Contaminated Cannabis

.:Who:.

Yeah I got news from the nice young man (I hate using term dealer) that I purchase my weed off that there is hash going around which is mixed with finely grounded glass. Just be careful who you are buying off. This **** is apparently putting people in hospital.

SAFE SMOKIN!

Rb

.:Who:. wrote:

Yeah I got news from the nice young man (I hate using term dealer) that I purchase my weed off that there is hash going around which is mixed with finely grounded glass. Just be careful who you are buying off. This **** is apparently putting people in hospital.

SAFE SMOKIN!

Yeah, its unbelievable, the place is flooded with shítty soapbar for months, now some decent hash makes its way back into the country and the assholes have stuck glass in it.
Its just a pity really, demand doesn't seem to be dropping for either hash or weed, despite the fact that the majority of smokers are aware they could be smoking contaminated product, so I suppose we'll be stuck with this shít for a while.
Its not even a case of being careful who you're buying it off, the dealers themselves may not even know that they're selling contaminated products, so they've to be careful who they're buying it off, who in turn have to be careful who they're buying it off until someone near the top puts the foot down and refuses to buy this shít, which probably won't happen unless we at the bottom put our feet down and refuse to buy it...
Personally I'm not too bothered, I know where almost everything I've smoked came from and am positive its uncontaminated, but generally users (who could be getting it from almost anywhere) should be vigilant and if they come across a contaminated batch, to quit demanding the product until the whole things sorted out.

kittenkiller

Crazy all this nastyness going on when there are flights to Amsterdam for €16 at the moment.
I know which I'd prefer!

/me calls boss to say I won't be in next week

Wertz

kittenkiller wrote:

Crazy all this nastyness going on when there are flights to Amsterdam for €16 at the moment.
I know which I'd prefer!

/me calls boss to say I won't be in next week

Ah, but trouble is that the contamination is apparent in the coffee shops in the dam too

FYI glass is used to bulk out the weight of the green and has the added "benefit" that the crystals pass themselves off as THC resin crystals to the naked eye....it's only when you see it under the microscope or manage to get a bit of the bud between your teeth that you notice a problem.

take a look at the pictures on that forum post and have a read:
http://www.ukcia.org/forum/read.php?3,9282,page=6http://www.ukcia.org/forum/read.php?3,9282,page=6
(mods feel free to remove link if it violates any of the rules but I feel if people know what it is they're to look out for then it's better for everyone involved)

My take on this whole thing: we've ben getting the sh*t end of the stick with crappy hash in thics country for years so I tended to try and stick with weed when it was available...always thought it was safe (in contaminant terms) but seeing sh*t like this being used to adulterate it is downright scary.
I'm sorry to all you anti-drugs posters out there but anyone who agrees that keeping such a widely used narcotic as marijuana/cannabis in the unlegislated black market when things like this are going on is very short sighted; it's akin to meths contaminating poitín.
People are going to use this substance regardless of it's legal standing (thusly criminalising themslves) with a direct impact on their health, nevermind all the lost revenue and age control arguments for legalisation. (sorry for ot)

jimi_t

I'm firmly on the fence with this one, but for all you "recreationalists" out there it mightn't be as bad as once thought.

The Guardian (London)

January 12, 2007 Friday

Warning issued over cannabis adulterated with glass beads

BYLINE: James Randerson Science correspondent

SECTION: GUARDIAN HOME PAGES; Pg. 10



Drug campaigners have warned that a batch of cannabis adulterated with tiny glass beads which they say could pose a risk to health has flooded the UK market. Anecdotal reports suggest it is being sold in al-most every part of the country.

The charity Drugscope is issuing a warning. "We want to make people aware of it from a public health point of view. If you are smoking this stuff and taking it into your lungs it's not good news."

The fact that "grit weed", as it is being called, is so widespread suggests that con tamination is happen-ing at an early stage in the production process. "It seems to be being done on an industrial scale," said Harry Shapiro of Drugscope.

The dealers' motivation seems to be to bump up the weight of their product. They appear to be doing this by spraying plants with the reflective element from the paint used on road lines. The tiny reflective glass beads become imbedded in the leaves.

"It looks perfectly normal. In fact it looks good quality," said Derek Williams of UK Cannabis Internet Ac-tivists, which campaigns against cannabis prohibition.
Contributors to its internet forum have said the contaminated leaves can be iden tified by rubbing them between wetted fingers. The residue will feel gritty if chewed.

The first reports of grit weed circulated in late summer, but the groups have only recently received pic-tures of the beads taken with an electron microscope by an anonymous scientist. There have been ru mours of users experiencing a tight chest for days after smoking grit weed, but a spokesperson for the British Tho-racic Society said that the contamination was unlikely to be dangerous because the particles are too big to be inhaled into the lungs.

An analysis carried out by the French Observatory of Drugs and Drug Addiction found that the glass par-ticles are between 0.02 and 0.3 millimetres across. But Richard Russell, a consultant at Imperial College London, said few particles above 0.015 millimetres would be able to pass into the lungs because they are too big.

"It is likely that they will deposit in the mouth or the throat," said Dr Russell. Here they would most likely pass harmlessly through the system. Using a filter would stop them entering the mouth.

Dr Russell said that smokers should be aware that cannabis smoke causes emphysema, lung inflamma-tion and cancer. "You are likely to do more damage from the marijuana than these particles."

Mr Williams said that the widespread contamination highlighted the problems which stem from cannabis prohibition. "Cannabis is called a controlled drug, but there is no control over the supply side. It's a com-pletely underground product," he said

Terry

quote the source, please.

J.S. Pill

Wertz wrote:

Ah, but trouble is that the contamination is apparent in the coffee shops in the dam too

I'm smoking some stuff straight from the dam (to use the vernacular) right now. Theres a lot of good quality smoke going around in Cork. i don't smoke that much so any money I do spend goes on the said good quality smoke.

My life is good you old bag...

jimi_t

Terry wrote:

quote the source, please.

As I posted above

"The Guardian (London)

January 12, 2007 Friday"

Found through Reuters.

Terry

I meant the URL.

griffdaddy

yeah i dont know if the coffeeshops in amsterdam are contaminated, i don't think they would be to be honest, it's all fairly localised over there, and there's no need to bump up the weight because it's so widely available and cheap anyway. there's a big country north of the USA that also has liberal drug laws and weed that is certainly grit free:D

Rb

jimi_t wrote:

"It looks perfectly normal. In fact it looks good quality," said Derek Williams of UK Cannabis Internet Ac-tivists, which campaigns against cannabis prohibition.

J.S. Pill wrote:

I'm smoking some stuff straight from the dam (to use the vernacular) right now. Theres a lot of good quality smoke going around in Cork.

It'd be naive to think this stuff isn't going around, I really hoped users might boycott the product until it was sorted out but obviously (and as expected), a lot seem to think they know best. Pity it isn't something more harmful, might teach the idiots a thing or two.

Wertz

griffdaddy wrote:

yeah i dont know if the coffeeshops in amsterdam are contaminated, i don't think they would be to be honest, it's all fairly localised over there, and there's no need to bump up the weight because it's so widely available and cheap anyway. there's a big country north of the USA that also has liberal drug laws and weed that is certainly grit free:D

Read the links to the cia uk forum I posted; this whole thing started on the dutch farms after UK police raided/closed down local farming operations.
THC crsytal is being shaken off the plants prior to harvesting (it's turned into bubble hash and high grade polm), then they spray on this crap mixed with water and allow to dry, then harvest.
I'd imagine the coffeeshops are well up to speed on the issue now, but the fact was that for a while at least no-one really knew there was anyhting wrong.
Some of the better shops in amsterdam will have microscopes or at least some good magnification glasses to allow you to view your buds before purchase (that was before the grit weed showed up)

As for it showing up here? I was talking to a guy I used buy a lot of weed off years back and he said he definitely had a fair bit of this stuff in the run up to xmas, and that he knew there was something up but he couldn't put his finger on it. He was pretty shocked when I told him about this and reckoned "the country is prolly full of this sh*t"...

As for not smoking it? Well if you trust who you're buying from and do the bite test mentioned above then you're pretty okay....if it doesn't crunch or scratch your teeth then it's likely to be untainted.
Imagine a bunch of dealers stuck with this stuff....no new shipment until they shift their current stock...no-one wants to buy the crap so they're landed with it...what do they do? Probably get another batch and mix it down or else try and sell it to someone less scrupulous....either way it's going to be on the market until it's smoked by somebody somewhere...

griffdaddy

Wertz wrote:

Read the links to the cia uk forum I posted; this whole thing started on the dutch farms after UK police raided/closed down local farming operations.
THC crsytal is being shaken off the plants prior to harvesting (it's turned into bubble hash and high grade polm), then they spray on this crap mixed with water and allow to dry, then harvest.
I'd imagine the coffeeshops are well up to speed on the issue now, but the fact was that for a while at least no-one really knew there was anyhting wrong.
Some of the better shops in amsterdam will have microscopes or at least some good magnification glasses to allow you to view your buds before purchase (that was before the grit weed showed up)

As for it showing up here? I was talking to a guy I used buy a lot of weed off years back and he said he definitely had a fair bit of this stuff in the run up to xmas, and that he knew there was something up but he couldn't put his finger on it. He was pretty shocked when I told him about this and reckoned "the country is prolly full of this sh*t"...

As for not smoking it? Well if you trust who you're buying from and do the bite test mentioned above then you're pretty okay....if it doesn't crunch or scratch your teeth then it's likely to be untainted.
Imagine a bunch of dealers stuck with this stuff....no new shipment until they shift their current stock...no-one wants to buy the crap so they're landed with it...what do they do? Probably get another batch and mix it down or else try and sell it to someone less scrupulous....either way it's going to be on the market until it's smoked by somebody somewhere...

i think it's a bit of a generalisation to say it's in all the coffeshops in amsterdam though, a lot of them grow their own smaller scale stuff particularly the coffeeshops outside the centre. For instance, the coffee shop 'Noon' which is tiny, are pretty forth-coming about where their blueberry comes from.
There's absolutely no doubt that it's here, but in fairness there are people trying to resolve it. You'll probably (and hopefully) see a switch from this stuff to a nice orangey kind of stuff soon, at least thats how things seem to be going in dublin, albeit really slowly. There is of course, a very nice alternative way around this whole problem, but i cant discuss that here!

Wertz

In fairness I never at any point said that it was in "all the coffeeshops in amsterdam" and chances are that lots of the smaller ones that wouldn't be shifting as much weight wouldn't even have been buying off the bigger operations that were adulterating the weed.

Yes indeed and the more time passes the more I think that the "alternative" is proobably the only way to go...be a bit of a bastard getting caught though...

griffdaddy

yeah i didnt mean to sound narky in that reply above, it did kinda come across that way. hmmmm, i'm not sure we're talking about the same alternative, my alternative is still at a consumer level. actually i'll just pm you.

ianmc38

I've gotten this BS a few times recently. Got some last Friday and was spitting blood all Friday and Saturday night. Not going to go near it again. Few of my mates have had killer sore throats after it as well.

silverlining

yep, there seems to be a lot of it about recently. Friends of mine complaining of sore throats, chesty coughs and lots of sneezing even now, 5 days after last partaking. Only heard about it at the weekend so they did the 'grit' test and sure enough the stuff was contaminated.

Has anyone else been through this and recovered fully yet?

angelicious

Any more updates on this subject? I haven't had a smoke in ages so I don't know what's going on these days!

togster

UPDATE: This thread is a year old

angelicious

There's an expression that springs to mind..........

D'UH!!

Not the answer I was looking for.

cson

Coincedentally the Cops busted a Cannabis factory worth €10.5 Million up in Kildare today. Gonna be a harsh spring for all you hash heads

angelicious

cson wrote: »

Coincedentally the Cops busted a Cannabis factory worth €10.5 Million up in Kildare today. Gonna be a harsh spring for all you hash heads

It's actual value was probably half that. The cops love to exaggerate.

togster

angelicious wrote: »

The cops love to exaggerate.

So do stoners home boy:rolleyes:

briantwin

The only way to know your stuff isn't manky and covered in this spray on glass **** is by growing it yourself. End of.

Terry

angelicious wrote: »

Any more updates on this subject? I haven't had a smoke in ages so I don't know what's going on these days!

Don't know. Don't care.

Don't bump old threads, especially if you want advice on illegal drugs.