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Match Head Tea: THC-O-ACETATE shatter?

ThingsThatAlsoFly

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Hello dopers! I'm new to Bluelight, been creeping around the forums for a long time, but never registered and posted. Just posted this on the Shroomery about an hour ago, someone suggested I post it here as well:

So, my father has mentioned to me several times that back in the '70s "match head tea" or "pure THC" was available on the street. It could be taken orally, snorted, sprinkled on a joint, etc. It was an amber color, and had the consistency of brown suger (clumped easily.) Another old dude I know mentioned it once, but his brain is really too scrambled to get an accurate description. Now, I have read TONS of threads on the subject of snortable THC, as I'm sure many of you have. A substantial number of old heads remember getting "pure THC" or "T", and describe the same qualities my dad does. However, as we all know, and as many people on these forums mentioned, this is chemically impossible, right?


So far, many guesses have been made online as to what this substance was. Most people who never tried or heard of it remained adamant that it couldn't possibly be pure THC, or ANY form of cannabis extract due to it being active by snorting. I have heard suggestions ranging from PCP, to Heroin, to some sort of early synthetic cannabinoid. However, my dad, as well as all the old heads online, were poly-drug users. They had experimented with a wide range of drugs, and could confidently say this was some sort of weed. The effects were practically the same as some of the high quality sativa buds they had smoked. The duration of effects when snorted or taken orally wasn't extremely different, supposedly, than that of eating pot edibles. From what my dad said, a pinch a little bigger than a match head produced the same level of high as smoking an average joint or two of bud. Thus the name, match head tea.


Whatever it was, it was definitely a cannabinoid receptor agonist. This led me to believe those suggesting synthetic cannabinoids might be correct. Even though "Spice" or "K2" have only been on the market for a decade or so, some of the chemicals they contain have been around longer. Was it possible that some clandestine chemist was producing 'noids back in the '70s? Unlikely, but possible. After questioning my dad further, though, I'm convinced this wasn't the case. Most synthetic cannabinoids (from what I understand) are full agonists at the cb1 and cb2 receptors, and can produce harmful, potentially fatal effects when taken in high doses. The stuff that was available here in the '70s could be taken in large amounts without ill effect. And, like THC, even as you ingested more, you could only really get so high; indicating to me that the substance was only a partial agonist.


A few years ago, I learned a bit about certain THC esters and derivatives that are fairly easily created using isomerized cannabis oil. These esters are reported to be MUCH stronger and more psychedelic than THC itself. They are also reported to be very water-soluble, and can be introduced to the body intravenously, rectally, and orally. There are several threads discussing this, the one from rollitup.org is the most helpful:
http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/6895942#6895942
http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/5830539#5830539
http://www.rollitup.org/t/converting-thc-to-its-acetate-makes-it-psychedelic.321275/


I was excited to hear this, because I had yet to hear of any sort of water-soluble THC derivative. Also, the involvement of isomerization told me I was on the right track. My dad had been informed by his "Match Head Tea" connect back in the day, that a machine known as the Isomizer was involved in it's creation. Though they are rare nowadays, I have seen a few of these machines. From my understanding, the isomizer was first marketed as an incense maker, probably under a different name. High Times magazine ran advertisements describing the isomizer as a "hash machine." It uses grain alcohol to extract hash oil and doubles as a reflux condenser(?) for the isomerization process, which uses sulfuric acid. Not long after they were advertised as being used for illicit purposes, they were banned.


Though isomerization isn't absolutely necessary to create THC esters, it helped me make the connection to my dads stories. THC acetate produces stronger effects with a longer duration, and is highly water soluble. Other than the consistency, this matched the old heads' descriptions. Also, I read on one thread that in the 1970s the DEA found THC acetate being sold on the streets in the US, as well as in some other country, New Zealand I believe. There was still one issue, though. How the hell would one be able to "snort" a viscous oil? I back tracked to a theory proposed previously by others, that this substance may have been THCA bound to some sort of lipid powder(butter powder, fish powder, etc.) but this mixture, even if active, couldn't possibly have the intense effects described with doses as small as a match head.


I'd basically given up on the search until recently. As we all know, very pure hash oil/cannabis concentrates have become increasingly popular in the past decade or so. Now referred to by many as "dabs," it's hard to find a cannabis user who hasn't used, or at least been made aware of hash oil and the newer techniques used to consume it (dome/nail, domeless nail, oil pens.) I myself have become sort of spoiled on the stuff, honestly. Now, I'd heard of "Shatter", but never quite understood what it was. Most of the oil I've ever encountered has been a light brown to golden goo. Even after seeing pictures of "shatter" I assumed it to be the consistency of a starburst candy. A few nights back, I came across some that might as well have been glass. I was amazed. Then, I read a little on vacuum purging oil and I saw this:
https://www.thcfarmer.com/community/threads/bho-powder.53760/
Check out post #8




My understanding of chemistry is limited. I took basic chemistry classes in high school, and have learned quite a bit from drug-related forums since then, but i'm no expert. My thinking is that THC-Acetate vaccum purged into shatter and pulverized will finally provide us with a powerful snortable cannabis. Is this what people were snorting back in the 70s? Either way, do you think it would be worth experimentation? The main question here is can THC acetate be cold vacuum purged into shatter, then powdered. And afterwards, will it need to always be cold to remain powdered?
:rail:
 
However, as we all know, and as many people on these forums mentioned, this is chemically impossible, right?

Nope. In today's climate of easy access to high THC weed it seems stupid to make it synthetically, for sure, but that doesn't mean that it was that way forever.

Back in the day - people did devise a total synthesis of THC. (Mechoulam published the total synthesis of THC in the 60s, I thought?)
Certainly it would have diffused through the university cohort "back in the day".
It's not high yielding by any means, but it produces THC, or analogs which have high potency as psychedleic cannabinoids.

THC acetate produces stronger effects with a longer duration, and is highly water soluble.

It might produce strong effects, but it's absolutely not water soluble. THC O-Acetate is even less soluble than normal THC is in water. As far as anyone is concerned, THC and THC-O-Acetate are not snortable. I would imagine that if you made a fine dispersion of them in alcohol it could be absorbed somehow.

The "snortable THC" of history may have also been something like e.g. ketamine - back then there was not an easy way to test this shit.
 
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I may have been mistaken in listing THC-O-Acetate specifically. I had been reading about several THC esters, and Acetate was noted as being one of the more potent ones. I began looking into this years ago, and it should be noted that I had almost zero chemistry knowledge at the time. I definitely remember reading about an active THC ester/derivative that was at least somewhat soluble in water, and created using naturally-occuring THC. I'll have to look into it more.

I just ran into this, which describes a way of increasing the water solubility of THC:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9877229?dopt=Abstract
This information is FAR beyond my knowledge, and I make no attempt to understand it. Would this only apply to THC in the solution? Or would you be able to somehow filter and dry the altered THC oil for further preperation?

The "snortable THC" of history may have also been something like e.g. ketamine - back then there was not an easy way to test this shit.
I thought so too at first. For a while, I was convinced it had been PCP. The effects when snorted were described as " A stereotypical pot high. Much stronger than even the best chronic, but too mellow to be anything else I know of." And most drugs can easily be ruled out, as people could ingest a half of a gram of the stuff and still be left with only strong stoning effects. No hallucinations, no opiate glow, no bad come down effects to speak of. The only negative effects noted by all users of the stuff was the same rapid heartbeat associated with excessive cannabis doses.

The real kicker is that most of the people who report using this substance had used plenty of other drugs in their time, and could only compare it to strong bud or hashish. It really could have been anything, but I remain hopeful that I may discover some info proving cannabis origins.
 
Also, I was referring to the water solubility or "snortability" when I said it was chemically impossible. I was aware that pure THC could be synthesized.
 
I don't see a reason that finely powdered THC wouldn't be absorbed across mucous membranes (although poorly)... people do use things like Yopo seed snuff that relies on the absorbtion of lipophilic compounds across the nasal mucosa. In the case of Yopo the compounds are 5-MeO-DMT and 5-OH-DMT. And there are anecdotal reports of snorting non-water-soluble benzodiazepines producing an effect.

I do know that THC is an irritant to mucosa and snorting a bucnh of it would probably result in a sneezing fit.

I know there are water soluble esters of THC too. [ref] They are not acetate esters, usually the acid has a few carbons as a spacer and then a basic nitrogen (or nitrogens) which allow the formation of water soluble ammonium salts. I don't think they have been seen in clandestine settings, but I know several analogs have been trialed as intravenous anesthetics/analgesics. (I think an ex-BL mod was involved with clinical trials... not sure how they panned out.)

As for the use of cyclodextrins, that is somewhat of a brute-force tactic to increase absorbtion of a variety of fat soluble compounds. It works to some extent with anything... even alcohol (powdered alcohol is cyclodextrins + ethanol). But the volumes needed are prohibitively large.
 
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It isn't difficult to get to the bottom of this because people at the time were monitoring what was in drugs that were being sold. You can track down things like PharmChem data, issues of Microgram from research libraries, and court records. If my memory is correct, things sold as crystaline THC were almost always PCP.
 
Hmm... Well, I think I'm going to put the search for an efficiently snortable THC on the back burner until I start college chemistry classes (In the spring, hopefully!) Thanks for the info. I think my project for now is going to be looking into isolating individual cannabinoids and terpenes, collecting them and mixing different ratios of them for dabbing. At some point, I may look into adding THC Acetate into the mix as well. I'd also be interested in any other well-know variations of THC that might have unique effects when added to cannabinoid oil mixtures. I'd especially like to hear more about the HCl salts of altered THC mentioned in your reference, sekio. Would these be the same consistency of the starting oil, or would they end up crystalline?
 
You can snort/plug/shoot THC and THC-acetate the same way you'd snort or shoot a benzo. You need to dissolve it into a suitable solvent, such as propylene glycol, then drop in nose or inject into vein or ass/pussy.
 
people also regularly snort freebase heroin and get the desired effect.

just a thought, but could you turn THC into an alkoxide with NaOH or another base to form something like "sodium tetrahydrocannabinoate" ^^ similar to the procedere to form calcium bufotenate from bufotenine?
 
I was never too interested in snorting the THC myself ,but intelligent discussion on the subject seemed non-existant for the longest time, and everybody wonders if it's possible at some point. I'll probably never know what exactly was around back then. I still doubt it was pcp or ketamine though, as like I said, large doses could be taken without experiencing hallucinations or distinguishable effects of any other drug. At this point I doubt it was D9-THC in any form, but could still possibly have been an altered form of one of the other tetrohydrocannibinols. Idk. Maybe by the time I've been through college there will be more info out there.

I find the insufflation of benzos laughable. So many idiots I knew in high school would crush up a bunch of Xan .5s and take a fat rail; they'd lean back 10 seconds later like "Bruh... I'm fucked up." Trying to explain to most burnouts why it wouldn't work like that was difficult, especially when I hardly understood it myself. Also, the only reason one should even need such fast-acting benzos is severe panic attacks, and at that point, i'm sure doctors have something they could prescribe. Maybe a benzo nasal spray? If you're taking benzos for a high, I'd honestly say just wait for it haha.
 
is your name a take on the cognitive test for children about negative cognition?

what do a tree, a snake, and a rock all have in common?

most children can only think of things that they positively have in common..ie: they are in nature, you can find them in a forest.

However very intelligent kids would think of things that they negatively have in common. Ie: they all don't fly, none of them are found inside the human body...etc
 
Nah, there's not really that deep of meaning in it haha; it's actually from a story my old man told me about a camping trip he took when he was my age. He was all baked, and there were these bugs flying around. The combination of words kind of stuck in my head. It just sounds cool.
 
You can snort/plug/shoot THC and THC-acetate the same way you'd snort or shoot a benzo. You need to dissolve it into a suitable solvent, such as propylene glycol, then drop in nose or inject into vein or ass/pussy.

Does that work in a solute liquid form? I thought THC and other terpenoids were lipid (not liquid) soluble and had to use an emulsion (such as soy lecithin) to prepare for a readily injectable (at least) route? Whereas benzos are alcohol soluble, not fat/lipid

Speaking of cannabis, I thought there was sufficient evidence that a lot of the sedating, without the quasi-psychedelic (meta-cognitive /introspective), anxiolytic and pain relieving traits of the cannabis subjective experience of use are resultant of the effects of CBD and not THC. I wondered then, why dronabinol wasn't paired with its fellow whole plant constituent compound, or a straight CBD pharmaceutical ever tried.
 
I created an account and resurrected this from the crypt because it was never properly answered, I easily found it on Google, and the answer is quite simple:

The old-heads are referring to activated Kief, but it wasn't pure THC - though I'm sure it was advertised that way, likely being the closest thing to pure THC in the old-head times - just shy of hash.


In most decent grinders there is a bottom layer under the screen where your weed collects, so every time you grind up marijuana, tiny little trichomes fall through the screen and collect in that bottom layer. Over time, depending on how often you use the grinder, you get a hefty layer of high-quality, light-green, tea-like THC.

You might not even realize your grinder has a bottom layer, so check, especially if you've used it for a long time. Most people find it accidentally but never bother asking what it's for - it is for collecting this THC 'tea'.

These trichomes do contain concentrated THC but it collects slowly, and just like marijuana, it must be heated for the inactive THC-A to become the active THC component - which means snorting it would do very little, if anything, just like if you eat marijuana without first cooking it a little... It would also hurt pretty good if you don't habitually snort things.

On the adventurous side, I did say "activated kief", didn't I? So if one were to Google how to properly active marijuana, or kief in an oven - I won't bother giving all the detail, there are plenty of articles, but it basically involves heating a thin, even layer of the product in an oven at ~220 °F for around 30 minutes.

Doing so would activate the THC and, yes, your various membranes could absorb the THC easily at that point... It would probably hurt like hell, but I'm willing to try snorting some of it sometime if anyone wants to hear the results...

Hope nobody minds the resurrection.

-Txr
 
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I’ve tried snorting pure THC-A with very minimal, yet still noticeable, effects. My report can be found on DF. Pretty sure I railed 50mg if memory serves me. Obviously it being THC-A it is yet to be “activated.”

Unfortunately THC that is “activated” aka decarboxylated is not very easy to get into a powder form as it is an oil unlike THC-A which is a solid/crystal.

IMO the likelihood is that it indeed was PCP. My dad was also someone to try everything under the sun in the 70’s and it became apparent to me that back then people cared much less or at least understood much less about the drugs they were taking. People thought MDA was a mix of Mescaline, heroin and amphetamine to give some perspective.

Also if your feeling adventurous your can give a try yourself. You’ve spent years waiting for an answer you could have found out very easily yourself. We need more people willing to experiment and try new things..

Edit- I’m curious to hear your results :) you do it and I’ll do it lol. I’ll probably dry RSO to its most dehydrated point, then freeze and try to scrape into a powder.

-GC
 
Edit- I’m curious to hear your results :) you do it and I’ll do it lol. I’ll probably dry RSO to its most dehydrated point, then freeze and try to scrape into a powder.

-GC

Haha, my "kief line" is baking right now. Pray for my sinuses - this is basically like snorting straight pollen... Will post results soon.
 
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