Image via Complex Original
Along with everything else in the world, 2020 has seen the cannabis industry turned on its head. Despite legalization in states like California, Massachusetts, Michigan, and Illinois, the price of quality weed in both the legal and illicit marijuana markets has skyrocketed. The recent inflation is due to a mix of legalization costs, increased law enforcement pressure on the black market, environmental issues like the recent rash of West Coast wildfires, and run-of-the-mill social media hype. No matter the reason, if you want brand-name, top-shelf bud these days, it is not uncommon—after taxes in California’s legal shops—to pay up to $80 for an eighth from brands like Alien Labs and Your Highness, and sometimes even up to $100 on the black market for an eighth of the same highly sought-after exclusive strains, like Maqui or Shady Apples.
But for the black market cannabis sellers who don’t have access to high-quality weed and the stoners who don’t have the funds to indulge, a new set of deceptions has taken hold to trick buyers and increase profit margins for dealers. Last year’s counterfeit vape cartridge health crisis stopped dominating headlines, but that doesn’t mean that unscrupulous weed dealers have cleaned up their act. Whether you’re shopping for the best bud or just looking for the best price, it pays to stay ahead of the game and know how dealers are cutting corners.
With that in mind, these are the biggest black market weed scams to look out for and avoid.
Bootleg Mylar bags
The days of buying your tree in a Ziploc sandwich bag are gone. If you’re buying top-shelf exotic flower in 2020, odds are the weed is coming in a resealable Mylar bag complete with a bright graphic label and lab test results featuring cannabinoid and terpene percentages on the back. Unfortunately, just because your weed came in a fancy bag does not mean the contents inside match the label on the front. Thanks to overseas wholesale websites like DHGate and Alibaba, and even Amazon and Etsy (yes, that Etsy), black market dealers can buy empty and ready-to-sell bootleg Mylar bags that can be filled with whatever low-grade weed they want.
For smokers without the local access or excess cash, paying less for high-cost brands like Cookies or Zackwoods may seem like a no-brainer, but once you’re done flexing that Gary Payton or Runtz bag on IG, odds are you’ll still be smoking the same Reggie Bush you used to buy in sandwich bags. If you can’t verify that your dealer is tied in with the official connect, don’t get taxed for a fancy bag full of filler.
Some dealers have taken the canna-ception (cannabis deception) to a whole new level and have started cutting their product with baking soda to add weight and artificial sparkle that resembles potent THC trichomes. It may seem absurd, but if shiny white powder falls off your weed, it (probably) isn’t cocaine. If you do suspect your latest ounce was cut with baking soda, take a nug or small pile of ground bud and squeeze a little lemon juice onto it. If it starts fizzing, ditch your weed and find a new dealer, because you’ve been duped.
Nerds Rope and Stoney Patch edibles
If you’ve bought or been offered black market edibles over the past year, there’s a good chance you’ve heard of Medicated Nerds Rope or Stoney Patch Kids. If you haven’t heard of them, check the local news stations and federal health warnings. From California to Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Minnesota, and everywhere in between, law enforcement has seized thousands upon thousands of identically labeled Nerds Rope and Stoney Patch edibles. So how are dealers in every corner of the U.S. getting the same product, and how do they look so much like real Nerds Ropes and Sour Patch Kids?
The answer goes back to those same bootleg packaging sellers who make thousands of fake BackPackBoyz mylar bags. Instead of popular weed brands, though, these bags are marked with fake Nerds Rope or Sour Patch Kids candy graphics and labeled with arbitrarily high THC quantities—as high as 400 milligrams. With those ready-to-seal bags easily available online, all dealers need to do is unwrap bulk quantities of real Nerds Rope or Sour Patch candies, spray them with cheap THC distillate, and repackage them in the pre-labeled edible bags. In most cases, the THC distillate is the same illicit pot product that is used in the counterfeit vape cartridges that sparked a health crisis last year.
Since eating edibles doesn’t affect the lungs, it is unlikely tainted distillate edibles will result in another health crisis, but the facade of professional packaging hides product of uncertain and widely varying potency and potentially unsafe manufacturing and handling techniques. The knockoff edible market is so big that Nerds Rope parent company Ferrara Candy Company has made public statements distancing itself from and rebuking the popular black market product. At the end of the day, there is nothing stopping dealers from repackaging plain candy in edible-labeled bags without any THC added at all.
Fake dabs made out of pine rosin
If your stoner tendencies have evolved past flower and edibles into the realm of shatter, badder, rosin, and live resin, there is still plenty of sketchy maneuvering to watch out for. Because most black market dabs do not undergo lab testing, they often contain high levels of residual solvents or pesticides that you probably don’t want to be inhaling. Even worse than improperly purged BHO, some dealers are now selling completely fake slabs of shatter made out of pine rosin.
The cheap and completely benign tree wax is yellowish gold in color and can be heated and made to look almost exactly like THC-rich cannabis concentrates. To make it look even more like the real thing, dealers will mix in small amounts of cannabis terpenes or THC distillate to create a deceptively dank smell. Unfortunately, when you try to take a dab of pine rosin shatter, you don’t get high at all, and instead muck up your rig and possibly your lips with gross sap. If you’re buying shatter or dabs of any kind from a new source, make sure you know someone who can vouch for the product, or make sure you get to sample it before you pay.