a cannabis plant to steep as a tea for the psychoactive and medicinal benefits it holds. In fact, weed tea has been, and still is, a common cannabis staple in many east and southeast Asian countries. Though weed tea never really caught on in the United States, in modern times (a.k.a. the early 20th century), we damn near perfected the development of the pot brownie. You’re welcome world!

So smoking and ingesting have been the primary means of marijuana consumption since the very beginning. Now, though, a new method of consumption is gaining in popularity: dabbing. It’s in dabbing that we first encounter the questions surrounding shatter vs. wax. But before we get to that, let’s delve into dabbing so we know what this method of getting high is all about.

Source: http://www.cannahacker.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/RQjb4lQ.jpg

What Is Dabbing?

Dabbing is the process of heating butane hash oil, or BHO (we’ll get to that in a minute), using a special rig (a bong equipped for the purpose also known as an oil rig), and then inhaling the resultant vapor. So yeah, you could say it’s kind of like smoking, but that would be like saying that a Boeing 747 is kind of like the Wright Brother’s first plane. Sure, they both fly, but that’s where the similarities end. Dabbing gets its name from the tiny dabs of concentrate (BHO or otherwise) that are used in combination with the oil rig to get high.

That’s dabbing in a nutshell. But let’s take a moment to touch on what makes dabbing so special…and so controversial: butane hash oil.

BHO is a cannabis concentrate (again, we’ll get to that in a minute) that can exhibit an average potency much higher than the herb you smoke. Here’s how it breaks down:

• Concentrates – 80% or more THC
• Regular herb – Between 15 and 20% on average

That’s a huge difference! Concentrates are three to four times more potent than regular buds that are smoked or ingested. Think about how high you got last time you smoked your favorite strain of Girl Scout Cookies. Now multiply that high by four and you can quickly see why the difference in potency is so important. In fact, the extreme potency was the reason this new process was given the name dabbing…because just a dab’ll do ya.

So we mentioned the fact that butane hash oil is a concentrate with a pretty powerful kick. But what, exactly, are concentrates and how do they get to be so awesome? We’ll answer that in the next section.

Source: http://36.media.tumblr.com/58dacbcb4b9d77a2e9bda448d804d965/tumblr_nakgd8fXHD1sx80r1o1_1280.jpg

[Read more…]

The legalization of marijuana, be it medicinal or recreational, has introduced a new practice into the mainstream that was once hidden from prying eyes. That practice? Improvement. For the longest time, the science of marijuana was relegated to basements, backrooms, and other dark corners. Now, though, it’s been thrust into the light. Because of marijuana’s new-found acceptance, the burgeoning cannabis industry has experienced a rapid acceleration in advancement over the past decade. Novel methods of consumption (e.g., dabbing and vaping) have become popular. And along with those novel methods have come novel substances like wax, shatter, and liquid THC. Now an even newer form of marijuana has been introduced and is suddenly growing in popularity. What is that new form? It’s live resin. But what exactly is live resin? How is live resin made? How does it relate to other concentrates like oil, wax, and shatter? And is live resin worth the extra money? This article will answer those questions.

Source: Herb.co

What Is Live Resin?

Live resin is a concentrate, like wax or shatter, that is higher in terpenes than other cannabis material. What exactly are terpenes? Terpenes are oils secreted by the cannabis plant that give each strain its unique taste and smell. The cool thing is that terpenes are produced by the very same glands that produce THC and CBD. So you know there’s gotta be something good going on there.

So far, more than one hundred terpenes have been identified. And, like snowflakes, each one is different. Common terpenes include:

• Limonene
• Myrecene
• Alpha-Pinene
• Beta-Pinene
• Delta 3 Carene
• Alpha Bisabolol
• Linalool
• Borneol
• Caryophyllene
• Eucalyptol
• Terpineol
• Cineole

Best of all, each and every one has its own distinct medicinal property. So whether you’re struggling with anxiety, cancer, depression, insomnia, nausea, lack of appetite, or some other ailment, there’s probably a terp to treat it.

Terpenes are so cool, we could do a whole article on them alone. Oh wait, we have! If you’re so inclined, you can delve into the details here while we switch our focus back to live resin.

We’ll go into this in detail in the next section, but, essentially, live resin is extracted from fresh, sometimes frozen, whole cannabis plants instead of plant material that has been decarboxylated (dried and cured). In fact, that’s where the product gets its name: the “live” in live resin refers to resin extracted from live plants.

Because live resin is processed without first decarboxylating the plant, the resulting concentrate more accurately captures the terpene profile of the living plant. This can result in better aromas, better flavors, and better medicinal effects. All good things if you ask us.

Source: Imgur.com

[Read more…]