Help with Mould advice

[rigger]

Hey Guys,

I am posting to help a mate who made an upsetting discovery last week. He has grown some passionflower in which to smoke and some appear to be recently spoiled.

When checking his stored flowers which had finished curing 1 week prior it was noticed 1 jars contents had 2 very small spots of mould. The mould is faint white hairs forming a spot about 3mmx3mm as though a small spider was underneath. Some show a couple of white hairs internally. It doesn't smell bad nor does the contents of the jar and it was fine 1 week prior. The jar had larger material that must not have dried enough. (The cause is understood)

All contents where inspected and any which showed signs of mould under a microscope were removed. the rest were left in uv light and dried completely over two days. It is understood mould spores would still be present and are hard to identify. Some individuals suffering from conditions would react badly to this. In this case there is no intention to sell the material nor would it be offered if a visitor came. It is understood in light of the potential risks in some circumstances why common advice is to destroy it.

What isn't understood is, if it wasn't a brown mould how would smoking it pose anymore risk than working in a garden or other situations. Why cant it be cooked with it? Sterilization works quicker at higher temps but surely if it were simmered at (measured) 100C for three hours or more the bacteria would be eliminated. The product will be baked at 140C for 20min before eating also. Is the advice given not to cook considering some moulds (which may not be present) still survive at that temperature? Why is bacteria on bad meat eliminated with proper cooking? Some bacteria would survive anything short of a nuclear disaster but this only confuses the situation because if it was common our chances of avoiding it would be minimal. if it was hypothetically a common mould would cooking be effective?

When looking for information most online advice seems to regard cannabis which is more common. This information is also confusing. If correct advice is to throw it out and buy some more how would this limit any threat? If this situation happened to a dealer it would just be scraped off and sold. In this case most material in the same jar shows no signs of mould and the ones that do could easily be scraped and compressed. Some is only present under a microscope/very close observation. How often do people inspect legal/illegally purchased buds this closely before smoking? Surely if dangerous moulds were common in these cases that would be something people would do. Considering the questionable conditions for many illegal grows it would seems moulds/spores would be common in a lot of illegally purchased cannabis.

In cases where the smoking material has been exposed to mould I imagine it would not store well (potential to lose potency faster) so it should be cooked/smoked sooner because of this. when smoking at least a water pipe would be a slightly better option than a joint.

Advice to throw it away is correct. When the mould, users heath conditions are unknown the risk is simply too great. My intention isn't to find anther answer.

The material in question has already been destroyed it but there is a need to understand the issue better. It is the theory or science in regard to my questions and topic I am interested in.

Thanks, really appreciate the help.

Edited September 15, 2014 by rigger

[2XB]

haha swim said throw it away!

[rigger]

I know, but seriously he is lazy! Always got others to do things/ask questions for him...Lazy prick!

Don't forget its destroyed so it cannot be thrown away

Edited September 15, 2014 by rigger

[Heretic]

Sounds like it was not dried out enough ...

although it may look and feel dry , it should NOT be stored in air tight containers until the stems snap easily . Pliable stems indicate more drying is necessary , even though the buds may even feel dry and be smokable .

mould is a bummer - might be best to chuck it out .

[rigger]

Yep, agreed.

Surely in general conditions this would result in a particular mould that would have certain ways better to use than others. I mean it wasn't grown in a chinese abattoir, exposed to anything unusual, frozen, refrigerated, added citus peel/rehydrated. Just produced in a normal room stored in a clean jar. This must eliminate a lot of things in most circumstance. surely someone knows some answers to my questions in regard to moulds likely in the situation.

Edited September 15, 2014 by rigger

[rigger]

Anyway my idea in cases like this would be to cook it. The plant wasn't diseased and the mould is a result of being in a sealed environment with some moisture. Due to common bacteria this will happen whenever the situation is present without being fully sterile.

When the plant material is desired for a compound or nutrient the mould will degrade this rapidly so while smoking may pose no threat in some circumstance the material isn't going to maintain the qualities it is desired if stored.

So when the option to cook is available this has the potential to preserve what compounds are left in the form of something which can be stored without quality degrading.

Is the general idea of this correct in theory??

Or, once the moisture and effected sections are removed is the deterioration of the rest of the material arrested so to speak?

Edited September 16, 2014 by rigger