HEY MAN!!, WHATS IN IT??

By CannLabs (720) 998-9454 INTRODUCTION Due to the advent of the MMJ industry, MMJ concentrates such as hash and hash oil have become much more available than ever before. These once rare and unique formulations are now quite common and are available at most every MMJ Center. With this in mind, there is a wide variety of these products available and an inordinately large discrepancy in the strengths of these products. Before we begin talking about the potency of some of the various hash type products available, CannLabs would like to state that MMJ is certainly not all about potency. Like Gen always says, You dont head for the Ever Clear every time you go to the liquor store, do ya? Knowing what is in your medicine is important, but the most important thing is knowing which strains and cannabinoid profiles best treat your ailment. The only way to have this knowledge is to buy tested products. If the product is not tested, one batch of MMJ product may have no effect on your ailment and the next batch trips you out so badly that you never want to use that product again. Well, CannLabs is here to help!! To provide this help, CannLabs has tested various hash oil and hash type products to provide the MMJ patient community a better understanding of what is out there and what the relative concentrations of the cannabinoids are in these products. The reason for this study is that each of these products is ultimately used in the manufacture of edibles. They can also be used as an endproduct. This article specifically addresses these products from the viewpoint of making edibles from them. The study in no way endorses one method for making hash oil or hash type product. It does not wish to address the issues relating to butane extraction, for instance. It merely determines the overall cannabinoid strengths of each of the tested products. It should be noted that the results presented here are strictly for the exact products that were supplied for this study. Since the hash type products are extracted from natural plant material, and this material will have variation from crop to crop, hash type products will vary from batch to batch and crop to crop. This single analysis is not meant to gauge the strength of future products from these manufacturers nor is it designed to be a rule of thumb relating to all similar products. Inferences such as this cannot be made due to the wide variability in plant material and manufacturing processes. All MMJ products should be tested so that the exact cannabinoid contents are known. PRODUCTS Trim In order to keep the experimental variability of this study to a minimum, the same trim was used to make all of the hash type products tested, except the bubble hash. Each of the products except for the bubble hash was made from the same batch of frozen, homogenized trim. The bubble hash must be prepared from fresh trim so it was prepared from a different batch of trim. The trim that was tested is of typical strength; many hash makers use trim of this potency.

CO2 Hash Oil CO2 extraction, like butane, uses a property that many chemical compounds can possess called criticality. Although there is a lot of theory involved in making and using critical compounds, it is suffice to know that most chemicals can be made critical at the right temperature and barometric pressure. Compounds that are at their critical temperature and pressure possess very unique properties. One of these is the ability to extract chemical compounds (like the cannabinoids) from plant material. In fact, decaffeinated coffee is made by extracting coffee beans with super critical CO2. Super critical fluid extraction is a process used throughout the food and medical industry to extract important chemical compounds from plant materials or chemical mixtures. To perform this process, ground MMJ is placed into a super critical fluid extraction instrument. The instrument is turned on and the MMJ is extracted with the super critical CO2. The instrument separates the hash oil from the MMJ; the hash oil is deposited in collection reservoir for later use. The collected hash oil is either sold or used to make other MMJ products. This is a very modern technique. Glycerine Tincture Glycerine extraction is one of the many methods where liquids are used to extract the cannabinoids from the plant material. In this method, ground MMJ plant material is soaked in glycerine. The glycerine extracts the cannabinoids out of the plant material. In most cases, the plant material is filtered out of the glycerine and the infused glycerine is either sold or used to make other MMJ products. This is a very old technique. Butane Hash Oil The process for extracting MMJ with butane is theoretically similar to the process using CO2. Butane at close to the critical temperature and pressure is used to extract the cannabinoids from the MMJ. The difference is that butane is a little easier to use. An expensive instrument is not needed to perform this extraction. The final hash oil is either sold or used to make other MMJ products. This is also a very modern technique. Bubble Hash Like glycerine and alcohol (see below), bubble hash is a liquid extraction method. In this case, MMJ is added to a vessel containing a filtering membrane that allows the tricomes, kief and water to pass through but the MMJ plant material does not. Water and ice are added to the filter bag. The solution is mixed. The water separates the cannabinoids from the MMJ plant material and this material is suspended in the water. The bulk plant material is then removed. The water with the suspended tricomes, kief and cannabinoids is filtered through various sized filters to collect the cannabinoids. This final product is collected and dried. It is then formed into typical hash products or it is used to make other MMJ products. Although the equipment available to make bubble hash is modern, the process is quite old. Ethanol Extract (Tincture) In this case, MMJ is placed in a leach-free vessel. The plant material is then soaked in the ethyl alcohol and allowed to extract. Once the extraction is done, the bulk plant material removed, leaving a green liquid. This liquid can be used as is or it can be reduced on a double boiler and

concentrated to a more potent oil. This is one of the oldest methods for removing cannabinoids from MMJ. EXPERIMENTAL Samples were extracted and analyzed by GC-FID three to five times using the normal CannLabs methodology and protocol. Values were averaged. The sample with values most close to the average values is reported. Results for the various products are reported in the Table 1 in weightpercentage (wt-%) units. Please note that CBD and CBN were below the detection level of the instrument in the glycerine sample. RESULTS Table 1 Strain Trim (used for all but Bubble Hash) Organa Labs CO2 Hash Oil Healthy Creations Glycerine Strawberry Fields Butane Hash Oil Essential Extracts Bubble Hash River Rock Ethanol Extract CBD 0.220% 1.950% <0.100 % 1.098% 1.059% 1.429% THC 5.848% 42.456 % 0.691% 73.524 % 65.431 % 52.242 % CBN <0.100 % 1.560% <0.100 % 1.689% 1.071% 1.207% Total Cannabinoids 6.068% 45.966% 0.691% 76.311% 67.561% 54.878%

THE HARD STUFF Now we have a pretty good idea of what is in most of the readily available types of hash and hash type products. So, how can this information be used to make better edibles? Lets talk about making one brownie with a total of 50 mg of THC in it. We will not consider the other two cannabinoids at this time, but the calculations would be quite similar. Nevertheless, we want to talk strictly about how much starting material will be required from each of the tested products to make this one, singular brownie. Recall that CannLabs reports our values as a weight-percentage (wt-%). Using the CO2 hash oil as an example for this exercise, if you have 1.0 grams of this hash oil and it measures 42.456% THC, then the amount of THC in the hash oil is: (1.0 grams) X (0.42456) = 0.42456 0.425 grams 425 milligrams (mg) So, one gram of this hash oil provides 425 mg of THC. So, how much of this hash oil will be required to make our brownie with 50 mg of THC in it. This will require a little algebra.

(???) X (0.42456) = 50 mg [divide both sides of the equation by 0.42456] (???) = 50 mg 0.42456 = 117.77 mg 118 mg Thus, 118 mg of this hash oil must be placed into this brownie in order for it to contain 50 mg of THC. Similar calculations have been performed for the remaining hash oil products analyzed by this study and the results are in the table below. Strain Trim Organa Labs CO2 Hash Oil Healthy Creations Glycerine Strawberry Fields Butane Hash Oil Essential Extracts Bubble Hash River Rock Ethanol Extract Amount of Hash Oil Needed to Make 50 mg THC Brownie 854.993 mg 0.855 gr 117.769 mg 0.118 gr 7235.890 mg 7.236 gr 68.005 mg 0.068 gr 76.416 mg 0.076 gr 95.708 mg 0.096 gr

CONCLUSION The results of this study are quite telling. The concentration of cannabinoids in the various types of hash oil products varies greatly. This variability is exacerbated by crop to crop, batch to batch, and maker to maker variations inherent in working with natural plant materials. The only way to know how potent a particular batch of hash type product is to have it tested. Choosing the right hash oil product for your edibles is the biggest concern. Only purchase products from manufacturers that you know and trust. Always have your hash oil pre-tested to ensure quality. And choose the product that you consider the safest for your customer base. CannLabs will not endorse or disavow any of these hash products at this time. Thus, it is the responsibility of the edibles makers to purchase the best and safest product as your edibles starting materials. JUST THE FACTS Operating since 2010, CannLabs provides the fastest and most reliable values for the three primary cannabinoids using GC, the most cited method used to identify the cannabinoids. Our instrumentation is calibrated using certified chemical standards from two world-recognized manufacturers. CannLabs is here to serve the MMJ patient community because we realize that knowledge is power power for the patient, the grower, the edibles maker, and the retailer. Call Genifer (720.994.9454) for the best MMJ customer service in the industry!!