By The White Ashes conversation was clearly intolerable. Inebriated weed connoisseurs and connoisseurs around the world have been posting ash videos on Instagram for years now, looking only at the color of the ash to show that they're smoking top quality. ing.
We don't want to disappoint you, but not only is white ash not an accurate indicator of quality, it can also be easily counterfeited, cheated, deceived, tricked, or deceived using certain cultivation techniques and smoking methods. Possibly, and as shown in recent court documents, apply a small amount of chalk to rolling paper.
Recently unsealed documents from a years-long legal battle between Republic Technologies LLC and BBK Tobacco & Foods LLP reveal the list of ingredients used to make OCB rolling paper. Note that it contained one particular additive that Big Tobacco has long been accustomed to, but weed smokers may not be familiar with: calcium carbonate.
paper soaked with chalk
2014 court documents regarding OCB rolling papers indicate that varying amounts of calcium carbonate are used in some rolling papers, specifically the following products: OCB No. 1 Single Wide, JOB Tribal King Size, OCB Slim, OCB Red 1 1/4, JOB Gold 1.25, OCB Organic Hemp 1-1/4, OCB Organic Hemp King Size Slim.
According to the National Institute, health, Calcium carbonate is an inorganic salt found throughout the world in rocks such as limestone and in the shells of many marine organisms and crustaceans. It is the main ingredient in antacids like Chalk and Tums, and has actually been used as a white pigment in cigarette paper for decades. I was able to find three different patents of his from tobacco companies including: Two of them date back to his 90s. philip morris Both cite calcium carbonate as a way to make cigarette ash more “attractive.”a study A paper by the Collaborative Center for Scientific Research on Tobacco explains how calcium carbonate affects the color of ash.
“Generally, as the size of the precipitated calcium carbonate particles decreased, the cohesiveness of the ash increased. As the particle size decreased, the ash became slightly whiter until the optimal particle size of about 0.3 microns was reached.” says the study. “As we reduced the size of the precipitated calcium carbonate even further, the ash became grayer.”
Although calcium carbonate is not necessarily a harmful substance contained in rolling paper, Safety data sheet Calcium carbonate is classified as a potential respiratory tract irritant. A National Institutes of Health study that performed autopsies on smokers and nonsmokers also found that elemental calcium carbonate was present in the lungs of smokers but not in nonsmokers. This means that calcium carbonate particles can remain in the lungs.
“No potassium carbonate, potassium sulfate, or potassium chloride was detected in any of the lungs. The proportion of quartz was the same in the lungs of smokers and nonsmokers.” study Said. “However, smokers' lungs contained a high proportion (on average 23% of all particles) of particles composed of calcium, carbon, and oxygen (probably calcium carbonate) at all sample sites. The lungs of non-smokers usually contained no or only trace amounts of such particles (average 0.1%).”
Moving away from super science, tobacco companies have been adding calcium carbonate to paper for years to whiten the ash (just Google Marlboro white ash ads; this conversation dates back to the 1950s). (You can see that it dates back to ). Whether or not OCB's newspapers are trying to curry favor with weed smokers who want white cannabis ash, I have no ambivalent thoughts about it, and I don't think they are doing so for fear of being sued in a way that they will never tolerate. I don't even want to imply anything. Importantly, if such a common substance can be added to rolling papers, unscrupulous marketing teams can use this knowledge to use these particular papers in pre-rolls or in rolling papers. This means it will be much easier to sell more cannabis. When creating smoking videos for internal Instagram etc.
I had a fever and all I was prescribed was CalMag.
That's not all. The grower told me that high concentrations of his CalMag can also be added to flowering cannabis plants to get a white ash effect. This makes sense because CalMag is a mixture of the following, albeit somewhat redundant: calcium And magnesium. Also, as far as I know, calcium carbonate concentrations are not included in his COA for cannabis lab tests, so there is no concrete way for consumers to know if this method was utilized in the grow room. Again, it's not necessarily a harmful practice as far as I know, but it's also not an accurate measure of quality.
A white ash effect can also be achieved by rolling and smoking the joint in a specific manner. I'm going to explain to you that you can fake this shit for Instagram with absolute certainty. Tighten the joint as tightly as possible to avoid choking (see Doja Pak) rolling tutorial For more information, see First Smoke of the Day). Go ahead and buy a mini torch that crack smokers use to heat their pipes. The sketcher makes it look better. Lightly torch the ends of the joints evenly and slowly. If it starts, gently blow it out and let it burn for 1 to 2 minutes until a uniform cherry forms. Now turn the joint upside down and hold it very gently so that the smoke flows upward through your hand. Give a long, slow blow and return the joint to the inverted position. Repeat toasting and rinsing as needed until you have a nice pile of white ash. If you take a photo and post it on his Instagram, you will receive a well-deserved compliment from the CEO.
True, to achieve this effect even using the methods described above, you need at least some decent weed. Also, I fully admit that I have never smoked a fully black burning joint that could be described as high quality cannabis. What I'm trying to say here is that there's a well-known scheme going on to make you think you're smoking good weed, when that's not necessarily the case. Some argue that white ash is an indication that the cannabis has been properly dried and cured, but the moisture content of the flower needs to be within an ideal range to achieve proper combustion. Although there is some truth to this, all white ash actually means that the weed has been completely burned, a process known as “charring”. Excerpt from “cigarette ash whitenessWritten by Isao Kanai in 1959 (again, note the date), he further explains:
“The whiteness of cigarette ash plays an important role in the combustion quality of cigarettes, and is related to the degree of carbonization of organic substances, the temperature of the cigarette combustion zone, and other complex “combustion phenomena'' of cigarettes. It is thought that. ” the report said.
A quick Google search also turns up around 50 different explanations from various tobacco clubs and tobacco companies, explaining that white ash is related to combustibility and calcium and magnesium levels in the soil in which tobacco is grown. Masu. The same goes for cannabis.
There's fire in the eyes of the beholder
So what happens to us? Now, this is my subjective story. Quality cannabis ultimately comes down to user experience and user preference. Certain markers may be present. suggest Certain batches of cannabis may be considered high-quality products, but it's a multifaceted debate. There is no single indicator that can determine whether a flower is good or not. It comes down to a few important factors, including appearance, ash color, density, taste, ease of smoking, and cultivation method (this is not very important, but while I'm on the subject , I'm thinking of the living soil vs. saline nutrient conversation (as pointless as the ash conversation), plant genetics, proper drying and hardening cycles, and the most important factor in my opinion: effectiveness. is. Individual microbiomes, how one person's body responds to cannabis versus another person's body, also play a big role.
What I will say is that you are shamelessly stealing this point from a fearless leader. John Cappetta, which means that a better indicator associated with high-quality cannabis ash is how the ash stacks up on itself (an indicator also stolen from years of tobacco-funded research). you might add). If you can smoke most of the joint without any ash falling (infused product doesn't count), that means there's a lot of resin inside the flower and it's sticking together. Even better if the ash is mottled or white on it. And an oil ring? Information about it.
I think we can all agree that there's a certain threshold that a flower needs to reach to go from bad to mid, but once that threshold is crossed, as we've all witnessed, , we all start discussing mid or fire as a community, and that conversation eventually devolves into stupid, unimportant metrics like “whose ashes are whiter?” In general, I think what's important here is being aware of what we're consuming, and the knowledge that at the end of the day, the only thing that really matters is our own personal experience with plants. . Don't let flashy Instagram videos or old big tobacco company schemes fool you into consuming certain brands. Smoke what feels good to you and spread awareness as much as you can so that we as a community can appreciate true fire. On that note, I would like to ask you to please, because the cannabis community seems like a bunch of crazy hyena babbling. Please stop discussing White Ash online.
