- Opiated Thai Sticks: Myth or Truth? -

[CannaRed]

see this is the problem , the only people perpetuating this myth dont even know anything about the country except what they google ,
and they expect us to believe anything they come up with ??
give it up guys , this is why i closed this thread , it had been beaten to death already and no new information could come forth ,
just rehashing old rubbish and hearsay and urban myths that can never be substantiated ..

Not exactly true Donald! New info came forth
I learned that 2000 pods + much labor hours = 2 years of smoke.
And Opium wont burn right on weed, does this mean dab rig works better? Probably leave the banger dirty.
My opiate days are behind me, but I did grow poppies for the first time this year! I'm planting more for next year. Hungarian Blues, and some Peshawar, and some red/pink ones a old lady gave me.

 

[Donald Mallard]

Look Donald, I get it you don't believe Opiated Thai Sticks existed and that's fine, but these were around well before you even smoked some came across them others clearly did not.


They were not a common thing, I only came across them twice, and personally I would rather smoke the non Opiated Thai the two times I got them was enough.

"i dont believe in them" ,
no its not that , they didnt exist , there was no commercially available thai stick that was ever opiated ,
look at the stories , all are second or third hand ,
people were told stuff that they believed , due to inexperience , and lack of knowledge ,
yourself included , you would have been quite young at the time , so easily influenced and swayed ,

i note now you seem to describe the affect , u never felt the need to do that before , wonder why ,
anyhow its not just dark , its not even the same as cannabis , take a look at the first hand reports from folks who have experience with both , just in this page u will read about it ... ]

as i have said , and others , we dont disagree some folks added opium to weed at some point ,
but it was never available as a commercial product added to thai sticks ,
what ever everyone else had who swears apon it , it wasnt thai sticks , or was it done in thailand ...

 

[@hempy]

i note now you seem to describe the affect , u never felt the need to do that before , wonder why ,
anyhow its not just dark , its not even the same as cannabis , take a look at the first hand reports from folks who have experience with both , just in this page u will read about it ... ]

as i have said , and others , we dont disagree some folks added opium to weed at some point ,
but it was never available as a commercial product added to thai sticks ,
what ever everyone else had who swears apon it , it wasnt thai sticks , or was it done in thailand ...

They were called Opiated Thai sticks at the time I could also buy opium to smoke and I did try that too.

I never tried heroin or had any interest to, I saw too many destroyed by it, Many I grew up with through school who made it through the other end, many did not those that did were never the same.

I wouldn't call any type of high that had you laughing one minute and throwing up the next for many hours after smoking it a good experience, but that was the experience you got if you smoked a little too much of it.

Many did experience it that have posted in this thread and many did not, and just because you didn't experience or see it, don't automatically make it a lie.

Like CvH posted, I too would be real interested in hearing from a Thai or even westerner that was there at the time frame.

 

[ninox33]

Urban myth IMO. I remember the sticks, heard the “opiated” whispers too. As then, I still believe it’s BS.
Sadly much of cannabis culture is based on whispers, and decades later people still argue this shit.
That’s my thoughts, I’d even say I could be wrong, haven’t seen any evidence. Bad arse uncle’s biker dealing mates? Seriously?
Sometimes the only truths I hear here ICMAG that correlate with my experience is @Tom Hill stating 5% are excellent.
Anyway it’s all my opinion, nothing more, only fact is the 4th sentence.

 

[Donald Mallard]

They were called Opiated Thai sticks at the time I could also buy opium to smoke and I did try that too.

I never tried heroin or had any interest to, I saw too many destroyed by it, Many I grew up with through school who made it through the other end, many did not those that did were never the same.

I wouldn't call any type of high that had you laughing one minute and throwing up the next for many hours after smoking it a good experience, but that was the experience you got if you smoked a little too much of it.

Many did experience it that have posted in this thread and many did not, and just because you didn't experience or see it, don't automatically make it a lie.

Like CvH posted, I too would be real interested in hearing from a Thai or even westerner that was there at the time frame.

sam was there , and asked the thais there who were growing thai stick weed ,
they said it was an urban myth ,,
but you dont seem to hear things you dont want to ,
did you not just read what thai bliss said ,
what right said ,
what vermont man said ,
what the guys in the thai stick book said ,
all first hand experiences , and some even in thailand at the time ,
all said the same thing ,
ive spoken to other smuggl;ers in oz too , they said the same thing ,
regular travellers to thailand at that time , said the same thing ,

no 70 yr old thai person is going to come on here to talk about this btw ,
they likely dont even speak english , let along use computers ,

you seem to neglect that the weed and the opium were grown in different parts ,
you have no clue the distance , or that those people dont really even talk to each other ,
never mind do business together , they are not the same people at all ,

you neglect that the price of opium was quite high compared to weed , where does this get reflected in the price,
also that thai people said why would they do that to their weed that was already excellent , why ruin it with opium , many have said this , not just me ,
you have blinkers on and want to believe something that just isnt a thing...

 

[WHIPEDMEAT]

thread stays open.

 

[Dime]

The following is an edited transcript of a podcast interview with Peter Maguire, coauthor of Thai Stick: Surfers, Scammers, and the Untold Story of the Marijuana Trade. The excerpt starts with midway with Maguire talking about the marijuana smugglers.






Q: What is a Thai stick? I always thought it was marijuana wrapped around a stick and enhanced with other drugs. This is from Curious in Tennessee.

PM: That is an urban myth. Basically at the time and growing up I thought the same and they would say, oh, it’s opiated Thai stick, they’re dipped in opium, but in fact it was incredibly strong cannabis sativa that was masterfully tied to a piece of, a small piece of bamboo, often with a thread of hemp fiber. And it was just like so many things in Thailand, they tie them to a stick and in the northeast they would take the marijuana and tie it to a stick and then keep it in the kitchen and then when they wanted to smoke it, they would wrap it with often just newspaper and pull the stick out and smoke it. So that’s the genesis of the Thai stick and it’s a very small window, it’s like ’74 to ’76, ’77, and then the Thais get greedy and they overproduce it and this little boutique industry disappears. An interesting side-note, the first marijuana I ever smoked, at ten years old, my neighbor stole a Thai stick from his neighbor and we wrapped it in a piece of notebook paper and the ensuing intoxication was so strong, I didn’t smoke marijuana again for about three years.

 

[ninox33]

Amen @Dime
Yep that time line works for my recollection. Then came bricks, with names like Buddha, compressed Sumatran, and on and on. All just names to try and sell some weed and become part of folklore.
If you didn’t see it grown, dried, shipped and delivered, it’s all just a name created by a criminal (harsh reality of those days).
The last good pot name I remember from my youth was “sinsemilla”. It’s amazing the dopamines felt in being the grower, supplier or sharer of really good weed, popularity plus.
PS opiated weed, that’s the sort of thing thought up by a Nixon drug enforcement officer rattling the cages of some suburban parents.

 

[Dime]

I read somewhere a long time ago that near the last days of real thai smuggling a guy named Phillip Sparrowhawk brought in huge shipments and they were labeled with a picture of a what people thought was an eagle but it was really a sparrowhawk,he ended up in a thai prison then also did time in the US.

 

[@hempy]

sam was there , and asked the thais there who were growing thai stick weed ,
they said it was an urban myth ,,

I respect Sam's experience, but he is one man in a big country, and it is impossible to know what is going on in all of Thailand even if you lived there.

you neglect that the price of opium was quite high compared to weed

You are correct, opium was more expensive than cannabis and hash but going by what DJ has said and what an old article I read claimed they used a byproduct from the process used to turn opium into heroin. That would mean it cost them nothing but extra time to dry after washing the herb.

The Opiated Thai sticks were also a lot smaller than the regular ones sold at the same time.

​

 

[Genghis Kush.]

I have a close friend who is best friends with Ritter and is in the Thai stick book and a number of other books about Cannabis smuggling. He was the guy who would be sent to to thailand with the money to set up the deals and make sure the Thai stick made it on to the ship. If anybody was smuggling ganja mixed with some sort of opiate, then according to him . it wasnt them.

 

[Farmer John]

Horse is horse and it's horse. I dont know what was dipped and where but all this took me back the memory lane and Haarlem back in the day at Nol's place, Wilie Wortels, and his amazing selection and knowledge of top notch imported weed and hash. I hope that these things still exist and people here in Europe and those just visiting get to try the real thing or at least the closest thing available. Good memories.

Edit. This rant was about Nol's thai stick he had at the shop. It was amazing and cost like 6€ a gram. It was the beginning of the rise of Sour Diesel and all sorts of false promises for the future, strain hunting and mayhem of all sorts that led to this, the age of the sweet candy terps, pussy sticks and rock hard nugs named after a dessert and a IG profile. I'm about to go nuts with all the nonsense.

 

[mudballs]

As someone who has actually messed with opium from poppies...it is incredibly easy to opiate some mary jane nugs, a cola...a whole branch if i wished. Opium alkaloids are water soluble, so you can even dose the dip to your liking...or painted on. Out of all the nonsense I've seen such as nails through stems, defoliating entire plants, angel dust laced bowls (if you aint done it stfu)...so yeah, someone messing with adding opium to some colas is a no contest

 

[mudballs]

It can be a bit nauseating so i can see how it only lasted a couple of years from like one crazy farmer tripping hard in life on good times and experimental shit

 

[armedoldhippy]

my (now deceased) older brother was in Thailand in USAF during the Viet Nam war. he told me that the GIs over there told him that you could tell when a Viet Cong offensive was coming up because the hash would have white streaks in it. he didn't know what it was, but it was stronger dope than normally seen.

 

[Donald Mallard]

You are correct, opium was more expensive than cannabis and hash but going by what DJ has said and what an old article I read claimed they used a byproduct from the process used to turn opium into heroin. That would mean it cost them nothing but extra time to dry after washing the herb.

so explain to me how they moved this wash from one area to the other , and why ??
do you actually know how far we are talking ?? its over 600 km ,
now we are talking 1970s too ,, imagine the quality of the roads then , if you can , oh thats right u have no knowledge you just imagine it from a westerners point of view ....

again only folks with no knowledge of the country and the people can make these sort of statements , its actually evident with all statements of this kind how ignorant of the country and the cultures the person is ,
dj short had no idea , the same as you repeating his made up statements ....

 

[Donald Mallard]

my (now deceased) older brother was in Thailand in USAF during the Viet Nam war. he told me that the GIs over there told him that you could tell when a Viet Cong offensive was coming up because the hash would have white streaks in it. he didn't know what it was, but it was stronger dope than normally seen.

sadly , mold ... opium is not white ...

 

[armedoldhippy]

sadly , mold ... opium is not white ...

didn't say it was, or was not, opium. i've had hashish for months in blocks that never molded. not sure where you are trying to go with this...

 

[Donald Mallard]

thailand is tropical ,, gets pretty humid and hash can go moldy , some folks have for some reason assumed it was opiated ...
just trying to explain why this hash had white stuff in it is all ,
as mentioned many have mistaken the color and thought it was opium , despite opium being black tar ...

 

[Genghis Kush.]

my (now deceased) older brother was in Thailand in USAF during the Viet Nam war. he told me that the GIs over there told him that you could tell when a Viet Cong offensive was coming up because the hash would have white streaks in it. he didn't know what it was, but it was stronger dope than normally seen.

asian/china white heroin possibly, good way to subdue your enemy