The two oldest and most popular ways to use weed are to smoke weed or hashish. In fact, hashish was the first cannabis extract that human beings discovered! So how to the two differ? Are the effects different from one to another? Read now to learn the differences between weed and hash.
What are the Differences Between Hash and Weed?
Hash and weed are arguably the two most popular ways to use the cannabis sativa plant. Even though they’re both made of the same stuff, they look completely different and can have a completely different effect. If you’re newly initiated into the world of cannabis, it can be a little bit confusing at the beginning. How can two things made of the same plant be so different to one another?
What you find in the world of cannabis users is that there is usually a preference between the two. Sometimes it just boils down to what you can get where you are. However, most cannabis frequenters either much prefer herbal material or much prefer hashish. So, let’s compare what makes the two different and what makes the two the same.
Different types of hash: Herbal material vs concentrate
The first concentrate that we ever created out of cannabis was, in fact, hashish. And this is the fundamental difference between weed and hashish. Weed refers to the raw, unprocessed herbal material that grows straight out of the garden. Nothing needs to be done to it to prepare it for smoking, other than drying. Usually, smoking weed doesn’t involve smoking the stems or seeds or leaves, but rather just the dense buds.
Making hash involves extracting one of the most potent parts of the plant: on the buds of cannabis exist small crystal-like beads called trichomes. These are the highest THC-containing parts of weed.
Hash is basically just a concentrated extraction of trichomes, often looking like dark green or black sludge. In ancient cultures, the trichomes were simply extracted by rubbing the buds between the fingertips or palms. The final product of this method is called finger hash. Modern technology has given us faster and easier methods of making hash, but what you end up smoking is more or less the same.
Even Butane Hash Oil (BHO) is another form of hash. The only difference is that a solvent is used to extract the trichomes from the buds, which doesn’t come without risks.
Using iced water is another modern method of extracting hashish and doesn’t entail the potential risks of using a chemical solvent. In fact, just consider the kief that has collected at the bottom of your grinder – that too is hashish!
But at the end of the day, hash is the oily resinous material that exists in weed without the herbal material itself. This is the most fundamental difference between weed and hash. One is raw material while the other is a concentrated, extracted version.
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Oils, shatters and waxes
To be really technical, basically all of the extracts on the market are different types of hashish. As we said earlier, BHO is one of these forms. There are other extracts that are made in very similar ways but end up looking more like shards of shattered glass. What we’re talking about here is simply just a modern form of extraction, resulting in a more potent kind of hashish.
While finger hash, bubble hash and other traditional types of hash are dark and sludgy, shatters and oils are basically transparent. Some traditional hash also contains fillers such as henna or ghee, which are often used in the making of Indian hash.
The levels of THC in modern hash (such as shatters, oils and waxes) far exceed the finger hash that we were used to smoking once upon a time. The use of a solvent makes it easier to extract a more concentrated cannabinoid profile. Shatters, oils and waxes also open up a whole new door when it comes to the ingestion method of hashish.
How to smoke hash
Smoking hash is entirely different to smoking weed. There is far less material to smoke when it comes to hashish, meaning some paraphernalia is required or alternatively, it needs to be mixed.
Hashish can be smoked out of a one hitter or a small pipe quite easily without having to mix it with anything. in Morocco, smokers use a special pipe specifically for smoking hash. If you want to smoke hash in a joint, you’ll need to mixed hash with leaves, tobacco or a herbal smoking blend.
Smoking oils and shatters is a different story entirely. Their qualities make them perfect for vaporizing, which means some very special paraphernalia is required. Some people choose to vape oils in a pen or electric vape, but this isn’t entirely appropriate when it comes to shatters.
There are special rigging devices that look a lot like bongs (but require a blow torch) from which these kinds of hashish can be smoked. The act of doing this is called dabbing. The general consensus among smokers is that this is one of the strongest ways to ingest cannabis.
Weed, on the other hand, is really simple to smoke. It’s so easy to roll weed up into a paper and smoke it. Other people prefer bongs, one hitters or pipes – but basically all you have to do is grind it and light it up!
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Are there differences between a hash high and a weed high?
The next point of comparison is, of course, the effect. The differences in the effect of smoking hash or weed seem to be a matter of opinion. The quality of the hash also makes a huge difference in the effect.
In general, good quality hash has a much stronger physical effect than smoking weed. Having said that, it’s pretty easy to get your hands on really bad quality hash – but we’ll elaborate on this later.
Smoking weed is more psychedelic than smoking hash, giving a greater balance between the physical and cerebral effects. However, there is so much variation in the subjective experience between hash and weed that it’s hard to truly pinpoint the differences.
It is common for users to distinguish a difference in taste between the two. While weed is floral and fragrant, hashish has an earthier – even creamier – flavour. Hashish has its own distinct smell that is slightly different to the very characteristic smell of weed. If it has been mixed, it can be hard to smell the hashish at all.
It’s important to recognize that both hash and weed can be used to make cannabutter or edibles. When stepping into this territory, it gets even harder to notice the differences between weed and hash. It seems that edibles have a “personality” of their own, which might be more strain dependent than it is dependent on being made with hash or weed.
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Best strains for making hash
As is so often the case, it all boils down to choosing between an indica or a sativa strain. In general, indica strains are used for making hash because these strains are usually heavier with resin. That’s not to say that sativa strains don’t make good hash, but they are generally more preferred as herb rather than hash. It is harder to get a good yield of hash from a sativa strain than from an indica strain.
So, which strains specifically? 3 favourites:
- OG Kush is a perfect strain for making hash. It is covered in resinous trichomes and is a heavy indica.
- Northern Lights is another 100% indica strain that yields heavy, trichome covered buds.
- Big Bud is also a perfect strain for making hash, because you get a lot of, you guessed it, big buds, which makes for a nice amount of hash!
How to know if you bought good hash or bad hash
So, you need some help determining the quality of your hash? It can be a little tricky if you’re just buying for the first time. This is especially true because dealers will try to convince newbies of anything. There are a few different things to look out for depending on what kind of hash you are buying.
The colour and texture of your hash will tell you everything about its quality.
1. How to determine the quality of dry-sifted hash
If it has been dry-sifted (like the stuff that collects in the bottom of your grinder), then it should err on the lighter brownish side. Some dry-sifts are lightly pressed, meaning they are slightly more powdery.
If they are heavily pressed, the colour will generally be darker on the outside than it is on the inside and will have a creamier or more solid texture.
The best quality sifted hash is going to be of the lighter brownish variety, and heavily pressed isn’t a bad thing. If it is a little bit darker inside, it could just mean it comes from a different origin.
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2. How to determine the quality of finger hash
In the case of finger hash, it is good to look for something that is dark coloured and consistently coloured the whole way through. If it is greener inside than outside, there’s probably a lot of plant material inside – meaning the rub was too hard and it’s no longer just trichomes.
It should be sludgy enough for you to roll up into a tube without too much of it sticking to your fingers.
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3. How to determine the quality of oil or shatter
It is hard to tell a good quality oil or shatter from another, because they all look more or less the same. Of course, if you’re buying shatter, then it should have the look of shattered glass. What makes a good quality modern extract is the absence of any of the solvent that was used, and this is unfortunately extremely hard to judge by looking. You can sometimes make this judgment by smelling the product, but this is something that goes largely unregulated.
In poorer countries, it can be pretty easy to get your hands on bad quality hash that is full of chemical fillers or solvents. Try to steer clear of anything that looks less than delicious! Chemical fillers and solvents can be bad for your health and definitely get in the way of you experiencing a great high!
