Does Pot Need to Be Organic?

Marijuana is the most widely used drug in the world, after coffee, tea, alcohol, and chocolate. Because marijuana has been illegal in most countries for most of the last century, few users give much thought to how it is grown, but cultivation techniques make a difference.

5. Organic marijuana is more expensive for a reason.

Illegal pot operations tend to grow large number of plants in highly fertilized (manured) soil under intense light indoors. To counteract molds and bacteria that would interfere with the crop, illegal growers use chemicals.Legal, outdoor operations don't need the chemicals, but their production is limited by weather, particularly storms and frosts, limited sunlight, seasons, and theft. Organic marijuana almost has to be grown outdoors, but when it is, there's less of a crop and the price will be higher.

6. Contaminated marijuana should not be used to make marijuana oil.

There are probably no marijuana dispensaries that use moldy marijuana to make marijuana oil, although using the marijuana to make an oil will cover up certain defects in the product. The oil used to make marijuana oil suffocates some strains of bacteria and some strains of mold, especially the oxygen loving and potentially deadly fungus Aspergillus, but not all problem microorganisms. If you make your own marijuana oil, start with a quality product.

7. One of the major problems with grow-room marijuana is not an insecticide, but a chemical added to an insecticide to make it more readily absorbed.

Spider mites proliferate if they are not washed off leaves by watering or by rain. Overhead sprinklers are incompatible with the high-intensity grow lights used by most pot farmers who grow their crops indoors. To keep spider mites under control, most farmers use "bug bombs" between crops. These insecticides contain a chemical called piperonyl butoxide to speed up the rate at which spider mites and other pests absorb the toxin. The insecticide dissipates, but the piperonyl butoxide stays in the walls, the floors, in water hoses, and in tools. It gets into marijuana, and can break down into toxic compounds when pot is smoked or vaped.

READ Marijuana and the Immune System

8. The chemicals in marijuana that give it taste are produced in response to stress.

Plants make chemicals called terpenes to protect their seeds from adverse environmental conditions. The marijuana plant makes these chemicals in the trichomes or "hairs" on the marijuana bud. When a plant is grown indoors under "perfect" conditions, it doesn't make as much of these compounds that give the bud a distinctive flavor and aroma.

9. The chemicals in marijuana that give it calming effects are also produced in response to stress.

Many of these terpenes also act to enhance the psychoactive effect of the herb as a whole. Grow-room plants don't make as many of the chemicals that give the product its subtle effects.

And, finally, 

10. "Grass" isn't supposed to smell like grass.

If you open your bag and the contents smell like lawn clippings (assuming that they aren't in fact lawn clippings), there is a problem. Marijuana needs to be cured for several weeks to several months to make the THC within it more potent. If you are getting fresh grass, you aren't getting all the psychoactive potential of the herb.