A recent report states that Indica flowers contain a THC concentration of 34%. Smoking Godfather OG reportedly causes a high in the head that eventually turns into a euphoric feeling all over the body. Everyone is looking for the “best”, what they like and what they think gives them the best high. Companies are claiming to have the next best product, so it's important to understand how much THC you're consuming to get the most out of your marijuana experience.
Understanding how much THC you're consuming will help you better understand if you should improve your bud or your smoking method. It will also allow you to open the door to new products, such as concentrates and edibles, and then you can start using marijuana in a variety of creative and fun ways. Now we all know that extracts are the most attractive, how can you overlook the potential of a wax or oil with more than 80% THC? So, we want to focus on smoking good weed and how to get the most out of every stroke. To understand how strong marijuana can be, you first have to understand how it is measured.
Sometimes you'll see percentage measurements, but other times you'll see measurements in milligrams. To make things more confusing, different ways of use can also affect you differently. A percentage indicates the amount of THC inside a bud, but once the bud breaks down into its various forms, such as extracts or concentrates, you need a way to measure to know how strong it is. Milligrams are a way of measuring strength with a focus on weight.
This allows you to add ingredients to groceries, with a deeper understanding of how high you're going to go. There are 1000 milligrams in 1 gram, which means that if you use your percentage of THC in one gram of herb multiplied by 1000 milligrams, you'll be able to understand the power of pure THC. Of course, you should consider how much you eat or drink at one time to understand how much it will affect you. Putting the same 25 milligrams of the cookie in a gummy would be like smoking an eighth of a jerk. Putting it in a drink and then sipping it will allow for a longer and smoother high.
This mathematics becomes vital in professional production, when numbers must be closely controlled to create consistent products. To correctly compare each bowl, look at the percentage of loss, not the final THC, since each option comes with a different bowl size or the amount used. For some smokers, the nostalgic feeling of grinding a bud and packing their favorite bowl or rolling up a couple of joints to share with friends is still the preferred option. But when smoking a joint, you only receive 20 to 37% of the flower's THC due to pyrolytic destruction (i.e., when buds get too hot and destroy THC) and lose between 40 and 50% due to secondary smoke (or smoke seen when no one is actively puffing). You have the potential to consume 95 milligrams of THC; if we consider an average intake of 30%, then we can calculate 14.25 milligrams of THC per joint when shared with someone else. Similar results can be expected from a blunt or other coiled bud.
When smoking a bowl, at first glance you may think you'll lose less since the grass is hidden, but unfortunately that's not exactly true. When smoking a bowl, it's said that overheating alone loses 60% of THC and you only get 40% of THC since an open flame or torch is kept directly above the bud all the time. The idea is to smoke all or almost all of the buds in one or two immediate tugs and avoid letting them heat up. If you grabbed a bowl and let the grass stay warm, you can expect 5 to 10% of the water to dry secondarily depending on how long you wait; assuming you hit it all at once, 47.5 milligrams*.
Include a 7% margin in this equation since most smokers can't smoke an entire bowl in one sitting; 19 milligrams* when shared. When thinking about hashish consider processed and pressed kief; this same math could be used for smoking a bowl of hashish since hashish is made from pressed and dried trichomes from flowers which contain mass amounts of THC and usually create products 2 times more potent than normal buds. Since hashish is also smoked in bowls with an open flame expect similar losses due to open flame and secondary flow; this means that if hashish contains 45% THC then expect around 37 milligrams per bowl. Pipes also have similar losses due to heat source while bongs are known for producing cooler softer smoke but still have losses due to pyrolytic destruction when ignited; vaporizers generally have total losses between 30-45% so if strain contains 20% THC then expect around 12 milligrams per session. It's important to remember that this starts with about half the herb and that more is smoked per bowl; understanding how much THC you're consuming will help get the most out of your marijuana experience.
