By: Bob Montoya
Gone is the need for sneaking around to get good Bud.
When products dry out, is the bag you buy at a shop still the same weight as when it was packaged?
These days in the majority of our nation we can simply stop by the store and choose from hundreds of varieties of Cannabis. The packaging is fancy and precludes one from smelling or verifying weight. It is assumed that the info on the label is correct. Potency testing can vary in accuracy, as labs have different processes and procedures which are commonly argued. Weight is not as subjective. A gram is a gram, and when it is premium prices, anything less is theft. Experienced growers know cannabis is mostly water, as much as 90%. Packaging product at exactly a gram is a mistake and inevitably dishonest.
We set out to two stores many miles apart supplied by similar producers. The first, Lucid on Martin Ave, in Lacey was staffed by twenty somethings with a real zeal for sales. My secret shopper is a 50 something woman with decades of Cannabis experience, the young lady behind the counter was enthusiastic. She pulled several samples from the showcase. A fat bud of Venom 21.8% THC by Doc Croc was selected. The clerk put the fat bud back in the showcase and turned around to pick a package from a drawer, it was not the fat bud she had asked for. Back at the only place we are allowed to open the package (privacy of our home) we discovered that the contents of the Venom package was a few crumbs of flower and stems that weighed in at .8 grams on two calibrated scales. The harvest date was listed as 09/01/2016. What may have been a gram back in September of last year was no longer.
The second store is further south in Longview WA.
Marijuana Mart is a good example of a no pressure shopping experience. The people behind the counter greeted us and offered a written menu to select from before anything was put on the counter. We chose Lavender by Kitty’s Canna Connection. The label listed a harvest date, packaging date, and a “best used by” date. The contents weighed a gram, was a solid bud and very fragrant. I asked the manager how they selected producers and product. Kris Haskins explained that everything coming in gets sampled for weight and appeal. These are people in it for the long haul, respecting customers and themselves.
If you ever get the feeling you are on a used car lot being preyed on by high pressure salespeople, look closely and watch for sleight of hand tactics before the sale. A harvest date should be at least two weeks before package date. If it has a best by date, know that the closer you come to it, the lighter the flower contents will be. Of course producers could just pack it heavy, like every other good dealer would do to keep customers satisfied.
