Comment by echelon_musk | Hacker News Reader

Comment by echelon_musk | Hacker News Reader

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> to make cannabis as popular as booze requires solving that original problem: It’s hard to imagine millions of people becoming new recreational users without being able to promise them that the product they’re spending money on ... will give them the effect they want.

> it remains to be seen whether that’s even possible with a plant as complex as cannabis

Cannabis doesn't work like this. It has been tried and the end result was Sativex. It doesn't work as well as actual cannabis. It's like trying to replace coffee with caffeine. There's something like ~1000 compounds in coffee. The effects are not the same.

There's an entourage effect going on in cannabis that's extremely hard to replicate. Even buds on different parts of the same plant will have different profiles.

Also the sativa vs indica classification is almost completely meaningless nonsense these days. Does it have high THCV? Then maybe it's what was once called sativa. Was it an indica harvested before there were any amber trichomes? Maybe it has 'sativa' effects etc.

Isn't it also the same with alcohol, at least the beverage that people drink? Wine especially is very susceptible to conditions; soil, weather, strain, location, barrels, harvest time, aging conditions/temperature, etc.

Sure, the alcohol chemical is the same everywhere, but so is THC/CBD when you want to reduce it like that. Watered down ethanol is probably a thing but few people drink it like that.

That affects the taste of the alcohol, but not really the psychoactive effects. Booze is booze is booze.

I used to think so too, but apparently not. Ethanol is chemically the same everywhere, but there are lots of other compounds and different alcohol compounds in booze as well and apparently make a difference in your high and how much your head hurts afterwards.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_(chemistry)

What part of that link backs up your claim?

It's a list of some molecules considered alcohols, not things you'd find in an alcoholic beverage.

Granted, I was not happy with that link and am also not so much with this one:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fermentation#Byprodu...

Still, there is the information inside, that not just ethanol gets produced by fermentation, but also other alcohols and the main point was, alcohol is not the same as ethanol.

Huh. I didn't expect so much methanol to be present in booze! (Methanol is incredibly toxic, but ethanol is an antitoxin, so that explains why wine doesn't kill people.)

That’s the angel’s share — the first bits of distillation you need to throw out.

Edit: I’m wrong! That’s the term for the part that evaporates during aging.

But this article explains what happens to the methanol at distillers and it’s pretty fascinating: https://www.whiskyandwisdom.com/bringing-balance-to-the-fore...

That was not my experience at all when I used to drink, and I don't think I'm alone in this. The feeling from different alcoholic drinks differed significantly.

I disagree - personally I have vastly different effects wether I drink beer, whiskey, wine or jägermeister and I’m sure most people feel the same.

A good portion of drunkenness is purely psychological. Tell people that fruit juice is alcoholic, and they start acting drunk, even though they're sober. I imagine it's mostly that, plus the different alcohol concentrations.

For some people that's definitely true, placebo is a real thing after all. But it's not like that with everyone, and even if "booze is booze is booze" is true, just like with cannabis, there is more stuff in the drinks than just alcohol, that might also change the effect you get from drinking.

> It's like trying to replace coffee with caffeine

Given how many people drink artificially caffeinated beverages this feels like a poor example

A lot of the flower at stores are not very good now. There has been a proliferation of flavored strains that just taste weird and bad. Lilac Diesel anyone?

On the other hand, the tried and true traditional strains have and always been excellent. But they are scarce due to demand, so at least half of what you see is filler crap. And you can't even smell it and certainly not try it like a shop in Amsterdam.

Sativa vs indica is meaningless but if one wants to sleep THC+CBN is the way to go. And usually these products are labeled as "indica" on the packaging. Sometimes melatonin is added as well. I shy away from that but it also works quite well.

If my memory serves me:

Amber trichomes indicate the THC degrading into CBN.

If you harvest when the trichomes are milky or clear but not amber you'll have higher THC vs CBN.

But this earlier harvest comes at the expense of yield as you sacrifice time that would be spent with the buds increasing in size as they become ever more sexually frustrated.

Black market cannabis tends to optimise for this.

Since we managed to make coffee predictable and enjoyable, is the same not possible with cannabis? (Using horticultural practices as with coffee rather than trying to synthesize anything in a lab/factory.)

We havent made coffee predictable AFAIK

At the mass retail/consumer level, I think we have.

If you asked me to describe the coffee I buy in 1.5 pound tubs from Folgers, predictable (or a synonym) would probably be in the first 10 adjectives I'd use.

Depends on your brewing method tbh. If you're making espresso properly then each batch will need a different grind setting.

If you are brewing with french press, not so much.

I wish i could buy coffee so consistent that id never need to adjust the grind setting or pick out bad beans as i weigh my shots out for the week. Have tried about 30 roasters, none are THAT consistent because it probably isnt practical to be.

Same reason an energy drink with caffeine, taurine, etc. still doesn't feel exactly like a cup of coffee

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