Cannabis Contaminants

Today we’re going to talk about something that isn’t addressed as much as it should be; cannabis contaminants. Cannabis can be contaminated in many different ways during and after its life cycle; this can be due to natural causes regarding the environment or by fault of the grower or big drug dealing organizations.

Many cannabis consumers still have no other option than to buy their gear on the black market. However, those consumers don’t really stop and think about the contamination factor and they can sometimes consume something that’s potentially damaging to their health. In some cases of prolonged consumption of contaminated cannabis, certain pathologies and illnesses have been detected, some worse than others.

It’s important to check the state of your buds before buying and smoking them, never underestimating the presence of potential dangerous contaminants. You need to know exactly what you’re consuming, and even the most trustworthy of places can hide some dangerous secrets; contaminated cannabis has even been detected in social cannabis clubs and in Dutch Coffee Shops.

Let’s explain the different kinds of contaminants:

• Abiotic contaminants are more common outdoors than indoors. These kinds of contaminants are dust, hairs, sand, feathers, nutrient excesses (especially nitrogen, which appears in plants that are much too green when harvested or when the grower has used mineral fertilizers with high presences of heavy metals). Consuming buds that are covered in these microscopic elements can cause coughing and extreme respiratory irritation.
• The presence of heavy metals due to inevitable air/water/soil contamination factors; many people don’t know that cannabis plants, like many others, act on the soil they’re in and essentially clean it by absorbing everything that’s in it, including heavy metals and other contaminants. It’s an efficient soil cleaning system; however it can be harmful to consume buds that are so saturated with heavy metals and other residues.
• Biotic contaminants are extremely common, like insects, mites, fungi, bacteria, viruses and other organisms. A famous case that made headlines in the 80s involved a massive outbreak of hepatitis in the United States. It was discovered that the illness was associated to users consuming cannabis from the same illegal batch from Mexico. It turns out that the plants had been fertilized using human excrement.
• Pesticide residues that remain in the buds, usually because people tend to ignore the safety period in which you’re not supposed to use these kinds of products days before the harvest. Many growers prefer to not lose a good part of their crops due to plague and fungi attacks. The main issue is that many use chemical pesticides even when they’re not necessary.

Apart from all of these things, many dealers and those in charge of Dutch coffee shops use methods to increase the weight of their buds but contaminate them in the process. Residues of sand, glass and silicon have been found in buds and sometimes dealers deliberately submerge their buds in these substances to increase the weight. You can usually tell just by looking at them, but sometimes you need a microscope or magnifying glass.

Finally, we’re going to give you a list of characteristics that an altered or contaminated bud will have:

• Dry cannabis that might look fine but it burns irregularly.
• When you light a joint sparks fly from the tip, accompanied by a chemical smell similar to burnt plastic.
• The ash is hard with residues and it won’t fall off of the joint itself. It’s dark, almost black.
• Extremely compact buds, almost like rocks, that bounce if dropped on the table. Much too heavy to be a naturally grown bud.
• Hard buds that look swollen; when opened up, the inside is much darker than the outside, which has a white shiny substance that is clearly not your typical cannabis resin.
• Some chemical additives make buds constantly humid, impossible to dry by leaving them out.
• It’s easy to detect and find glass or sand residues at the bottom of baggies, and if you rustle it around any small particles should drop to the bottom, making it obvious that the weed is contaminated.
• If you softly bite a piece of bud and you notice little hard bits, then it’s most likely sand or glass and it’s contaminated, as no cannabis plants produce these kinds of residues.

With all of this information it’s pretty easy to imagine how dangerous it can be to consume a contaminated final product, being equally dangerous for your short term and long term health. The easiest solution is to grow your own cannabis at home, respecting the basic rules for a healthy and biological grow.

Author: Matteo
Translation: Ciara Murphy