Purity - Dutch Cannabis cut with unknown material

[Abrad]

SWIM just came across this in Ask Erowid,

Q: Is it true that some Dutch cannabis is cut with filler material in order to increase its weight and increase profits?

A: We recently heard about this for the first time. An Erowid crew member who was visiting the Netherlands had an interesting chat with a former coffee shop owner. He was told that the international demand for hydroponic "Buds from Holland" is enormous and that the shortage in the market is extreme. This seems to happen every year around this time but now the situation is more severe than ever.

He was told that in response to the shortage, vacuum sealed cannabis from the Netherlands is increasingly diluted with a still unidentified "greenish powder". According to the former coffee shop owner, the group of people who produce the adulterant have contacted most Dutch growshops already. The unknown powder is sold under the counter to growers.

The powder is supposed to be sprinkled on moist (not yet fully dried) cannabis. It absorbs moisture from the plant and then looks like THC crystals. After the buds and powder are fully dried they are vacuum-sealed, at which point it is difficult to detect that the filler material has been added. According to those who sell the material, it is possible to add 200 grams of the powder to a kilogram of cannabis.

The crew member was able to handle some of the mystery powder and view it under a microscope. It is described as looking like a bunch of tiny transparent soft crystals which swelled up and became perfectly round when water was added--as if it were a kind of powdered, water-absorbing gel. When the spheres were placed on a piece of tin foil and heated with a cigarette lighter they did not melt but burned.

We don't yet know what this material is, nor how widespread the problem is.


He finds this very strange and is wondering if anybody can elaborate, maybe some of our Dutch members know more...

[Alfa]

SWIM has never seen this and will most likely never cross this. There have been romours about milk powder being used to sprinkle weed, but I think that things like this are isolated incidents, which are the work of a few bozos. It is true that every year there is a decrease of cannabis production and demand naturally rises. This is caused by the heat of summer, causing low yields.

[Sky Walker]

I am 100% positive that this is actually happening. I was going to make a thread about it also inquiring if any one else has noticed this. So here's what happened, got weed, checked weed, same weed as usual but this time with a lot more crystals, yay! Placed weed in grinder and as usual pulled of stems and popped them in my mouth then the unusual happened, crunch, crunch, crunch! Recoiling in dismay I unhappily crunched on what reminded me of my beach pick nick days, sand sandwiches. The so called "crystals" where very dense, a lot harder than usual and very crunchy. After a week or so I noticed that my pollinator grinder was filling up at least twice maybe three times as fast as usual, without an increased amount of weed. Then I took my "crystals" and placed them in my pollen press, lightly pressed them for 3 hours took out my nice polm hash only to have it fall apart in my hands. After scooping it up and putting it back in the press i twisted and twisted the press as hard as possible then twisted it some more and placed it in a warmish place in the hope that the heat may help it bind. Roughly 36 hours later I retrieved the hash from the press. When removed from the press the hash did not have its protective outer layer and was still quite crumbly. When broken up and smoked in a joint it seemed to re-bind itself leaving a joint that not only didn't smoke properly but also didn't separate when it was time to tip of the ash, a similar effect can be achieved when you insert a needle in a cigarette. Then when placed in a pipe or bong it didn't smoke properly or completely, once all the real crystals in the hash burnt I was left with a red hot ember of what must have been this mystery powder. Although this ember glowed red hot when smoked no actual smoke was coming off this strange substance and whats more it didn't crumble like ash but was solid and had to be cut with a knife to split it. After splitting it up and having a closer look I noticed that it sparkled, the substance had been pressed and burnt and was still intact, this was the point at which I decided that this was something other that secreted and crystallized resin, this was fraud.

[Alicia]

Thats just nasty. Swim has heard of people selling crystal meth in with weed, as to whether its true or not remains to be seen, swim once saw a small crack rocks in her baggy she bought.other than that apart from some other swim on this forum that found pubes in his bag. Swim herself has not seen that yet, not unless swim was too wrecked to notice.

[Nature Boy]

Originally Posted by Lukey

I am 100% positive that this is actually happening. I was going to make a thread about it also inquiring if any one else has noticed this. So here's what happened, got weed, checked weed, same weed as usual but this time with a lot more crystals, yay! Placed weed in grinder and as usual pulled of stems and popped them in my mouth then the unusual happened, crunch, crunch, crunch! Recoiling in dismay I unhappily crunched on what reminded me of my beach pick nick days, sand sandwiches. The so called "crystals" where very dense, a lot harder than usual and very crunchy. After a week or so I noticed that my pollinator grinder was filling up at least twice maybe three times as fast as usual, without an increased amount of weed. Then I took my "crystals" and placed them in my pollen press, lightly pressed them for 3 hours took out my nice polm hash only to have it fall apart in my hands. After scooping it up and putting it back in the press i twisted and twisted the press as hard as possible then twisted it some more and placed it in a warmish place in the hope that the heat may help it bind. Roughly 36 hours later I retrieved the hash from the press. When removed from the press the hash did not have its protective outer layer and was still quite crumbly. When broken up and smoked in a joint it seemed to re-bind itself leaving a joint that not only didn't smoke properly but also didn't separate when it was time to tip of the ash, a similar effect can be achieved when you insert a needle in a cigarette. Then when placed in a pipe or bong it didn't smoke properly or completely, once all the real crystals in the hash burnt I was left with a red hot ember of what must have been this mystery powder. Although this ember glowed red hot when smoked no actual smoke was coming off this strange substance and whats more it didn't crumble like ash but was solid and had to be cut with a knife to split it. After splitting it up and having a closer look I noticed that it sparkled, the substance had been pressed and burnt and was still intact, this was the point at which I decided that this was something other that secreted and crystallized resin, this was fraud.

Coincidentally, the exact same thing happened to SWIM the other day. After saving up kief from several ounces of weed, he was left with a higher yield than usual. The weed used to make the kief featured the exact same hard crystals that crack under the teeth as you described. The hash in the end wasn't too bad only it wasn't as well binded as the hash SWIM normally makes out of other types of weed kief.

[Sitbcknchill]

I would be going back to the shop/dealer and investigating....That sounds like some nasty shit....and if you do not know what it is, it is potentially harmfull....and 200g a kilo is ALOT...it just sounds nasty when I read about it let alone if i had some....

Or find a different supplier....

I never thought I would see the day where people would "cut" weed.....

*shakes head in disgust*

[Nature Boy]

SWIM suspects the dealer he got it off knows nothing about it. If they do add stuff it's probably done much earlier and by the initial source.

[Sitbcknchill]

Well thats when the dealer needs to go to his dude about it if enough people bitch about it....I mean the dude is in a way connected to the source....

[Sky Walker]

Originally Posted by nature_boy_liam

SWIM suspects the dealer he got it off knows nothing about it. If they do add stuff it's probably done much earlier and by the initial source.

Yep gotta agree with that, the dealers round hear are very unlikely to decide to cut weed with anything, they most likely don't know so as the article says they are also victims of a rip off from unscrupulous netherlandian dealers.

[Nature Boy]

Then again though, notice that SWIM, SWIY and SWIabrad84 are all Irish members with the same suspicions. Perhaps this is a large-scale problem with weed being sold here. It's a small country.

[Abrad]

Alot of the weed in this country is Dutch grown AFAIK and the erowid article was about Dutch weed. It looks like this is going on.
Seems the days of buying weed feeling confident it is not cut (unlike hash) are gone.