Cannabis Legalization Failure, Part 1:
Most Dried Flower Products in Canada are Irradiated
"At Quimperle" by Fritz Thaulow (1901)
By Lannie Brockstein
March 21st, 2019
First Printing: The Steem Blockchain
John Keats is one of my favourites poets. Cannabis is one of my favourite medicines.
A few weeks ago, I sent an e-mail to Broken Coast Cannabis, asking them if their Keats strain that is available for purchase in Canada at the provincial stores for legal recreational use by adults, is irradiated, pasteurized, sterilized, E-beamed (electron beam), ion-bombarded, or anything of the sort. Nowhere on their website does it say that they irradiate their cannabis.
Unfortunately, they replied "We use an electron beam sterilization with a company called Iatron." An electron beam is a form of irradiation. Afterwards, I contacted dozens of other companies, and sadly, most of them said the same thing or something similar about all of their dried flower products that are available for recreational use, too.
At this point in time, "Keats" by Broken Coast Cannabis
is always E-beamed (electron beam) for recreational use.
That they turned out to have been irradiated, cold-pasteurized, E-beamed, or anything of the sort (but without the "About This Product" sections of their respective product pages on the Ontario Cannabis Store website having mentioned it) is why the "Houndstooth" by Tweed, the "White Widow" by Canaca, and the "Strawberry Ice" and "Blue Haze" by Northern Harvest dried flower products that I ordered from the Ontario Cannabis Store had little to no smell or taste.
Each of those products were basically junk-cannabis, no matter their THC content, and no matter what their effects are generally described as being at Leafly, Allbud, or any other popular cannabis review website.
At this point in time, nowhere on the Tweed, Canaca, or Northern Harvest websites does it mention that they irradiate, cold-pasteurize, or do anything of the sort to their dried flower products. Yet when I contacted each of them, they each replied by having said that regarding their dried flower products that are available at the OCS, they always irradiate or cold-pasteurize them.
When any strain of cannabis has been irradiated, none of the dozens or hundreds or thousands of reviews for that strain which the general public has posted online make any sense—because that is how different a product irradiated-cannabis is, in comparison to whole-cannabis.
Irradiated-cannabis has THC, and thus it has psychoactive effects, but it does not have anywhere close to how many terpenes cannabis naturally has, nor does it have any probiotics, and thus it is not nearly as safe, effective, nutritious, healing, or enjoyable to use as whole-cannabis.
Regarding the taste and smell of irradiated-cannabis, it is like watching a t.v. show or listening to the radio when its reception isn't coming through as clearly as it is supposed to. Irradiation basically makes all of the different cannabis strains to smell and taste the same, which is to say that irradiated-cannabis has little to no taste, at all.
That is very different from the scents and savors of whole-cannabis, which are wondrous to behold. Some of them taste like every flavour of cotton candy at the same time. Others, are like how fresh your breath doth feel when in the open air whilst walking along the dirt trail of a creaking and croaking pine tree forest—such as when it is the best kind of late-Autumn day, and all of the trees around the neighbourhood hath sheddeth their brown, orange, and red leafs onto the ground, except for those super tall evergreen pine trees in whose forest you are walking in.
If a person cannot venture into the woods, then they can bring some of the same fragrances, flavours, and health benefits of the forest to them by means of their vaping whole-cannabis. One reason as to why breathing deeply in any forest is so very beneficial for one's health, is because trees are rich in terpenes—as is whole-cannabis.
To be more specific, inhaling vapor from dried flower cannabis that has been irradiated, pasteurized, sterilized, E-beamed (electron beam), ion-bombarded, or anything of the sort, is like breathing in the stale air of an office building, whereas inhaling vapor from whole-cannabis (that is whole because it has not been irradiated, pasteurized, sterilized, E-beamed, ion-bombarded, or anything of the sort) is rich with terpenes and probiotic microorganisms, and thus like breathing in the dank air of a meadow or garden after it has gently rained.
It is mine own opinion, as based on mine own experience as a four year regular user (2014 to 2018) of many indica, sativa, and hybrid strains of some of the highest quality medical cannabis that has probably ever existed in th'entire history of humankind (as produced by MedReleaf—specifically regarding their non-irradiated products and not any of their irradiated products), that non-irradiated cannabis which has 15% THC is much more effective than irradiated-cannabis that has 20% THC.
It was the 17th century metaphysical English poet John Donne who wrote in his Meditation XVII that "No man is an island of itself". Likewise, THC is not an island—the use of irradiation, sterilization, pasteurization, E-beam (electron beam), ion-bombardment, or anything of the sort damages, reduces, or destroys many of the non-THC cannabinoids and terpenes in cannabis, and it murders all of the probiotic microorganisms that also help to make THC, CBD, and terpenes to be properly effective.
In the cannabis community, that interaction between cannabinoids, terpenes, and probiotic microorganisms is called "The Entourage Effect". Irradiation, pasteurization, sterilization, E-beam, ion-bombardment, or anything of the sort is a process that murders the probiotic microorganisms of the cannabis plant, thus making it not to be protective of the lungs—as is whole-cannabis to inhale.
Every surface of the human body is colonized by microorganisms, including the surfaces of the lungs. When we vape or smoke whole-cannabis, we are adding additional probiotics to the lungs, the same way that when we eat probiotic yogurt, we are adding additional probiotics to the digestive system.
I hope to publish on The Steem Blockchain, and before April 1st, 2019, a full list that shows which of the licenced producers at this point in time always irradiate their dried flower products, which sometimes do, and which never do.
From Lannie.
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I had NO idea they sold irradiated cannabis. Interesting. I'm not sure about the island analogy though lol... what do you mean?
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Hey @riverflows,*smiles. It refers to most people having the incomplete impression that cannabis is all about the THC. But there is much more to cannabis than that—including the terpenes profile of each strain, and whether it is probiotic or not—which is to say whether or not it has been irradiated.
Yeah. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the dried flower products that the licenced producer have introduced to the legal market are irradiated, pasteurized, sterilized, E-beamed, or ion-bombarded—each of those different marketing terms actually mean the same thing.
Thankfully, there is a small minority of licenced producers who never irradiate their dried flower products.
Ah that's crazy!!! I had no idea. Its just a different industry here. But like any natural product I guess, once you mess... ugh. Great article, I enjoyed it!
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I'm glad that you enjoyed the first part in my series of cannabis legalization in Canada articles. Thank you for the compliment.
How is the legal cannabis industry different where you are?
This is good to know, thanks for reporting it.
Hey @katrina-ariel,
You're welcome. One of the things that I admire about the Steem blockchain, is that it is censorship-resistant, as that is something which all independent journalists require—and now more than ever, due to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and many left-leaning newspapers themselves having become radicalized and thus their censoring anything that is on the right side of the political spectrum (including old-school liberalism that is on the right of leftist radicalism).
It was nothing but disappointing to have heard from some of the licenced producers whom I spoke with, that Canada's Cannabis Act does not require for any dried flower products being sold for recreational use to be labeled as irradiated, if they are in fact irradiated. Perhaps that is merely their biased interpretation that has not been tested in a court of law, and not what the Cannabis Act actually says.
The licenced producer (MedReleaf) that I had a prescription registered at for four years always labels its medical cannabis products that are irradiated, as irradiated.
How can the legal market compete with the black market if there is no easy way for Canadians to know which legal dried flower products are irradiated, and which are normal?
From Lannie.