I had a new distributor offer me distillate for cheaper price but he said instead of trim they are using isolate what is the difference?
Itâs not real Delta 9 THC. Itâs actually dronabinol and/or synthetic D9.
Molecularly they are different, but they are so similar in structure, that with standard testing methods used in cannabis/hemp, it shows as D9. Not a lot of people know this thoughâŚ
2 Likes
I thought the same as above but you need to clarify if heâs selling you âliquid diamondsâ or decarboxylated thca or distillate made from cannabis trim. The fact its cheaper leads me to think its cbd conversion though. You never know in this market.
6 Likes
Certainly takes me less effort to decarb thca than distill thcâŚso there is no reason decarbed thca shouldnât be cheaper in some markets.
D9 made from CBD should still be cheaper, but if youâre willing to call high thca flower âhempâ and grow & extract it as such at scale, I imagine that is an even cheaper source of D9
4 Likes
You got references for that?
6 Likes
Kinda thought he was being sarcastic until you said that.
2 Likes
He may well beâŚhowever there are multiple (4?) ways of putting âD9â together.
Enzymatic vs chemical synthesis can/will change whatâs going on.
Iâm just not clear on the exact details, and making them readily available makes sense.
The cis -stereoisomers of Î9-THC [(â)-3 and (+)-3 ] were identified and quantified in a series of low-THC-containing varieties of Cannabis sativa registered in Europe as fiber hemp and in research accessions of cannabis. While Î9-cis -THC (3 ) occurs in cannabis fiber hemp in the concentration range of (â)-Î9-trans -THC [(â)-1 ], it was undetectable in a sample of high-THC-containing medicinal cannabis. Natural Î9-cis -THC (3 ) is scalemic (ca. 80â90% enantiomeric purity), and the absolute configuration of the major enantiomer was established as 6aS ,10aR [(â)-3 ] by chiral chromatographic comparison with a sample available by asymmetric synthesis. The major enantiomer, (â)-Î9-cis -THC [(â)-3 ], was characterized as a partial cannabinoid agonist in vitro and elicited a full tetrad response in mice at 50 mg/kg doses. The current legal discrimination between narcotic and non-narcotic cannabis varieties centers on the contents of âÎ9-THC and isomersâ and needs therefore revision, or at least a more specific wording, to account for the presence of Î9-cis -THCs [(+)-3 and (â)-3 ] in cannabis fiber hemp varieties.
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jnatprod.1c00513
One might legitimately expect receptors to interact differently with the various stereoisomers
7 Likes
That is absolutely true.
6 Likes
There are, iirc, 4 possible stereoisomers of d9 that do not exist in naturally obtained material.
2 Likes
Does any lab test chirality of THC? Ive seen lots of speculation that converted D9 yields unnatural stereoisomers but no hard data yet. It would certainly explain some things if true.
1 Like
Two stereo centers. Paper linked above says there is a different ratio in high vs low thc lines
If there are only 4, then all four cannot be absent from ânaturalâ D9.
Are you sure theyâre stereoisomers?
3 Likes
Think I read that paper when I was looking into this earlier this year. Does this imply that the enzyme just fucks up more in hemp strains, or that high THC strains were bred to have highest ratio of the most psychoactive isomer of D9?
2 Likes
Sort of. I think it it implies that the (ancestral) CBD synthase fucks up THC more (itâs not even supposed to be making thc) than the âoptimizedâ thc synthase.
Or that some of the THC in CBD dominant chemovars is produced non-enzymatically from CBD
3 Likes
If I remember correctly the D8:D9 ratio is also higher in hemp strains. From my limited knowledge of chemistry stereoselective synthesis is hard and often not economical, but with thousands of years of careful breeding we can accomplish it just fine without even knowing what a molecule is! Nature rules. 
2 Likes
Making âdistillateâ from isolate usually leads to issues. Typical thca mass crash batches are loaded with a bunch of residual crap that (unless itâs 99%) causes lower quality distillate and sometimes isomerization issues. Dissolving into a solvent and preprocessing is still required prior to a clean distillation taking place with acceptable results.
Not many people with just take their crashed out thca and put it through further refinement processes to clarify the product to further take it to distillation. Itâs a counterproductive and waste of material and time topic.
Trim, flower, or any thca mixed extract or precursor if treated well and prepared correctly will yield just about the same stuff. It doesnât not matter exactly what you are using. If you are handling poop soup you will just need to learn to prepare the product for distillation slightly differently to eliminate the unwanted stuff prior to distillation.
About five years ago people tried to push the diamonds to distillate scam as a way to ask for more money. It didnât work and it was just a scam. It would be a idiotic thing to do rather labs making processing claims to bolster their price on distillate. None of those people actually made distillate from diamonds or THC isolate.
Itâs easier persay, but itâs really not easier. Removing isolate from feed stock isnât efficient and you loose product. Itâs easier to take your extract in solution and rapidly process it for distillation yielding great results and no extra steps required to complete it and then have to take care of mother liquors left behind with wasted thca.
Firstly I donât think thereâs a drug that I can think of that is not different depending on the chirality. In fact even the terps are very different depending on different chirality. There are many different ways to go about stereoselective, stereospecific, steroresolution. Solutions to this problem can be more suited for small-scale and some solutions are more suited for large-scale production but either way itâs going to add a level of complexity and added cost.
4 Likes
The plants âknewâ which isomer were the most efficient before us. Millions of years of experiments with insects and climates.
3 Likes
Enzymatic promiscuity
1 Like
Does this assessment apply to bulk processing? I can make a kilo of liquid diamonds faster than a kilo of distillate. I can make 10-1000 kilos of distillate faster than i can make the same amount of liquid diamonds if the feedstock is biomass.
1 Like