Many of the terpenes readily convert/degrade/evolve into solvents like acetone, toluene, and hexane when exposed to heat, even as low as ambient conditions, even when blanketed with inert gas. It’s likely that besides aiding in the vaporization of cannabinoid material due to their lower boiling point, the terpenes “enhance” the “high” because their chemical properties work as essentially a pro-drug molecule for inhalant type chemicals. Vis-à-vis, huffing.
5 Likes
Well most terpenes by themselves posses some psychoactive properties whether it’s gabaergic, CB2 agonist etc. I doubt terpenes degrading to toluene benzene etc are responsible for the entourage effect because I don’t think theres any evidence that these degredation products modulate the endocannabinoid system but I could be wrong.
“Many prenylated flavonoids have been identified as active components in medicinal plants with biological activities, such as anti-cancer, anti-androgen, anti-leishmania, and anti-nitric oxide production. Due to their beneficial effects on human health, prenylated flavonoids are of particular interest as lead compounds for producing drugs and functional foods.”
I was just thinking that since all terpenes are monomers of isoprene, and terpenes tend to degrade when jacked with kinetic energy in the vapor state and collide with each other, maybe something might happen.
3 Likes
Yes, I believe there is more than cannabinoids and terpenes… esters alcohols, and more. Some of these might only matter for smell or aroma, but some for effects I believe. What does this also mean for consumption and the end product? For many concentrates, I cant imagine you will be able to keep everything as it truly was, whether that is from heat or just loss in the extraction process. Now what about the difference between combusting whole flower versus vaporizing it? At what temperature will these other compounds boil and vaporize at? And also many people consume through water filtered, so does water solubility play a role here if you use a bong or bubbler vs a pipe or joint, since cannabinoids are not water soluble, but many of these other compounds, including some terpenes are! Here is a thread I saw recently mentioning ester alcohols and the skunk that is rare now: Road Kill Skunk - Ester Alcohols, Train-wreck and the Catpiss Connection - THCFarmer
1 Like
In my experience botanical terpenes do next to nothing its just flavoring, however vacuum distilled cannabis terp do an incredible amount for the effects. There’s a member on here who has them and after putting those on thca the effects were very noticeablely different. I think that the stuff is probably more of a “secret sauce” than strictly terpenes, because the stuff hasn’t been identified fully, but whatever’s in it is great. I’d take a chunk of rock and crack it up to a pretty fine dust and mix, even with just a drop the effect is not the same
1 Like
Some wines have small amounts of natural GBL in it, a precursor for GHB. I believe dark red wines like Port? Idk if its calles the same in english have the highest amount. Reason most wines get you drunk different, most wine addicts bassicly GBL junkies🤣
Dont ask me how I know 
the stuff was a epidemic here.
If this is correct how come no one is regularly seeing hits for these solvents on their COAs?
1 Like
Terps more important? Maybe. More dangerous to our health than thc? Definitely.
I’ve seen hexane and toluene in countless terp samples over the years but every single time it was handled by a processor that also does CBD/D8. Never a single time from a lab that doesn’t do conversions. Both structures obviously exist in dozens of compounds in cannabis essential oil so I am with you in thinking that they could form spontaneously. There’s just something to be said about the fact I’ve only seen them when a lab doing isolate/conversions was involved.
Acetone can form from myrcene but you’d have to be subjecting your monos to a lot of abuse for that to actually happen. Just about everyone cleans their glassware with acetone in some capacity so that one is a little more elusive but every time I’ve seen it the lab did confirm they did use it in their cleaning SOP. Perhaps on plants that were sprayed with oxidate/h2o2 solution. Monos definitely degrade to all sorts of benzene derivatives. I’ve never once seen a sample that originally did not contain acetone suddenly have it when I tested it again later, even after months/years.
The processors that had acetone, hexane, or toluene in one sample had the same solvent in every single sample of theirs. So it’s always been consistent which again suggests it’s not occurring spontaneously.
1 Like
I think we’ve talked about this b4 but a few years ago I had distillate pop for acetone and I didn’t let that particular solvent anywhere near the building.
I’ll dig around but I think I also have flower tests from a “certified organic” hemp farm down in SC that had small but detectable amounts of acetone as well. Those flower samples were ripe with other contaminates though from lead to arsenic it was a shit show
Isopropyl easily converts to acetone I believe
1 Like
Yes have had issues cleaning with iso and testing positive for acetone, now we clean with limonene or steam cleaner
I don’t like to spoon feed these days but not all terps turn into solvents, only certain ones do so readily.
Lol ok thanks 
1 Like
If you’re degrading your monoterpenes to the point that you’re forming acetone or other solvents then you have much bigger things to worry about than your cleaning SOP. They simply do not form under normal conditions.
3 Likes
yeah but then how do I insert myself into a discussion pretending I know more than everyone else and refuse to tell?
4 Likes
While terpenoids might not degrade to acetone under normal conditions, they damn will in the end of an electrospray needle.
is THAT how one gets HHC on to flower?!?
2 Likes
Hello, @DarrilDevil , thank you for sharing so much useful knowledge and contributing to Future4200 families.
In your article, I saw you wrote" Terpenes are very delicate and require extreme care for their aromas and flavors to be preserved correctly. High temperatures and high pressure, either combined or separate, lead to the breakdown of the terpene chemical structure. ", I totally agree with your point of view.
Proper vaporization temperature is very important to retain terpenes flavors, high vape temps will ruin cannabis oil, we have figured this out with our Low-temp Vaporization Solutions. I created a new topic to introduce our Low-temp Vaporization.
1 Like