We’ve all heard it, or experienced it: “Weed makes me sleepy.” There are some strains that will definitely have you feeling more sleepy than others. But, weed that makes you want to go to sleep? Well, that is most likely weed that has oxidized. Yes, oxidized, just like that brown apple, and that decanted wine. The simple continuous assault of oxygen breaks down cannabis’ cannabinoids, and the change in molecular structure causes these compounds to take on different effects.

All cannabinoids are derived from CBG. CBG is the fundamental cannabinoid, and depending on how it breaks down — which chains in the carboxlyic group are broken — you’re gonna get different cannabinoid compounds that have different effects. The one that is most commonly known is THC. THC produces the psychedelic high, and also contributes to analgesic (pain reduction) effects. But, when THC oxidizes it breaks down further, and becomes CBN. And, much of the current research is suggesting that CBN is what makes you sleepy.

It makes sense: smoke some regs — which are certainly not stored properly — and you’ll get tired. Smoke some choice flowers that have been stored properly and you’ll be a lot of things, but sleepy probably isn’t one of them. More importantly you may want to consider properly storing your cannabis. That means you want to keep it in an airtight jar, away from the light, and away from high temperatures. Just tryin’ to take y’all higher.

You know what that is? It’s a very courteous letter that I received from a gentleman whom I worked for. He took the time to write that to me on one of my first jobs in Humboldt County. I fronted about knowing what I was doing, and instead of giving me the boot he gave me the rundown. Pretty cool. So, in the spirit of pretty cool I bring you the first annual Standard Deviance 420 post. No time to waste, let’s get down to it.

First, I have this mix. Recently I’ve done some graphic design work for a collective out here, and they asked me if I would do some DJ mixes for them too. I’m not exactly a DJ, but I’m slick enough with Ableton to impersonate one. So, you’ll notice that there isn’t much DJ stuff happening on here. It’s more like an edited playlist. But, in spite of the fact that I’m not beatmatching I did pick some great tunes, and arrange them in an order conducive to enhancing your mind-state, and put a cover on it. The tracklist doesn’t exist because I got stoned and forgot to add it before I uploaded it. It’s performance art. Start the mix right before you start your mix…feel me? Get it here

BUT! Before you go doing anything today I hope that you’ll take a moment to give this day some actual gumption. California’s Senate is currently getting ready to vote on S.B. 129, which protects the medical cannabis patient’s right to employment. Currently patients can lose their jobs if their results come back positive on a drug test at work.

In order to ensure that medical cannabis patients are afforded the same rights as everyone else, Americans for Safe Access and Senator Mark Leno have organized this bill which has already passed the Senate judiciary Committee, and is now going to be voted on.

This is your chance to make a big difference without making a huge effort. Simply click this link, find your district on the map (which is very clearly labeled), click your district, follow the link on the page that opens in order to send an email. Let your representative know that when they go to vote on S.B. 129 they need to vote yes, let them know that we’re watching. And if you don’t live in California then click here and let Senate President Steinberg know that people are paying attention outside of California too. This is a really important issue because it’s a big step in taking cannabis seriously. It means that we’re not gonna just treat this like a joke, and we’re actually pushing for lasting change in the institution.

Another thing you might want to think about doing is speaking to your grandparents, or any older folks you know about the medicinal values of cannabis, or just letting them know that you use it and you’re fine. A lot of older folks who vote, don’t understand that cannabis is safe because they were subjected to harsh prohibition and wild government propaganda. It’s up to us to help them understand that cannabis is both safe and beneifical. Older folks stand to benefit as cannabis mediates many conditions that affect the aging (fibro myalgia, cancer, neuropathy, et cetera).

And, I’ll leave you with this epic happenstance from a recent twitter conversation:

Ok, I know I’ve definitely told you guys about trimming medical marijuana. But, I haven’t shown you (imagine doing this for 12 hours a day, every day for a month. That’s what harvest season is). Fortunately, I’m resourceful, and I put this video together. At the end you can see how all the resin that cakes up on your hands while you work can be gathered up into hash. So, sit back for a few minutes, listen to some Outkast, and get a little insight into how it goes down.

You know, the longer I’m out here the more I find out about. I’m not sure when I first noticed people using hemp wicks, but a couple of weeks ago I got the rundown. A lot of folks believe that using a lighter to combust your medicine isn’t the best idea. Purportedly the butane alters the taste of the cannabis, and if you’re medicating yourself over the course of years you’d be inhaling a lot of butane. I’m not a great judge on taste when it comes to smoking, so I can’t really speak on whether or not it affects the flavor.

But, I am definitely more into the idea of inhaling combusted hemp and beeswax over butane. When it comes to stuff like this I prefer to roll with the opinions of people more informed than me. So, for now I’m not using a lighter except for igniting the wick. I use matches sometimes—but let the phosphor burn off of course—but I try to use the string as much as possible.

Really though, I don’t support snobbery in any way. But, what I do support is being passionate, and informed about the things you choose to make part of your life. Especially when it comes to things that we put into our bodies. While it’s common to see ingredient lists on foods and drinks, you’re gonna be hard-pressed to find much cannabis with an ingredient list. Some collectives in California are beginning to offer cannabis that has been tested, but as the testing labs themselves are new, and learning, they’ve yet to set any standards.

Currently, all you have to go on are your 5 senses: sight, touch, smell, taste, and sound. Sometimes you can tell right away that your flowers are bad. White powdery mildew is a common problem for the cannabis plant, and many inexperienced indoor growers burn their plants by allowing them to grow too close to the lights. The list goes on and on, and I’ll try to do some posts on this stuff regularly, but for now a brief word about ash.

When your flowers burn up, the ash that’s left tells a story. The quality of the ash is one way to determine how thoroughly the plants were flushed in the last weeks of the growing cycle. Properly flushed plants yield light gray to white ash. If a grower doesn’t flush the plants properly they’ll retain the nutrients that they’ve been fed, and you’ll be smoking weed, along wit whatever food it was given. Retained nutrients will result in black ash. Nothing’s going to burn to pure white ash in a joint or a pipe, but a pile of black ash is a pile of plant food. Tell your friends.

So, one of the first great things that happened when I moved to California–aside from breaking up with my girlfriend–was the diversification of marijuana. Having a prescription and getting to experience the dispensaries was amazing. They have all these different types of weed, and they can tell you about each one, and it makes it into a richer experience than just copping from some dude that just has bags of weed with no name, and no selection. Along with the wide selection of smokable flowers, there’s also other options.

You’ve probably had hash before, or if not you probably know it exists. It’s the most prevalent concentrate. Concentrates are a category of substances with a higher concentration of CBs than the plant itself. Concentrates come in a number of forms: kief, hash, earwax, tincture, butters, oils, et cetera. Because the concentrates’ strength varies depending upon the concentration in the original plant, and the degree to which concentration is furthered there’s a broad variance in potency.

You can walk into a dispensary and get something that is anywhere from %30-%65 THC. There is some concern, as concentrates aren’t currently regulated explicitly, and fear amongst most people I talk to suggests that Federal agents are still making concentrates a priority. I haven’t heard anything that confirms this. But, it’s tough to imagine that it would be feasible to maintain a case that using a concentrate would be outside of the existing 215 regulations. First, it’s likely that a patient would only use half the dose when utilizing a concentrate. Second, using a tincture or other non smokable concentrate is a different way to administer the THC. If absorbed through a membrane, such as the mouth, or digested, the effects of the THC will be more subdued, but last longer. I’ve also heard that the effects of CBD are enhanced, but I haven’t found anything yet that confirms that. Regardless, it offers a method for consumption that doesn’t involve smoking.

Taking a tincture is a lot more like taking mushrooms than smoking weed. If smoking is the pole vault—with its quick onset and intense high—then taking a tincture is the long jump—with its long arc and lesser potency. That’s not to say that you can’t get dosed into a pretty rough psychological place on a tincture, but you’d need to be pretty brazen with it. There are two prominent vessels for making marijuana tincture: ethanol, and vegetable glycerin. Ethanol is of course, alcohol, and vegetable glycerin is a clear liquid with a syrupy consistency. It has a sweet taste, but it is metabolized like a carbohydrate. I’ve been taking a tincture made form vegetable glycerin. We put around 2 oz of flowers (a mixture of Green Crack, Headband, and Master Kush) into 16 oz of vegetable glycerin. The contents are placed in a mason jar and stored in warm dry place. The ethanol or the glycerin act as a solvent and the THC molecules bond to the vessel. The jar is agitated regularly while it’s storing. I’ve heard many different opinions on how long a tincture should sit for, but the general consensus seems to be 3 or 4 weeks.

After the tincture has incubated long enough the marijuana is strained away from the vessel and the tincture is placed in a tinted jar and stored in a cool dry place. I’ve been enjoying taking a spoonful or two of tincture in the morning before a bike ride. Of course, like any other way of administering CBs taking a tincture affects everyone differently. There are lots of different ways to experience cannabis, and this one is particularly good for people who have an aversion to the smoking of cannabis, people who can’t smoke because of health complications, people who need to administer medication in a place where they can’t smoke, and so on.

This is a tale of my circuitous migration from New York to a small city called Arcata located on the coast in central Humboldt County. It is also the tale of a revelation. Specifically the revelation that the marijuana industry employs a lot of people to handle the processing of marijuana before it can be sold. The thing we smoke has to go through a lot of preparatory hands before it gets broke up and rolled, or packed. So, grab a hot beverage, roll something and zone out with me for a moment while I take you to the source of your pleasures (only one thing to note before we get into it: L.A.R.F. It stands for light, airy, really fluffy. It’s an acronym used to describe unproccessable buds, and it is the bane of a trimmer’s existence)…

In states where weed is still illegal it’s really difficult to know what you’re getting. If you’re lucky your dealer can tell you the name of the weed you buy. But the name is probably wrong. Your dealer probably also can’t tell you if the weed you’re buying is an indica, a sativa, or a hybrid.

On the black market weed is not a painstakingly cultivated plant with an intricate history involving people and places. Weed on the black market is not capable of sending you flying or sending you to bed according to your choosing. Black market weed is a smokable plant that you can buy. The separate effects of indica and sativa are lumped together and all weed is said to have the effects of both indica and sativa. In a prohibition state marijuana is reduced. It has fallen from glory.

When I got to Los Angeles, California it was clear that weed was a glorious plant, but Los Angeles didn’t tell the whole story. I got a taste of something mythical, something legendary, but I was not sated, so I resolved to get closer to the essence. From LA I made my way to Oakland. And, while I didn’t have much time I had one key stop on my list: Harborside. Harborside is not only setting the standard for what dispensaries can be, it is also setting the pace. They’re on track to gross 18.5 million this year (down from last year), and according to the BBB they employ around 50 people. While other dispensaries feel like black market safe houses wrought with paranoia, Harborside is inviting, bright, and comfortable. It’s clear that they have a different vision of what the Marijuana market will look like, and for good reason. They’re not fair-weather associates. Harborside was started by Steve DeAngelo (a longtime proponent in the push to bring marijuana back into grace within the United States), and it suggests that the coming marijuana economy will be vibrant and diverse.

After I’d gotten a look at what is essentially the hub of the emerging marijuana economy I was off to Arcata. Arcata is situated on the Arcata bay in the center of Humboldt County. Humboldt County makes up one third of the Emerald Triangle, which is the largest marijuana producing region in the US, if not the world. I have a friend who is living in Arcata, and he had mentioned that I might be able to find work trimming pot if I could make my way up. I arrived in Arcata late Saturday night, and Monday afternoon I was working trimming indoor pot in someone’s shed.

The tools of the trade are quite simple: clippers, a large tray for sorting/holding buds, a paper bag to dump trimmed buds into, another container for trim and larf (which will be turned into concentrate later), coconut oil or alcohol for cleaning resin from your hands and clippers, and a small tray for finger hash (optional). I also use a glove on my left hand because it offsets the stickiness of the resin. You hold the bud between your thumb and middle finger and rotate and tilt it as you flit the clippers with your other hand. I use a glove on my bud-holding hand

As you trim resin slowly cakes up on your hands and your clippers, and its kind of like sinking into quicksand. As the resin builds up it slows down the process. To clean the clippers you dip them into alcohol or coconut oil, which break down the resin, and then wipe with a rag. To get the resin off of your hands, or gloves, you rub your fingers together until the resin balls up and falls off, and you save it because that’s hash.

Now, while that’s all simple enough, and while getting paid is dope, I was taken aback for different reasons. As it turns out, trimming is a ghostly element of smoking weed. That is, if you’re smoking weed someone somewhere trimmed that weed. Did you ever think about that? I know I didn’t. That’s not to say that I’m the ultimate authority, or the watermark for pot smokers, but I’m a pretty analytical guy. So, being suddenly immersed into this world was a wild thing. People have had their hands all over your weed before you get it. And those hands have literally shaped the weed that you wind up with.

When they grew on the plant, your buds didn’t look like they do when you buy them. And it’s not because some parts just fell off or shriveled up. Your weed looks like it does because someone clipped that bud off of a larger branch, decided it was worth trimming, and proceeded to prune it, kinda like a topiary. And if it came from the Emerald Triangle, the trimming of your buds have a rich back-story.

The marijuana that you know and love is not what marijuana looked like 50 years ago. Cultivators in California have meticulously crossbred different landrace strains from around the world to develop the marijuana we smoke today. A lot of these cultivators are based in Northern California’s Emerald Triangle. The Emerald Triangle—because of its ideal conditions, much like the Cote D’Or in France’s Bourgogne region—produces incredible marijuana in copious quantities. Typically growers have a decent amount of acreage that is somewhat secluded. Plants are usually started from clones and cultivated indoors until they go into the fields in early Spring. Once in the ground the plants flourish. They remain in the vegetative state producing no flowers, and growing vigorously until early August when the light cycle changes. When Fall comes plants are receiving 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of darkness, and this triggers the flowering.

Plants regularly reach a height of 8-10 feet, and each plant will produce anywhere between 2 and 5 pounds of smokable flowers. A smaller operation would be around 50 or 60 plants. It’ll take 3 or 4 people to maintain the plants through the season. Come harvest time though you’re looking at anywhere between 100 and 300 pounds of marijuana to process (and that’s not including the many pounds of trim that are turned into hash, which is a whole other labor intensive process). Once the marijuana has been taken from the fields the buds need to be clipped from branches and then pruned. Growers typically don’t trim the weed themselves, they hire other people to do it.

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Bloglin fear not! I’ve not forsaken thee, I’ve simply been in a bit of upheaval. I wound up making an unplanned exodus from Los Angeles, but I haven’t stopped smoking. More importantly, my Exodus has been a bit more fortuitous than Moses’. I bounced from LA two weeks ago, spent about a week in the bay with one of my oldest musical cohorts, and then came out to Humboldt County (which makes up part of the Emerald Triangle).

I’ve been out and about in this state experiencing the marijuana economy, and trying to get a feel for what’s gonna happen after California State Proposition 19 goes to vote. Unfortunately, I can’t relay everything that I’ve been up to out here—at least not right now—but I can give you an idea of some of the happenings. And, of course, I can give you the rundown on the stuff I’ve been smoking.

The Bay area recently changed some laws regarding flying with marijuana. Prop 215 patients are now allowed to fly out of SFO and Oakland with up to 3 pounds. Of course, anyone doing this will be subjected to the laws of the city they land in. This can happen because the TSA only regulates what goes onto planes. The TSA turns law breakers over to local law enforcement, and local law enforcement here is not arresting people who are legally allowed to posses marijuana. (I still had to smuggle an 1/8 in my underpants flying out of LAX though. LA is way behind the Bay in regards to how local officials are treating Prop 215 regulations, but that’s a separate matter.)

I made the mecca to Harbourside. This place is setting the standard in the MMJ dispensary business. Unlike all of the dispensaries I visited in LA the space was expansive, and the pace wasn’t rushed. You have to take a tour as part of the verification process, but it only lasts a few minutes and then you get in line. Once you get called up to the counter there are about 40 strains, concentrates, and edibles to choose from (there’s also an amazing selection of clones). The strains are all tested for mold (its a big problem with indoor grown marijuana), as well as potency. The little cards in each pitri dish in the photo above give the percentage of THC for each strain (TP stands for test pending). My budtender was helpful, and knowledgeable. As an added benefit Harbourside also offers acupuncture, and other holistic services. They also have a patient advocate center where I was encouraged to participate in lobbying local officials. And, according to the founder they’re set to gross $18.5 million this year. As a non-profit organization employing something like 75 people that’s pretty outstanding.

Humboldt is pretty wild. It’s primarily an agricultural area. Cypress Grove Creamery–arguably the best domestic creamery is out here. The farmers market is wildin. There are at least 3 big local breweries (Lost Coast, North Coast, and Lagunitas). There is an incredibly vibrant local economy, and people out here are really sustaining each other. I’m staying with my friend in an area called “the Bottoms.” It’s all expansive pastureland. Cows, blackberries, and dirt roads. So much happening, and more to come. Stick with me…

From: Hollyweed
Strain: OG Kush
Genetics: chemdog x [old world paki kush x lemon thai]
Phenotype: Indica dominant hybrid

Yet another masquerading strain! It seems that there are two prominent versions of OG Kush out there. Not sure which one I smoked, but the people at Hollyweed seem to know their stuff pretty well, thus I’ll trust it was legit. This was a really nice high, it had a strong body affect, but there was also a nice cerebral element too. It definitely eased any physical pains that I was experiencing, and left me generally relaxed. The high was pretty long too, about 1.5 hours of full on stoned. Flavor wise it was nothing to write home about, but I’m not too critical on the flavor of combusted matter.

From: Grateful Meds
Strain: Skywalker OG (aka Sativa OG)
Genetics: ?
Phenotype: Sativa dominant hybrid

High: All the way turnt up, but sedated. This one really gets wheels turning, like burning rubber turning, but its kinda difficult to tell where those turning wheels are at. It has a very energetic onset both mentally and physically, but its coupled with a kind of hazy buffer between my senses and the world around me. Because of this buffer I have a much harder time staying focused, and while I didn’t feel panicked at all, the high feels a bit more volatile. I’d say this one is great for getting out of the house in the morning, and getting things done all day as long as they don’t involve any intensive thinking.

As I was researching Skywalker OG I found out a few things. There is a strain called Skywalker, and there is also a strain called Skywalker OG. Skywalker is a pure Indica (Mazar x Blueberry), while Skywalker OG is actually Sativa OG, which is a sativa dominant hybrid. I’ve also seen it referred to as Sativa OG Kush. I haven’t been able to track down any of the specifics on this strain, but I’m pretty sure it’s one of the original strains from the 70s that was derived from crossing different landrace plants. If anyone has any more info please share.

From: Grateful Meds
Strain: Headband
Genetics: OG Kush x Master Kush x Sour Diesel
Phenotype: Indica dominant hybrid

High: Chilling with momentum. I’ve been smoking this one in the second half of the day and into the evening. It doesn’t impede my ability to be focused and get work done, but it definitely removes the urgency. Body wise its very calming, any familiar aches and pains dissipate, and while I’m energized its not nervous energy.

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From: Farmacy
Strain: Kryptonite
Genetics: ?
Phenotype: Sativa

High: Zooming willfully. I’ve been smoking this one in the early parts of the day, and it works nicely. The high sets in pretty quickly, and it starts off with a really strong momentum. The energy maintains a nice pace and tapers off unassumingly. Growing up in South Florida any “kind bud” was referred to as Krippy, or Kryptonite, or Krypto. I bought this one wondering if I’d have some kind of nostalgic pot ritual, but it didn’t happen. Instead I’ve just been having a pretty thorough current pot ritual and I don’t need much more than that from my medicine.

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