Black Market Hashish The Price of Prohibition
Hashish became popular in France and much of Europe when Napoleon's army returned from Egypt after three years of war and much time spent enjoying the pleasures of smoking and ingesting hashish. Since then, the popularity of hashish has increased, the black market having emerged strengthened by all the wars in producing countries such as Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and, more generally, by the American War on Drugs. The price of prohibition in France in the 1970s was above all a question of quality , just as it is today with cannabis, which is the most cultivated and consumed illegal drug in the world.
I have lived in producing countries for twenty years and the last quarter century in California, mostly producing my own hashish, so I am perhaps not the best qualified to give a general overview of the quality of the black market today, but I certainly have stories to share.
Pure hashish was not uncommon in the 1970s but it was not a given either. As I discovered when travelling to producing countries, it is very difficult to judge the quality if you have never tried it. The Moroccan Doppio Zero I smoked in France was not the Doppio Zero I tasted in the Rif mountains of Morocco, not even close; the same is true when it comes to Afghan and Nepalese smoke or the Indian charas available on the European market. Hashish and Charas exported from producing countries are rarely of the best quality. Even in the 1970s and 1980s the chances of smoking pure hashish were pretty slim unless you were directly connected to the source.
Today's high demand and larger market seem to have brought the adulteration of cannabis resin to the most extreme levels. A chemical analysis by renowned laboratories on hashish seized in Israel and the Czech Republic four years ago showed no traces of cannabis resin, 100% fake smoke. The research “ False hashish without cann abis resin ” by Lumír O. Hanuš, Dafna De La Vega, Michael Roman and Pavel Tomíček is literally frightening. The two main ingredients in the seized hashish samples were a mixture of various henna powders and resinous compounds from different pine species (1) . I thought that there was enough low-quality smoke in the producing countries to be transformed into attractive-looking hashish for the black market, and that a 100% counterfeit product was inconceivable and would never exist. Smoking cannabis resin with a little “mild” adulterant is not recommended but does not pose a threat to health, however, inhaling derivatives of pure pine resin and henna can have serious adverse consequences.
The principle behind the use of adulterants in cannabis resin is based on the idea that high-quality hash should be a sticky , malleable mass, while low-quality hash should have the consistency of a dried bar . There are a wide range of compounds that can transform the appearance of a dry, brittle bar of low-quality hashish into a sticky mass.
The use of camel dung to cut smoke is mostly a myth. Why should a light material that is a very important source of energy in most producing countries and, more importantly, does not resemble trichome heads, be considered if sand is available, an inexhaustible source of heavy material that also resembles trichome heads?
If we rely on a study commissioned by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) in 2015 and conducted by Pierre-Arnaud Chouvy (2) ; earth , henna, paraffin , beeswax, rosin (3) , glue , flour, powdered milk, liquorice, coffee, used engine oil , animal excrement and medicines were found in large quantities. The research is based on consumers and observer groups.
Manuel Pérez Moreno, a pharmacist at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine in Madrid, is co-author of the study carried out on 90 different samples of hashish obtained from different sources on the black market of the Spanish capital. The results revealed that 75% of the samples analyzed contained large quantities of the E. coli bacteria due to fecal contamination, a consequence of the ingestion of hashish pellets to cross the border, a common smuggling method between Morocco and Spain. The research was recently published in the journal Forensic Science International and its conclusions are a blow to European consumers who have to face reality. " Most of the hashish sold on the streets of the Madrid area is not suitable for human consumption, mainly due to microbiological criteria, and constitutes a health hazard ."
The bad news is that, besides adulterants , there is much more to worry about; natural contaminants such as microbial toxins, harmful bacteria, fungi and dangerous toxic metals, as well as all the man-made contaminants used by unethical or uneducated growers such as sulfur dust, sea sulfate, mercury compounds, lead arsenates, various pesticides, miticides, fungicides and chemical nutrients (4) all pose serious health risks.
The purity of all agricultural products, not just cannabis, begins with the soil and the cultivation methodology. While most adulterants can be detected with a little expertise, natural and chemical contaminants can only be detected through laboratory analysis , which for me is the most positive aspect of legalization in California.
(1) Lumír O. Hanuš, Dafna De La Vega, Michael Roman and Pavel Tomíček, (2015), False Hashish without cannabis resin, Israel Journal of Plan Sciences, 62(4):1-6
(2) Pierre-Arnaud Chouvy (2016), The supply of hashish to Europe, Background paper commissioned by the EMCDDA for the 2016 EU Drug Markets Report
(3) Rosin, also known as Greek pitch, is a form of solid resin obtained from pine trees and other plants, mostly conifers. It is produced by heating fresh liquid resin to vaporize the volatile terpene components. It is semi-transparent and ranges in color from yellow to black.
(4) Matt Cohen, TriQ, Inc. Jeremy Ziskind, BOTEC Analysis, (2013), Preventing Artificial Adulterants and Natural Contaminants in Cannabis Production: Best Practices, BOTEC Analysis Corp.
