Has the way you choose your flower changed since you started vaping?
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Yeah, I don’t waste my money on top shelf flower.
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Yes. I became a flavor chaser… A terp seeker!
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@Charles it has been kinda the opposite for me. I started getting Top Shelf Flower when it’s a good deal in my area.
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I live in Illinois and I have a medical card which caps my tax rate & 1% and I haven’t purchased from a legal dispensary in 2+ years!
In Illinois majority of the cultivators don’t give a rip about quality just quantity production. So about 60% of the goods on the shelf are mids at best, 35% are straight up boof leaving maybe 5% as “top” shelf.
So I’ve been buying from the on-line hemp/thca cannabis folks. Prices are excellent $75 a zip not $150+ like in the dispensary! Sure you get a boof bag occasionally but no more frequently than at the legal dispensary. Difference is the cash $$$ savings and it comes to my door!
Apparently this option will end on 11/12/26 if nothing changes. I’m ok, myself and many others are stocking up, it will be more than a year b4 the legal market sees me again!
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Pa medical here. I buy ounces 95% of the time. $215.00-$220.00, is retail for the highest price ounces. They’re routinely on sale for $140-$150, with points and big sales I pay $120.00-$125.00.
I usually buy these “top shelf” ounces because they usually have high terpines. I definitely shop by terps since vaping. Not just the flavor, everything seems better.
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Yup, had to start growing myself because I can taste how awful dispensary flower is from my state
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I started as a strain chaser but now am definitely a terp chaser. The problem is in chasing terps I have bought way more than I can use in a reasonable timeframe for one person. If the hemp ban stays as expected I should be set for 2-3 years though the terps will suffer.
I’ve got the medical Rx for mj but no raw flower is offered in my state (yet) so that works.
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The same here, the flavor became more important!
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Also, top shelf is subjective. I consider it the most expensive. It isn’t always the best though. All these growers have lower tier buds usually much cheaper. Half the fun is finding kick ass weed in the lower tier, and saving money.
The price has come down so much in the last 5 years, that the “top shelf” is worth a look now to me.
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serious question, with Beer.. it turned into “Craft” etc.. and i know weed has that kind of going with “craft” cannibis or small batch yadda yadda…
With beer there was BeerAdvocate.. guess there still is but people went there to discuss/forum and review beers… it was around well before craft beer really boomed then it also kind of crumbled under the industry and off shoots started popping up such as beertrading.org (renamed into Talk Beer) and then Untapped got super popular
is there any sort of widely adopted weed rating sight or something where things are cataloged and reviewed/voted upon.. i know so many crosses and crazy genetics etc. but still wasn’t aware of some widely adopted source for people to use to even know what is the best… as we all know just because it’s the most expensive or hyped doesn’t makeit the best and some dude in his basement could be producing the fire
anywho… hopefully ya’ll have some insight i’m not aware of
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In Illinois there are currently only a few so called “Craft Growers” and under the law they have restrictions, main one is canopy law. This restriction is in regards to how much/how many plants they can have in a certain amount of square feet! The big boys “MSO’s” or multi-state operators have no such restrictions! They may grow as many square feet as they please.
The few times I do go into an Illinois dispensary is to buy cannabis from “NEZ” one of the few craft growers in Illinois. It’s always top notch, terpy weed. The stuff from the big boys tends to be tasteless, odorless or very, very dry or mids even boof!
Illinois marketplace is very lopsided, the MSO’s wrote the laws and the regulations. Over the last couple years Illinois has seen a drop off in medical/recreational sales of 20-25%! Also our taxes are insane, bottom is 28% and tops out @ 48%! Taxes break down by class of product, so concentrates are taxed heavier than gummies, flower higher than gummies and concentrates are the highest tax rate. In Cook county the County levies an additional 3% tax on top of state taxes.
So with some of the highest base prices & taxes in the country, Illinois has seen sales slide when neighboring states like Missouri & Michigan markets are on fire! Lower base prices & lower taxes keep the fire burning!
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The bulk of our flower comes this way, too, even in Oregon. We have a favorite cultivator here in Oregon, but the strains come and go, so it’s good to have some reliably consistent strains always on hand.
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Oregon sounds like Shangrila! Nearly every “story” you hear are “top shelf” zips for $60! Not sure I can believe that, but if cannabis is overproduced I guess it’s possible.
You always hear how Cali, Oregan & Washington have the highest quality cannabis in the country. You don’t hear about Colorado’s so much anymore? I’ve even heard of dispensaries closing in Colorado but the density in Denver was even higher than Starbucks.
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