Confused about weed? You’re not alone.

4 Tips on How to Choose the Best Weed for Your Needs; By Zyre

It’s Friday and you walk into your local cannabis store to pick up some weed for your friend’s birthday party. You’re met with shelves full of nondescript plain packaging of varying formats and naming standards. Even though you see some new products, you play it safe and stick to the same Sativa strain that you brought to the last hang since you don’t want to risk being that person who accidentally kills the vibe by putting all your friends to sleep. Or maybe to spice it up, you ask your friendly budtender what their favourite product is and give that a whirl. If any of this sounds like something you’ve done before, honestly you are far from alone. Why is something that’s such a good time, so damned hard to decipher?

Not surprising given that cannabis was targeted and stigmatized during the longstanding “War On Drugs” where many of us were relegated to smoking our local dealer weed without any information other than being told that our sandwich bag wrapped weed was “ high quality upper/downer shit” as it was tossed to us through a half-rolled down child locked window. But even without this piece of history, cannabis is nuanced and not easy to decode.

So How Do I Choose The Best Weed?

So how do you go about choosing the best weed? Unsurprisingly, there is no single answer for this as it depends on what you want it for and the price you want to pay. But thankfully, there are some easy-to-remember factors you can use to come to a decision.

1. What type of vibe are you looking for?

All of us have consumed cannabis and gotten the munchies, the giggles, or couch-locked highs so we know that different strains have different effects. While we want to make sure the high enhances our vibe, picking this is a bit more tricky. The very broad method is the sativa/indica/hybrid approach where sativa are thought of as more energizing and good for adventures, indica for kicking back and unwinding, and hybrids for focussing and being creative. But the fact is that sativa/indica are botany classifications where indicas are shorter, stouter plants that are originally grown in colder climates and sativa were longer, thinner plants that originally grew in warmer climates. A hybrid mix of the two that were not created to be an indicator of the effects coming from their buds. To top this off, the strain names themselves aren’t regulated, so one company’s Blue Dream might be completely different from another’s. So when you’re buying based on strain name, it is reasonable to expect that there is varying consistency across different brands.

And to add even more confusion to the fray, THC in itself isn’t what gives you a distinct vibe, that’s what makes you high but whether you feel upbeat or relaxed or creative when you’re high is a result of the entourage of effects you get from the over 400 possible terpenes and 66 cannabinoids and their ratios as found in each strain.

So now what? If sativa/indica/hybrid isn’t a good way for choosing your vibe, what can you do? Well, all isn’t lost. Even though it’s not a reliable method in itself, companies are also motivated to create products that match your expectations, and given that this classification method has become so prevalent, it’s easier for companies to hop onto this approach and produce products that generally fit your expectations and, label them with the strain type that you’ve come to expect for that effect than to try and upend this deep-seated approach. So unless there is a clearer method, this is your default option as long as you consume a product that is retaining the underlying characteristics of the strain type and not just the THC.

2.Do you want the health benefits?

Cannabis has been used in varying forms for millennia for its beneficial properties and over 40 countries have legalised it for medical purposes. So while we may not always be consuming cannabis with the health benefits in mind, it is a very real attribute.

The health benefits do not stem from a singular aspect of weed, but rather the full-spectrum entourage effect that is achieved from the combination of the cannabinoids (most popularly THC and CBD) and over terpenes found within the whole plant. This means that to obtain the underlying benefits of the plant you need to consume it in a format that retains attributes of the underlying plant. Of course, we couldn’t make it easy for you so it’s not surprising that the term full-spectrum is also not regulated and many products classified themselves as such. However as we go deeper into the extraction section below, there are some keywords that you can look for.

3. Choosing your consumption method.

There are multiple ways you can consume with or without the full-spectrum benefits. The main things to note are whether you’re heating or burning and if you’re inhaling or ingesting.

Heating vs Burning

If you smoke the bud through combustion, a method preferred by traditionalists, it will produce carcinogens and also create temperatures that can burn off the delicate terpenes and cannabinoids.

Vaping is the highest rise in popularity with the under 30 crowds, likely for their convenience format and lack of smoke, but also for the less harmful effects vs combustibles. Heating does not create the carcinogens of burning and helps to retain the terpenes and cannabinoids that were present in the underlying plant.

Dabbing is another means for individuals to heat cannabis without burning the product but requires additional tools and accessories.

Inhaling vs Ingesting

It’s commonly known that an edible takes longer to kick and has longer-lasting effects than inhaling weed, but another factor to keep in mind is that the high is stronger with edibles due to the THC passing through the stomach and liver and being metabolized into a much more potent compound that makes dosing a bit more tricky with the delayed onset and harder-hitting effect. So while considered by casual users as less intimidating, it also can be the most unpredictable and turn people off from weed in general.

With inhaling, the onset is quicker, allowing for dosing management as long as people are mindful of the size of their puffs.

4. Extraction Method

Aside from instances where you’re smoking or vaping the actual flower, other products require companies to extract the properties of the plant into a derivative that can then be consumed alone or combined with oils/food/drinks. How it is extracted is an underlooked but very important factor.

Many brands use extraction methods that produce distillate. Distillate only retains the THC of the plant while stripping away the other cannabinoids and terpenes. This produces a low-cost, generic product that just gets users high with no discernable benefits from the full-spectrum entourage effects. And because there is only THC in distillate the resulting vibe is also one-dimensional lacking the distinct vibes from the underlying strain. Ultimately, for a distillate, it doesn’t matter if it came from a sativa/indica/hybrid strain all of the characteristics have been stripped from it leaving only the THC which is the same regardless of where it came from.

Many edibles use distillate as it is the most neutral tasting of extracts, and cheap vapes will also use distillate.

Ideally, you find products extracted in a way that retains the underlying terpenes and cannabinoids of the underlying plant but it can be tricky to determine what is full-spectrum even when products claim to be. Generally speaking, extraction methods using hydrocarbon/BHO or solventless are more apt to retain the underlying characteristics of the plant, so products such as resin, rosin and terpene sauce are good keywords to look for.

If distinct and consistent vibes alongside health benefits matter to you, then you will want to seek out these products, but the price can become an issue.

Choosing Zyre Flavoured Cured Resin Vapes

So that’s why we made Zyre to give distinct vibes and maximise full-spectrum benefits in a simple and easy-to-understand manner: by labelling our flavoured cured resin vapes by Vibe and Flavour.

We used BC bud hand-selected for their terpene and cannabinoid profiles that produce distinct vibes and used cold-temp hydrocarbon extraction to retain the delicate terpene and cannabinoid full-spectrum profiles. To keep the price affordable while still retaining the aforementioned benefits we use a blend of distillate and terpene sauce to create our cured resin. We also mix in small-batch crafted fruit flavours to ensure that our vapes taste great while giving you the same distinct vibes time and time again.

To top it all off with the best experience and value you can ask for, we fill our oils into zirconia ceramic vape carts with organic Japanese cotton wicks and patented flat-bottom triangular aspirators to ensure our full-spectrum vape is good to the last drop.

So you get the full-spectrum health benefits while confidently knowing that you’ll be bringing the vibe to the next party.

Zyre will be available in BC stores July 2022, and AB, SK, MB, ON later this year.

See their website here!

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