Consumers chase the metrics the industry taught them. The use of drug Cannabis has always been for its “stone,” or psychoactivity, these last 50 years especially. Therefore THC-agonist CBD was bred out, although we didn’t really know about the THC molecule until 1964.
“That which is measured is improved.” We measure THC but not happiness, CBD but not wellness. We have the wrong metrics, that’s why THC fraud is rampant but happiness is not.
Cheech & Chong didn’t talk about inflammation or seizure control, nor did High Times. There’s nothing wrong with feeling good, but with 150+ phytocannabinoids and 200 terpenes, that buries the lede; there’s nothing wrong with feeling healthy either.
They pointed at Big Tobacco as a boogeyman with sticks but not Big Pharma sneaking in the back door with pills.
Back then it was flowers flowers flowers all the time in most of the U.S., hash was rarer; just the opposite as in Europe. Shatter and RSO were yet to be born, as were vape pens and knowledge of minor cannabinoids.
Even at one of the largest dispensary chains in Colorado I can’t get a CoA for any product. They don’t know what a Certificate of Analysis (CoA) is; blank looks all around.
But the THC % is plastered on each package in big letters, with CBD usually ND (none detected). That’s it. A >$100 million business that doesn’t have available the lingua franca of the industry, a CoA. One young budtender looked at me incredulously and asked “why?” as if Cannabis began and ended with THC %, that we were still stuck in the olden days of brickweed.
So yes, consumers chase the metrics the industry taught them, therefore it’s up to the industry to change those metrics to more than THC/CBD %. It’s a golden opportunity for a brilliant marketer.
Most heavy users, the 80% bread and butter of every regulated and gray/black market, prefer clean product and other subtle qualities to absolute THC %. It’s like dispensaries keep trying to sell Everclear or Thunderbird but most want a fine IPA or Bordeaux.
And they’ll go where they find it. A grower, regulated or legacy market, could label each package with a QR code to the standard CoA for that batch, picture of the plant, raw flower and macro of the trichomes, nutes used, micro and metals testing and the like. Get around stubborn dispos and talk directly to the consumer. If that’s not allowed due to state regs, then change the state regs; a good marketer is an advocate for the consumer.
Then all these various Cannabis Cups (kudos to High Times for not shutting those down as legit trademark infringements) could include a category for “Cleanest THC.”
Any “Cleanest Product” competition with an appropriate definition and standard would properly put the emphasis where it belongs.
A 40% THC 5% terpene flower is useless if it has mold and pesticides.
Likewise for concentrates and extracts ostensibly from “hemp,” “Cleanest Delta-8” and “Cleanest Delta-9” categories allow them to chase a metric other than money.
Let’s see if the upcoming “DeltaCon” for stony hemp noids will do so, if not then it must be for a reason…