>THC-A bud you can buy in a smoke shop will be about as potent as recreational/medical marijuana.
Except it tastes like dog farts, on account of its growing irregularities (e.g. lack of sunshine, as you pointed out).
As a personal annecdote, test-sample size of only a few ounces (of "legal weed" [THC-A]), my Volcano vaporizer filter/screen looks entirely different when running illegal/legal products through it:
For THC-A, the screens cake-up quickly with a dense, black, tar-like substance; no green is left within the plant even after fewer runs/hits; the vapoo (depleted marijuana, thrown out) is left lifeless, stunk.
For full-grown marijuana, the vaporizer screen is still dirtied brown, but it's fluffier (cottonlike) and accumulates much. more. slowly. The vapoo still has flecks of green, and nothing appears charred. It smells like popcorn instead of shit-stained bedsheets. "Trim" & "ditch weed" sublimate similarly, albeit for not as long/strong (but tastes better than legal weed, still).
Perhaps the temperature needs to be lowered for THC-A? I don't know, but I ask the few friends I know that buy local (legal THC-A) weed to "bring me a gram of the next `good ounce` you buy from that store, and we'll see what Volcano can do." I have yet to see much deviation from my above-observations.
----
Combusting THC-A ("legal weed") has never been an enjoyable experience [no sunshine == no terpines/flavanoids], but vaping it does still deliver some "high" so I know there must be some weed in there.
Anecdotally, some of the THC-A flower I’ve tried wasn’t anything like what you’re describing in terms of taste/aftermath, but does seem to stress the particle filter on my Storz & Bickel Mighty.
I suspect this has a lot to do with the particular strain and grower. I was experimenting with products from Wildflower Hemp based out of Bend, OR.
I’m in a legal state and prefer the predictability and quality of the “real” stuff, but was surprised by how decent the pure hemp experience was since I’ve heard people describe a range of experiences/results.
I think it depends on the grower. Fairly certain some take some liberties like growing one of the plants under insane conditions to make this happen and then get their lab sample from it. My experience has been that the THC-A stuff I've gotten from high quality sellers (WNC for example) is substantially richer in terps than the stuff I can currently buy legally in my state, largely because that THC-A bud is grown in organic living soil, while the legal stuff is grown under insane regulations (common to medical-first states) that renders most of it dry, straw smelling, and leaving next to nothing in the kief collector. I would avoid buying from gas stations and similar outlets and look at user feedback online (r/CultOfTheFranklin on reddit is a good source)
And since I'm replying here, I'll point out that the parent comment calls it "Delta 9", which is misleading because "Delta 9" is the common phrase used when people extract Δ9 THC from "hemp" plants and then distribute it in edibles, which makes it legal because the bill specified "less than 0.3% Delta 9 THC on a dry-weight basis", and 10mg of THC is well below that for any gummy (or similar product like can of seltzer) that is > ~3g. The "THC-A" stuff makes use of a similar loophole in a very different way.
Except it tastes like dog farts, on account of its growing irregularities (e.g. lack of sunshine, as you pointed out).
As a personal annecdote, test-sample size of only a few ounces (of "legal weed" [THC-A]), my Volcano vaporizer filter/screen looks entirely different when running illegal/legal products through it:
For THC-A, the screens cake-up quickly with a dense, black, tar-like substance; no green is left within the plant even after fewer runs/hits; the vapoo (depleted marijuana, thrown out) is left lifeless, stunk.
For full-grown marijuana, the vaporizer screen is still dirtied brown, but it's fluffier (cottonlike) and accumulates much. more. slowly. The vapoo still has flecks of green, and nothing appears charred. It smells like popcorn instead of shit-stained bedsheets. "Trim" & "ditch weed" sublimate similarly, albeit for not as long/strong (but tastes better than legal weed, still).
Perhaps the temperature needs to be lowered for THC-A? I don't know, but I ask the few friends I know that buy local (legal THC-A) weed to "bring me a gram of the next `good ounce` you buy from that store, and we'll see what Volcano can do." I have yet to see much deviation from my above-observations.
----
Combusting THC-A ("legal weed") has never been an enjoyable experience [no sunshine == no terpines/flavanoids], but vaping it does still deliver some "high" so I know there must be some weed in there.