What exactly is "commercial weed"?

[Guest]

Hi all,

 

Noob question, sorry. 

 

When I was young there was always "commercial weed" around. This was brick weed, very dark and had loads of seeds in. It got you stoned, or course, but it was terrible quality.

 

What was that weed? I heard some take the male plants, let them grow out, and then sell that. Is it that? 

 

Now I am a grower, I am interested in what the hell I used to smoke

[Larry Badgeley]

7 minutes ago, lemoore00 said:

Hi all,

 

Noob question, sorry. 

 

When I was young there was always "commercial weed" around. This was brick weed, very dark and had loads of seeds in. It got you stoned, or course, but it was terrible quality.

 

What was that weed? I heard some take the male plants, let them grow out, and then sell that. Is it that? 

 

Now I am a grower, I am interested in what the hell I used to smoke

 

Depends on how far you want to look back and how young you were

 

I first scored my first bag at Manchester UMIST union back in 1977. Columbian more than likely. Always had seeds in it. Sensi was never an option. Most of the weed came from South America in the 70's/80's and has been well documented if you have ever read anything on Howard Marks.

 

African brick weed was rarer but it all depended on the knowledge your dealer had as to it's origins. I scored African weed a few times in the late 70's

 

It was easier with Hash as the slabs generally had stamps on the cloth or the wrap itself indicating country of origin.

 

It wasn't until the droughts of the mid 80's and 90's that things got a bit tricky. Hash was generally imported, and cut, from Spain and run by gangsters who didn't give a flying fuck on the quality. The first time I saw "Sputnik", that horrible soap shite, was around early 90's and it was like a round lump of coal. Ghastly stuff. Green ran out of favour and was very difficult to score unless you knew someone from (generally but not exclusively)  the Black community who would always get great Sensi. I recall a very funny moment in The Band on the Wall, a great club in Manchester back in the 80's. Friday was Reggae night and you could smoke in the club without any hassle. A few Rasta guys would hang around the bar very near the toilets. If you wanted to score you gave them the nod and they would follow you in. One guy who had scored told the dealer "this weed has seeds in it and you are selling it as Sensi" in reply the Rasta guy said, very dryly, "yeah Mon - it's Thai Sensi"

 

As an aside when I travelled extensively in Thailand in the early 90's, all the weed was very dark brick weed with seeds - mainly from Laos or Cambodia. Heavy stuff it was. Made you cough like a bastard but got you well ripped.

 

[Dodgee]

Brick weed tended to be north African in origin and consisted of a mixture of female flower heavily pressed (into bricks surprise surprise!)

 

The Africans weren't so bothered about growing sinsemilla (unseeded bud/flower) so the weed was often heavily seeded. Tended to be a lot of stem/stick all pressed in together too.

 

"Commercial" in the modern sense tends to refer to mass grown house weed, usually grown by Vietnamese/Chinese Nationals in grow houses in the UK.  It's usually sinsemilla but often early harvested/fast dried and therefore of a lower quality than your own homegrown.

 

The commercial market in the UK seems to be dying off tbh. Eastern European grow houses (Ukrainian mostly) are producing some very high end product and selling cheap. This means the Chinese/Viet's have had to up there game as have UK commercial growers.

 

The market is flooded at the moment (at least in my area) the price of good quality herb has been steadily dropping the past 2/3years..

 

 

Unless your one of those twits that likes your weed to come in shiny tins with colourful labels and daft names. In which case you can buy the same weed for 4-5x the price.

 

[Guest]

Thanks guys, very interesting. I am 40, so we're talking 25 years ago or so. Hash was big, but we could often get "weed". Just brick weed, heavily compressed. But it definitely got us stoned as hell and was a nice change fromt he hash. Then the strong skunk strains started hitting the streets and we moved over to that...and the rest is history haha

[Larry Badgeley]

2 minutes ago, Dodgee said:

 

 

The market is flooded at the moment (at least in my area) the price of good quality herb has been steadily dropping the past 2/3years..

 

 

Same in Manchester I believe. Not that I have scored a bag in years. 

[Dodgee]

3 minutes ago, Larry Badgeley said:

 

Same in Manchester I believe. Not that I have scored a bag in years. 

Same here.

 

I just got friends who still score and it's what I hear from them.

 

Loads of variety at prices I would've been envious of 10yrs ago.

 

Around 07/08 when I first started growing the price was at the 200 an oz mark. That was when I decided enough was enough and started growing my own!

[Dodgee]

8 minutes ago, lemoore00 said:

Thanks guys, very interesting. I am 40, so we're talking 25 years ago or so. Hash was big, but we could often get "weed". Just brick weed, heavily compressed. But it definitely got us stoned as hell and was a nice change fromt he hash. Then the strong skunk strains started hitting the streets and we moved over to that...and the rest is history haha

When I started smoking in the early 90's there was only hash. Or "bush" (what we called brick weed back then).

 

The hash was reasonable quality and got you stoned. The bush you had to smoke a tonne of the stuff to get high.

 

When bud/green got big I was really dubious as all my previous experience of "green" had been "bush"...

 

It's mad to think I probably had a higher tolerance back then than I do now. I had a giggling fit after one vape the other night! 

 

[Dodgee]

On 18/02/2020 at 0:00 PM, lemoore00 said:

 

My guy also has "cross weed", which is literally like a cross between proper weed and shit weed. Any idea what that is?

Fuck knows, if I had to guess probably a mixture of decent bud and what we call popcorn/bottom buds.. maybe less well trimmed? 

 

Dunno tbh.

Edited April 15, 2020 by Owderb

[Guest]

16 minutes ago, Dodgee said:

When I started smoking in the early 90's there was only hash. Or "bush" (what we called brick weed back then).

 

The hash was reasonable quality and got you stoned. The bush you had to smoke a tonne of the stuff to get high.

 

When bud/green got big I was really dubious as all my previous experience of "green" had been "bush"...

 

It's mad to think I probably had a higher tolerance back then than I do now. I had a giggling fit after one vape the other night! 

 

 

Yeah back then I waked and baked every day. I remember even having a spliff before my driving test! I was permanently stoned. Quite amazing I managed to hold down a good career and hobbies ;

[Simple Jack]

Since the late 90's, Albania has been a major exporter. How much of it reaches the UK I don't know.

 

See: 

 

[JockBudman]

In the bottom of my seed tub I've got maybe 30 or so seeds from the bush I used to get up in Glasgow circa 2006-2012. Scotland has always seemed behind the curve on herb - it was a right shock going from seedy bush for 20£ an 1/8 to honking green in wee snap bags for the same money when I moved down to Manchester about '12. 

 

No idea what the bush was or where it came from. Had a Gambian bloke sort me out with some of it and he said he got that shit from other African lads down in London so maybe African import? The other source was an Asian down the west end and I never knew him well enough to know where he got it - me and me housemate just bought it coz it was cheap as fuck and tbh it was dry bush or soaking wet Viet crap.

 

Anyway, ramble, ramble - still got the seeds and have tried to pop a few over the years but they've never germed. Maybe too many years rattling round old tins before finally getting put in the fridge, but I'd love to crack a few and run some of it one day. Might just be hermie skunk or something but could be something else much better when grown with love and care...

[KayDog]

I had some home grown bag seed that kept only for 4 years before none would germ. I wish you the best of luck but I wouldn't be holding my breath. 

[KayDog]

Commercial weed around me is almost non existent. There has been many visits during this lockdown and no one has any cash to buy. There's been a big increase in alcohol and fights in the street - which never used to happen. 

[bartman]

On 18/02/2020 at 0:00 PM, lemoore00 said:

My guy also has "cross weed", which is literally like a cross between proper weed and shit weed. Any idea what that is?

If it costs silly money you get cross weed.

Weed has spiritual and emotional feelings and when a price is put on it’s head. It gets cross. 
Whereas irate weed is highly overpriced and comes with it’s own questionnaire for the purchaser to complete. 

Grow your own and you get content weed. 
Win,win.

Edited April 14, 2020 by bartman

[hash72]

cant remember how long back I bought brick weed was from mexico, I remember talking to a female on overgrow years ago she talked of buying Mexican brick weed was very cheap