Quote:

A rose by any other name is still a rose. The same, it turns out, can be said for cannabis.

Newly published research from UBC's Okanagan campus has determined that many strains of cannabis have virtually identical levels of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD), despite their unique street names.

"It is estimated that there are several hundred or perhaps thousands of strains of cannabis currently being cultivated," says professor Susan Murch, who teaches chemistry at UBC Okanagan. "We wanted to know how different they truly are, given the variety of unique and exotic names."

Cannabis breeders have historically selected strains to produce THC, CBD, or both, she explains. But the growers have had limited access to different types of plants and there are few records of the parentage of different strains.

"People have had informal breeding programs for a long time," Murch says. "In a structured program we would keep track of the lineage, such as where the parent plants came from and their characteristics. With unstructured breeding, which is the current norm, particular plants were picked for some characteristic and then given a new name."

Until now, the chemical breakdown of many strains has been unknown because of informal breeding.

Elizabeth Mudge, a doctoral student working with Murch and Paula Brown, Canada Research Chair in Phytoanalytics at the British Columbia Institute of Technology, examined the cannabinoid—a class of chemical compounds that include THC and CBD—profiles of 33 strains of cannabis from five licensed producers.

The research shows that most strains, regardless of their origin or name, had the same amount of THC and CBD. They further discovered that breeding highly potent strains of cannabis impacts the genetic diversity within the crop, but not THC or CBD levels.

However, Mudge says that they found differences in a number of previously unknown cannabinoids—and these newly discovered compounds, present in low quantities, could be related to pharmacological effects and serve as a source of new medicines.

"A high abundance compound in a plant, such as THC or CBD, isn't necessarily responsible for the unique medicinal effects of certain strains," says Mudge. "Understanding the presence of the low abundance cannabinoids could provide valuable information to the medical cannabis community."

Currently licensed producers are only required to report THC and CBD values. But Murch says her new research highlights that the important distinguishing chemicals in cannabis strains are not necessarily being analyzed and may not be fully identified.

Murch says while patients are using medical cannabis for a variety of reasons, they actually have very little information on how to base their product choice. This research is a first step toward establishing an alternative approach to classifying medical cannabis and providing consumers with better information.

Murch's research was recently published in Nature's Scientific Reports.

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It would be nice if the article gave the numbers and compound names though.

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Morel Guy said:

I call bullshit.

Cannabinoid profiles vary and vary a lot.  They give no evidenc at all.

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This seems BS, from the paper they link:



Maybe I am misunderstanding but I believe those graphs show the concentration of different cannabinoids in different strains.

Then here are the results from the tests:

Quote:

Two cannabinoids for which standards were obtained, CDBV and CBL, were not detected in any strain. The 11 remaining cannabinoids with available chemical reference standards were identified and quantified. THCA content ranged from 0.76 to 20.71% w/w, with almost a linear increase in content from the lowest to highest strain with an r2 of 0.97, while CBDA content ranged from <MDL to 18.11% w/w, with the highest CBDA strains having the lowest THCA contents (Fig. 1). In THC abundant strains the CBDA levels were less than 0.15%, while in CBD abundant strains the content was greater than 5%. THC, the decarboxylated form of THCA was present in strains from <LOQ up to 2% by weight in some strains, while CBD contents ranged from <MDL to 0.8%. CBD was most prevalent in high CBDA strains. In addition, 7 cannabinoids present at lower levels were quantified using individual calibration standards: THCV, CBG, CBN, CBC, CDBVA, CBGA and Δ8-THC.

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Then there's this graph which shows unkown cannabinoids found in high CBD strains:



I didn't read the full article/paper but the data doesn't seem to match the headline's claim

split_by_nine said:

just to comment:

i am tired of all the phony strain names. i bought club weed yesterday that was called "Bobblehead".. honestly, i think it is a good marketing ploy when your target audience is titilated by new, random-sounding bud names.. but for me, i just like to call it cannabis. good weed is distinguishable from not-so-good weed.. but it's all just weed.

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split_by_nine said:

just to comment:

i am tired of all the phony strain names. i bought club weed yesterday that was called "Bobblehead".. honestly, i think it is a good marketing ploy when your target audience is titilated by new, random-sounding bud names.. but for me, i just like to call it cannabis. good weed is distinguishable from not-so-good weed.. but it's all just weed.

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trvptamine said:

Yeah nearly 40% sounds ridiculous though. How can a plant be 40% thc? Damn near half of it would be thc at that point.

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musiclover420 said:

trvptamine said:

Yeah nearly 40% sounds ridiculous though. How can a plant be 40% thc? Damn near half of it would be thc at that point.

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I've always assumed it means "40% of the cannabinoids are THC" not that the bud itself is literally 40% THC.

Even 25% THC would be pretty obscene, that would be 1/4th pure THC which even in resin form would be obscene.

There's dank hash that is only 40-50% THC but still super potent and delicious.

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Fractal420 said:

musiclover420 said:

trvptamine said:

Yeah nearly 40% sounds ridiculous though. How can a plant be 40% thc? Damn near half of it would be thc at that point.

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I've always assumed it means "40% of the cannabinoids are THC" not that the bud itself is literally 40% THC.

Even 25% THC would be pretty obscene, that would be 1/4th pure THC which even in resin form would be obscene.

There's dank hash that is only 40-50% THC but still super potent and delicious.

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Yeah i think youre right. Which means most people are very confused about this. Literally whole different definition of what thc % means

People assume 25% means 1/4 of the bud is thc. Literally

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It still seems weird though as you'd think they would include a total cannabinoids % if they did it that way

FractalMind said:

Terpine profiles (and genetics) are what make cannabis strains unique, not thc content. Some lower thc bud is preferable to high thc bud because of unique terpines or higher levels of more rarer cannabinoids (there are hundreds)

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BlueIndian said:

There's only 6-7 real strains out there...original...like shrooms where did they come from? everything we have today are variety's and hybrids....all based off 6-7 originals.

And having equal levels of THc is complete horseshit

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Fractal420 said:

Some really potent extracts arent sticky at all either, and some that are less potent get all over your fingers

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It's not even potency exactly, I love some rock solid shatter but some crumblier/oiler extracts tend to have more terpenes and can be just as potent IME.

Some of the nicest oil I've smoked was an amber Master Kush alcohol oil, was super sticky but incredibly tasty and potent.

Also the consistency is very temperature based, some shatter can stay solid even in fairly warm temps but at a certain point even the hardest shatter will start to get sticky especially when handled

Quote:

This study seems to be lacking. They didn't study terpene profiles, and there is a shit load of cannabinoids other than THC and CBD...

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musiclover420 said:

Fractal420 said:

musiclover420 said:

trvptamine said:

Yeah nearly 40% sounds ridiculous though. How can a plant be 40% thc? Damn near half of it would be thc at that point.

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I've always assumed it means "40% of the cannabinoids are THC" not that the bud itself is literally 40% THC.

Even 25% THC would be pretty obscene, that would be 1/4th pure THC which even in resin form would be obscene.

There's dank hash that is only 40-50% THC but still super potent and delicious.

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Yeah i think youre right. Which means most people are very confused about this. Literally whole different definition of what thc % means

People assume 25% means 1/4 of the bud is thc. Literally

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It still seems weird though as you'd think they would include a total cannabinoids % if they did it that way

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Fractal420 said:

musiclover420 said:

trvptamine said:

Yeah nearly 40% sounds ridiculous though. How can a plant be 40% thc? Damn near half of it would be thc at that point.

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I've always assumed it means "40% of the cannabinoids are THC" not that the bud itself is literally 40% THC.

Even 25% THC would be pretty obscene, that would be 1/4th pure THC which even in resin form would be obscene.

There's dank hash that is only 40-50% THC but still super potent and delicious.

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Yeah i think youre right. Which means most people are very confused about this. Literally whole different definition of what thc % means

People assume 25% means 1/4 of the bud is thc. Literally

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Fractal420 said:

....I dont claim to even know for sure which is correct. For a long time i assumed it was % by weight (25% means 250mg out of 1g), now im not sure

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passifloracaerulea said:

Unless you can do a quick conversion in your head.

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Sounds like there may be a simple solution to this. Most trichomes can be mechanically separated from the plants flowers, especially when the plant is cold and the trichomes become brittle. Since THC is sticky/viscous and not the easiest thing to handle, and we know the majority of THC ends up in the end of the trichome heads, try this:

Sift the majority of trichome heads out from a known weight of flowers. Myself and a lot of other people here have microscopes so this shouldn't be difficult.

Once the trichome heads are removed, weigh the flowers that are left over. Account for the small percentage of THC that is still going to be in the trichome stems and other parts of the plants. I seriously doubt you're going to find that any of those strains has anywhere near 20% of the flower weight being trichome heads. And remember, the trichome heads aren't just THC, so if you remove most of them, and it still doesn't add up to 20% of the weight of the flowers, you've found your answer.


EDIT:

Quote:

The vast majority of THC is found on structural components within the secretory cavity, particularly the wall, fibrous matrix, and surface features of vesicles. This suggests THC may be chemically bound to these structural components rather than being free in the cavity.

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Quote:

We also separated them as to glands over a vein as contrasted to non-vein areas. Results showed that stalked glands over a vein on the bract contained more THC content, approximately 20 times more, than the sessile glands over a leaf vein. Similarly, stalked glands over a non-vein area contained much more THC than sessile glands over the leaf non-vein area.

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Katz 206 said:

i dont want to start an argument or anything, but lets be honest... these numbers are being inflated. your not gonna be seeing 30% almost 1/3 of the plant being THC. i never go by percents ever. i dont want to outright say they are faking their numbers, i dont want to outright say some places are faking "pesticide free" either. but your not required to test the entire batch, i have heard some places will have 1 plant they dont use pesticides on and have that one tested but use it on the rest of the crop for instance. i have no hard proof of this, its just what i think

that being said, im a huge bud snob and always want some dank that taste delicious. theres is clear differences in taste, and ive had weed tested at 17%ish get me just as high as something testing close to 30%, theres no real big difference at all if any. this is more evidence that leads me to believe numbers are bull shit.

edit: just thought of a question. say you have an orange or something picked off of the tree, and you test its sugar content and weight. then you take that same orange and dehydrate it. then you test its sugar content and weight. thats the only phenomena that can explain numbers near 30% imo, i mean that almost 50% bud looks pretty fucking lit but id feel like a retard if i was selling that at the farmers market back in the day trying to convince people my shit was testing that high lol. i remember people being called out all the time for even saying they had weed tested in the high 20's. people would tend to call them out but maybe thats just cause they are trying to finesse a better price

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Necropolis said:

Sounds like there may be a simple solution to this. Most trichomes can be mechanically separated from the plants flowers, especially when the plant is cold and the trichomes become brittle. Since THC is sticky/viscous and not the easiest thing to handle, and we know the majority of THC ends up in the end of the trichome heads, try this:

Sift the majority of trichome heads out from a known weight of flowers. Myself and a lot of other people here have microscopes so this shouldn't be difficult.

Once the trichome heads are removed, weigh the flowers that are left over. Account for the small percentage of THC that is still going to be in the trichome stems and other parts of the plants. I seriously doubt you're going to find that any of those strains has anywhere near 20% of the flower weight being trichome heads. And remember, the trichome heads aren't just THC, so if you remove most of them, and it still doesn't add up to 20% of the weight of the flowers, you've found your answer.


EDIT:

Quote:

The vast majority of THC is found on structural components within the secretory cavity, particularly the wall, fibrous matrix, and surface features of vesicles. This suggests THC may be chemically bound to these structural components rather than being free in the cavity.

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That's a rather small part of the plant where most of the THC is found. Like I said, if you don't find 20% of the weight of flowers being removed when trichome heads are removed, there is no way the flowers are 20% THC by weight.

EDIT: To put it in perspective, showing how much more THC you'll find in a small part at the end of the trichome heads compared with the rest of the plant:

Quote:

We also separated them as to glands over a vein as contrasted to non-vein areas. Results showed that stalked glands over a vein on the bract contained more THC content, approximately 20 times more, than the sessile glands over a leaf vein. Similarly, stalked glands over a non-vein area contained much more THC than sessile glands over the leaf non-vein area.

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They used low THC strains, but it doesn't change the ratio. You're still going to end up with a lot more THC in the glands/end of trichomes compared with the rest of the plant.

http://www.hempreport.com/issues/17/malbody17.html

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bodhisatta said:

That removing the trichromes test wouldn't work at all. The bud needs to be completely dehydrated of all water to get the % yeild test.

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Katz 206 said:

....that doesnt explain why getting something well below 30% thc can be just as good if not better.

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Necropolis said:

Sounds like there may be a simple solution to this. Most trichomes can be mechanically separated from the plants flowers, especially when the plant is cold and the trichomes become brittle. Since THC is sticky/viscous and not the easiest thing to handle, and we know the majority of THC ends up in the end of the trichome heads, try this:

Sift the majority of trichome heads out from a known weight of flowers. Myself and a lot of other people here have microscopes so this shouldn't be difficult.

Once the trichome heads are removed, weigh the flowers that are left over. Account for the small percentage of THC that is still going to be in the trichome stems and other parts of the plants. I seriously doubt you're going to find that any of those strains has anywhere near 20% of the flower weight being trichome heads. And remember, the trichome heads aren't just THC, so if you remove most of them, and it still doesn't add up to 20% of the weight of the flowers, you've found your answer.

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