I didn’t start until the 80s, but it looked WAY better than any of this. Average bud was lower potency than the stuff we have today but it wasn’t bad and looked decent if a bit under trimmed. We got nice hydroponic buds when you wanted to pay for it and could find it. We also got cheap brown brick weed that looked better then this.
I was recently thinking about the old days when I started out as a young teen. The "tech" we used and sources of materials to construct our tools. And the weed we must have been smoking... And this is in the late 80s, early 90s. Even my memories don't look so bleak compared to these. But I was meaning to look up the THC levels over the years compared to what is around now...
I absolutely love the milder type 2 weed that’s coming out now myself. 3-10% thc with the same amount of CBD. This new shit just blasts you with no forgiveness. Like there’s no room for error and it’s so easy to get way too high.
There are times and situations I might enjoy that. But as a regular smoker at the moment getting high is kind of hard due to increased tolerance. I would likely have to take a week or two to reset to try that stuff out.
To be fair, I mostly replaced craft beer with weed. So getting high is kind of the point. Just like getting drunk was. Good taste but also often higher abv. Shrug.
I’ve always preferred smoking dry herb to vaping or edibles. It’s the whole ritual of it, ya know? It’s nice to just pause and pack a bowl on the porch.
You can vape dry herb. It preserves a lot of the ritual. I’m on vacation and for convenience I picked up my first vape cart and battery (been doing this since the 80s but just never tried it). It is pretty soulless :) compared to packing a bowl or something. I much prefer my dry herb vaped (dynavap and solo 2). I do keep a pipe around as I occasionally like to pack a bowl on a Saturday night (old school hash, usually).
My buddy has been trying to sell me on dry herb vapes. I tried his a couple times, and I’m almost convinced. Carts and dabs and shit just feel too… scientific? There’s probably a better way to phrase that.
There’s something meditative about going through the actions of actually packing a bowl or rolling a joint. It’s methodical, let’s you get into a good headspace. It’s more a full body experience.
Using a cart or even hitting a dab rig, you’re using more tech, there can be more of a convience to it, but you lose out on the time spent with yourself. You lose out on the ritual, the spirit of it. Sometimes it’s nice, but sometimes, nah, I want that nice practice, the ritual of preparation my way.
You definitely lose “the journey” and get right to the destination with vaping. But I’ve found that journey again with the first few hits of a fresh packed dosing cart. The flavor is just something else. After that it’s just like you said, a means to an end, strictly business kind of thing.
I can't ever go back to combustion after vaping - the taste with vaping is just phenomenal. I love starting with a terpene hit.
I don't feel like I've lost anything - maybe it's because I use a Dynavap so it's vaguely joint shaped, still has a burning hot end you have to be careful with, and it requires some amount of skill if you're using a torch. So I have the ritual of getting out my weed container. Packing the bowl. Then lighting the flame and turning turning till the clicks.... Still feels very satisfying to me. And I still use it with a bong.
That and how much higher I can get from vaping with less bud too.
I couldn’t have said this any better. It’s nice to have the convenience of a cart when I’m out and about but if I can afford to take my time, I’m grinding, packing and smoking and I’m not in a hurry about it.
Go for the Dynavap. It’s the thing that feels the most like smoking to me, but you get the benefits of it not tasting like an ashtray and it being slightly better for your lungs. They’re cheap enough that it’s not a huge financial outlay either.
It’s not the only vape I use and like, but its the one I use the most often.
I tried Thai stick in northern Thailand in the 00s. You would drive out of town, past a military checkpoint and towards a local waterfall and dealers would pop out of the bushes. The weed itself was nothing to write home about but driving it back into town past the military point was hair raising (and very dumb)
Oh man, even if the weed wasn’t that great what a story! Its crazy to think how far we’ve come. Weed just got recreational here in my state and my mom just went in to buy edibles for the first time. If you told me that would be reality 10 years ago I’m not sure I would believe you.
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