Dispensary sativa nonsense

I got this pic from a CA dispensary that is advertizing the availability of "Kali Mist"





As someone who knows Kali Mist very well, I can guarantee that this nug of chronic, or whatever, ain't Kali Mist.

And the hard, cold reality is that nobody is growing anything remotely sativa for dispensaries. My KM girl gets blown away in yield by blueberry (when you factor flower time) and the buds are airy as fuck. It just isn't commercially viable in today's environment.

The best I can get at a dispensary is a hybrid that has plenty of indica in it.

I am sure there are exceptions - I heard a rumor that a Berkeley dispensary usually gets a nice OD crop of Old Mother Sativa. I'd like to find out more of those exceptions. I'd also like to hear from anyone who has ideas on a solution to the sativa problem.

sativas are on the market, but they fetch $$$. not only is yield an issue, so is lengthy flowering times. the one time i grew kali, it took 100+ days to finish and i swear it never stopped stretching. any disp passing of those nugs for sativa is slapping some heads.

ughhhh it drives me crazy!

the best luck i've had so far is just finding a dispensary with some fucking integrity. not easy let me tell you. i've been to almost every place in town and there is only one with the variety, transparency, integrity, and fair pricing i'm expecting in a legitimate medical business. they only stock organic meds as well.

every other dispensary in town is a sketchy brick and mortar housing a regular old black-market-educated dealer selling narsty chem'd out shite for at least $10 more than my place. crazy.

i just don't get why this market exists here. i was in the retail aspect of this business back on the beast coast and it blew my mind how the market here in MMJ cali is almost the same as what i was getting in the NE. same prices, same quality (meh) and same sketch factor.

the sativa thing is pure selfish greedy business like you said. if you can get a higher yeild in half the time, sure you're gonna fill your garden with cash crop strains. it's a bummer that there's so few people doin this for the love.

hey i guess that's why i started growing

For comparison purposes, I snapped a pic of a Kali Mist nug. She went 100 days and yielded medium sized, very fluffy buds. This sample has been jar cured for 2+ years now. No tolerance build up - after 3 years of smoking her, I still only take 2-3 bong hits. There is a ceiling, but it takes a lot to get there.
Wake me when I can buy an eighth of real Kali Mist for 50$ at a dispensary. Until then, color me seriously disappointed with the CA MMJ scene.

Godless said:

I got this pic from a CA dispensary that is advertizing the availability of "Kali Mist"

As someone who knows Kali Mist very well, I can guarantee that this nug of chronic, or whatever, ain't Kali Mist.

And the hard, cold reality is that nobody is growing anything remotely sativa for dispensaries. My KM girl gets blown away in yield by blueberry (when you factor flower time) and the buds are airy as fuck. It just isn't commercially viable in today's environment.

The best I can get at a dispensary is a hybrid that has plenty of indica in it.

I am sure there are exceptions - I heard a rumor that a Berkeley dispensary usually gets a nice OD crop of Old Mother Sativa. I'd like to find out more of those exceptions. I'd also like to hear from anyone who has ideas on a solution to the sativa problem.

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that's some outdoor bullshit.....

true is, no dispensaries pay more for sativa strains.....

so growers are not going to run a 100 day plus strain, if there going to get the same money for a 50 day strain that yields way more....

so don't look to a dispensary for the sativa's, grow your own....

Agreed^^
even with problems, it is better than trying to find a good sat in a "D".

I still stop by a lot if disp's and I have not seen a real sativa strain in quite some time. But then again I believe they mislabel (intentionally or non intentionally) 80% of the strains...

Godless said:

.............Wake me when I can buy an eighth of real Kali Mist for 50$ at a dispensary. Until then, color me seriously disappointed with the CA MMJ scene.

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(bold font added by me)

This is the reason dispensaries don't carry it. Not that they don't want to carry sativas, but that the customers aren't willing to pay for it.

If a large amount of, or at least enough, customers understood sativa smoke enough to value it, they'd be willing to pay more for it. Maybe they would pay $100 per 1/8, knowing that it was a clean, clear high, or that the buzz would last 4-6 hours instead of 2 or 3.

One other problem....it seems one can expect the general majority of smokers to be pretty uninformed. Most probably know they want a frosty, stinky bud that gets them stoned and is dense.

Well, sativas might be frosty, and a few have that dank stank to them, but some people who smoke can't differentiate a clear high from no high, and a lot of the good ones are airy even if grown in perfect conditions.

If that happened, suddenly dispensaries would be able to buy say, a 100 day haze for 6-8 per piece, and still land a nice profit. Growers could then actually make money, er, cover their costs, growing some real sativas.

Another option, maybe all these growers who just want to provide medicine for people and don't care about profit could set up some big greenhouses, and instead of growing 10 lb blue dream or GDP plants, grow 5lb OT Haze plants.

Bottom line,until people value it enough to pay more, dispensaries aren't gonna be willing to buy any, let alone at a reasonable price, and growers aren't gonna supply it to dispensaries.

I'm not in California though, so i may not have a clue what I'm talking about

Lots of good observations in this thread. Main point to be remembered is that if people aren't asking for it by name, dispensaries aren't going to be paying extra for it, meaning growers ain't going to be supplying it.

Get out there and hit the streets, the real sativas will come in time.

Godless said:

Wake me when I can buy an eighth of real Kali Mist for 50$ at a dispensary. Until then, color me seriously disappointed with the CA MMJ scene.

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Wake up Godless..although not KaliMist this can be closely compared. I've been following this thread and I agree there have been some good points made. Actually main stream, larger populated areas, I might agree there may be no Sativas, but I'm not main stream and niether are many of the smaller co-ops and dispensaries statewide. I know for a fact that my MalawiGold cross was avaliable at a Co-op in Cali. It took top honors in their contest. So I think you could find them if you look for them. I also grew out several other good top quality very Sativa dominant strains, 100 day plus strains last fall that went to patients in our state, yet I don't know where they were distributed. Unless the collective that I was working with kept it all for himself..and that could have happened..lol.
I also feel the The Marijuana Connoisseur and Cannabis Marketplace is still developing and growing. Here in this thread we may be talking about the average Med patient getting their hands on some good Sativas, but as this market develops they will become more recognized and avaliable.



..and pix always make a thread more interesting!

If I had seen anything like your Malawi, I might not have started my own garden DD. Its a good thing for me you are in NorCal!

ive never understood the appeal of sativas, my buddy 00420 grew some great looking hazey stuff back a few years ago and had some chem D on hand at the time and i greatly preferred the chem D

Godless,
You seem to know a little something about sativas. Any opinions on sativa heavy hybrids that are worth looking at? If someone took, say a trainwreck X thai mom and crossed it with a sour diesel, that isn't sativa enough? I'd like to try a more sativa strain myself.

thanks

krunchbubble said:

so don't look to a dispensary for the sativa's, grow your own....

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Yep - I had thought that I could take a hiatus for a while when I moved back to CA because I'd be so flush with the wide eyed thrill of "standing in line for the kind" feeding my stash jars with new and different weed. Instead, I find the same commercial weed I got before I started growing my own. To be sure, some of my surprise is feigned here to make a point. And while I do have connections in CA, every last motherfucking one of them is monocropping the GDP to vend (and bitching about the price drops, while commenting that GDP is "easymode" compared to the hazes we used to grow).

FirstTracks said:

If a large amount of, or at least enough, customers understood sativa smoke enough to value it, they'd be willing to pay more for it. Maybe they would pay $100 per 1/8, knowing that it was a clean, clear high, or that the buzz would last 4-6 hours instead of 2 or 3.

One other problem....it seems one can expect the general majority of smokers to be pretty uninformed. Most probably know they want a frosty, stinky bud that gets them stoned and is dense.

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I'd pay $100 an 1/8th for something that I knew was grown and cured as lovingly as my headstash was and call it a bargain. Anyway, I think that FirstTracks is on the right track here: the root of the problem is the consumer's lack of knowledge. How many stoners proudly hold up that nug to their friends who all ohh and ahh at the "tightness" of that "dense-ass" shit. That scene would only make sense if those were producers, not consumers having that conversation. The question is: how to effectively educate the consumer?

Doobieduck said:

Wake up Godless..although not KaliMist this can be closely compared. I've been following this thread and I agree there have been some good points made. Actually main stream, larger populated areas, I might agree there may be no Sativas, but I'm not main stream and niether are many of the smaller co-ops and dispensaries statewide. I know for a fact that my MalawiGold cross was avaliable at a Co-op in Cali. It took top honors in their contest. So I think you could find them if you look for them. I also grew out several other good top quality very Sativa dominant strains, 100 day plus strains last fall that went to patients in our state, yet I don't know where they were distributed. Unless the collective that I was working with kept it all for himself..and that could have happened..lol.
I also feel the The Marijuana Connoisseur and Cannabis Marketplace is still developing and growing. Here in this thread we may be talking about the average Med patient getting their hands on some good Sativas, but as this market develops they will become more recognized and avaliable.

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Doobieduck, thanks for your thoughtful (and beautiful) response. I totally agree that dispensaries in the big metros are generally weaker in selection than the ones out in growing country and I want to personally commend you for growing and providing non-commercial meds to the community. That is clearly an act of love and I think it is inspiring. Once I get settled into a space, maybe I'll do the same just for the charity of it.

Next time you (or anyone else) drops some 100day sativas on a dispensary, please please please post a head's up on icmag? (maybe that would be a security issue though??)

Anyway, I had read your article a while back. I thought it was inspiring, but also a bit of wishful thinking (that I relate all too well with). I honestly wonder if the dispensary scene isn't inhibiting and stunting the growth of connoisseur in our market.

And, please, don't think I am pointing fingers here, because, if I were, all fingers would point to the prohibitionists that have warped our market all these years.

NorCalFor20 said:

ive never understood the appeal of sativas, my buddy 00420 grew some great looking hazey stuff back a few years ago and had some chem D on hand at the time and i greatly preferred the chem D

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Horses for courses and all that for sure. All I can say is that I have been awake for two hours this AM and the fuzzy headedness from smoking Super Lemon Haze last night is finally wearing off. And that's a hybrid. If I smoke an indica, it is instant sleep, followed by a total weed hangover in the morning. Indicas are great for pain and dissociative experiences, but I am all about getting high and DOING SHIT! And that's why sativas kick my depression to the curb.

dgr said:

Godless,
You seem to know a little something about sativas. Any opinions on sativa heavy hybrids that are worth looking at? If someone took, say a trainwreck X thai mom and crossed it with a sour diesel, that isn't sativa enough? I'd like to try a more sativa strain myself.

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In my very humble opinion, I think that it is very easy to lose or fundamentally change the sativa high when you breed in indica.

If you want to try something more sativa, I'd recommend buying a pack of seeds - plenty of good recommendations in the Strains forum here. The reality is that any truly pure sativa is going to be a bitch to grow compared to an indica or a 50/50 hybrid. I'd try for an 80% sativa for your first go.

One thing to note - yes 100days is a long ass time to be in flower, but I have found that the last 30 days or so, when the main bud growth has mostly stopped and the trics are clouding, they don't need the same full on light. Putting them on the edge of your garden during this phase works great IME.

Godless said:

One thing to note - yes 100days is a long ass time to be in flower, but I have found that the last 30 days or so, when the main bud growth has mostly stopped and the trics are clouding, they don't need the same full on light. Putting them on the edge of your garden during this phase works great IME.

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This is an excellent point to remember. Lowering the level of light they receive late in flower may actually serve to preserve trichomes and produce a frostier, higher quality end-product.

One other thing I didn't see brought up in this thread is a lot of commercial and medical growers do sativas a great disservice by not finishing the bud. Strains that need 80-100 days often don't see nearly that long before getting chopped, so much of the sativa bud we see on the shelves got a much shorter period of time relative to their finish requirement when we compare them to indicas and hybrids that finish 30 days faster.

If much of the sativa we see at collectives is premature, new customers are not going to be impressed, it's not going to sell well and subsequently it won't be sought out by distributors, causing us to see even less of it in circulation.

Godless said:

Horses for courses and all that for sure. All I can say is that I have been awake for two hours this AM and the fuzzy headedness from smoking Super Lemon Haze last night is finally wearing off. And that's a hybrid. If I smoke an indica, it is instant sleep, followed by a total weed hangover in the morning. Indicas are great for pain and dissociative experiences, but I am all about getting high and DOING SHIT! And that's why sativas kick my depression to the curb.

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yes yes yes!

for the average stoner i think the only way for them to truly appreciate it is if it ends up in a rap song. which is not happening haha.

for people in the know i think we all should dedicate maybe just one session to growing them a year, and sharing them with people.
As it was already pointed out, dispensaries/patients are not willing to purchase them because of lack of knowledge.
Well maybe we need to spread more knowledge about them.
Sativa get togethers? Sativa samples with purchases?

I know its disappointing with the overall lack of them in any market place i have been to in the US. In Jamaica it was easier to come by, but even there over time it got bad with indica hydrids taking over. the almighty dollar is a strong force.

i want to thank doobieduck for getting that malawi cross out there, i got to try some not from him, but by someone who got a seed from his entry in the cup, then grew that out to enter in the same cup doobie had won the year before. and guess what? that one won too!
i cant stop thinking about it actually, i need more like it. And thats what we have to do with people that have little to no knowledge about sativas. show them the way!

Once the co op regulars build up a tolerance smoking all the new OG's and Kush's and this and that new flavor of the month, even a great sativa doesn't give them the effects desired. My buddy smokes maybe once a month and gets stupid high off half a bowl of a quality sativa while I barely feel like I've smoked.

A high tolerance really cripples the quality of a 'clear headed high', at least for me. I actually love a good sativa but with my volume of smoking of various sativas/indicas/hybrids, I get that 'medicated' effect from a quality sativa, but nothing compared to how it smokes when you've got no tolerance at all.

the clear headed "am I high yet?" high doesn't cut it for a daily tokers tolerance and turns them off to many sativas

There are plenty of sativas going around down here in SD.

krunchbubble said:

so growers are not going to run a 100 day plus strain, if there going to get the same money for a 50 day strain that yields way more....

so don't look to a dispensary for the sativa's, grow your own....

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The retarded thing is; is that sativa's can still produce very well given a much shorter veg time. It kind of evens out if you have an indica dom that requires a 2 month veg to produce a QP vs a haze veg'd 30 days and takes 100 days to flower to produce the same QP.
If you look at it that way hazes are almost more economical because it's cheaper to run lights 12/12 than 18/6.