Unfortunately in CA it would be a process of elimination to ID PM through analytics at a licensed testing facility. As we all know they only test for what they are required to. And PM is not one that they single out for testing. It’s treated as foreign object contamination if it covers more than 25% (will double check that figure shortly) of the surface area of the product being tested. It’s regarded as dirt or animal hair.
That being said it’s unethical and terrible for your credibility to supply anything contaminated bc someone WILL know…unless you properly remediate it…if it’s just PM.
While non-toxic PM, still agitates asthma and other respiratory conditions and should be avoided by all means.
thats dumb that you can pick the buds off the same plant with pm and it will pass because those ones dont have it while the others clearly do. same with thc levels. obv the top gets more than the bottoms.
People have been reporting a contemporary practice (in the western world), involving the smoking of bowls packed with the dried “skins,” or membranes (easily pealed away from the fungus by a novice) of the caps of A. muscaria or A. pantherinia for at least a decade.
Analogous to the decarbing of ∆9-THCa ----> ∆9-THC when smoking cannabis,
smoking the dried membranes of the caps of these mushrooms is hypothesized to function both as a drug delivery vehicle and perform the crucial function of decarboxylating the majority of the undesirable ibotenic acid present into the more desirable & arguably more “psychedelic” muscimol,
Muscimol is synonymous with; 5-(aminomethyl)-1,2-oxazol-3(2H)-one agarin pantherine
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P.S.
while writing this reply i found the info below (I am guessing that this holds true for A. pantherina as well):
“In A. muscaria, the layer just below the skin of the cap contains the highest amount of muscimol, and is therefore the most psychoactive portion.”
Source:
Chilton, WS (1978). “Chemistry and Mode of Action of Mushroom Toxins”
found in:
Rumack, BH; Salzman, E (eds.). Mushroom Poisoning: Diagnosis and Treatment.
Palm Beach: CRC Press. pp. 87–124. ISBN9780849351853.
If you have the most moldy disgusting bud, and you were to extract it, but ran it through a .2 micron filter, your extract would have 0% spores and mold in it. It will all be fully removed. That is not the pain point.
Any mold/mildew/fungus that is living on your plant is consuming things from your plant. Then, after it consumes things from your plant, releases some waste. The smell from moldy/mildewy bud is from those waste compounds from the mold. These will not be able to be removed, except by taking your product all the way to distillate.
If you extract the bud and you dont smell anything off, great, but those waste compounds will 100% be there, just not enough to affect the flavor/taste.
More than likely, it will affect the flavor or taste though.
Mycotoxins, what you are really worried about, are compounds produced by microbes (I dont think with mildew, but you dont actually know what you have). You really gotta have a lot of mold to get a non-passing amount of them, but its possible.
Extract it if you like. It wont be the best product. May have some smell, or some taste. Make sure to get full lab testing done, to detect any mycotoxins. I would never use a product that was extracted from PM infested bud, unless it was taken all the way to disty.
Whether it is worth it or not, we cannot tell you, you must decide for yourself.
It’s good to hear that this community is conscience about the quality of product that they are putting out for consumers/patients, because state regulating bodies do not care as long as it passes requirements. Here in Michigan they are selling flower that has been remediated for PM and or mold. This is the regulated market on METRC! So realistically the reg market here is causing the exact problem or worse that it was designed to prevent.
A few years ago I did some testing on extracting biomass with PM. There were 5 sample groups, #1 having very little PM to #5 with excess amount of PM. All other variables remaining constant for the most part, filtration methods used were extensive but identical across all 5. There wasn’t any significant odd odor among them. The only distinctive difference that we found from #1-5 was in color. #1 was of normal color, smell, taste. #2 mostly the same just with a slight red hue that increases as infection percentage of biomass increases. This phenomenon seemed to be linear.
There was also some data that painted a different picture having to do with aroma. It was evident that #5 was more dank than#1. Same smell only much stronger. At first I thought it was some error or miscalculation on my part. After talking with a botanist (Harley Smith) it made total sense, he states that the strongest products come from plants that are high in brix and slightly stressed. Stress causing the plant to increase it’s defenses, aka essential oils and trichs. The higher the brix the more stress the plant can deal with before becoming counter productive.
I doubt this answers any of the above questions but it’s data that I thought was worth sharing.
None I believe, but this guy hasn’t tested the bud, I’m just trying to give him enough info so he can be careful. Lots of people dont know exactly why mold is bad. PM can easily be dealt with, but again, it hasnt even been tested.
Considering how slight the amount is, we’re just gonna run it, then test it. If it comes back ND, it’ll go as normal product. If it comes back >ND, it’ll be taken to distillate