What Is ‘Shatter’ Weed and Is It the Future of Marijuana?

Pot smokers looking for a heavier-hitting high are turning to “Shatter,” a weed concentrate that packs up to 80 percent cannabinoid content. Drug officials aren’t sure how to deal with the drug, a smooth, glassy substance that’s significantly more potent when smoked but is still, ultimately, a marijuana derivative and thus not particularly unsafe.

Shatter is just one form of dabs, the catch-all term for marijuana concentrates produced by extracting cannabinoids like THC and CBD, the plant’s psychoactive chemicals. Other well-known forms include “budder,” which has a creamier, wax-like consistency, and oils, which are golden and honey-like. For all dabs, extraction involves running a solvent — usually butane, carbon dioxide, or propane — through marijuana buds to pull out the cannabinoids, then evaporating the solvent and gathering the resins left behind.

The term “shatter” is derived from the fact that the leftover resin is often cooled into a glassy sheet, similar to boiled caramel hardening into candy. When dropped, the sheet — surprise — shatters. On the street, users are more likely to buy it in a thick, taffy-like form.

Of all the concentrates , shatter is the most potent — it goes through an additional filtration process to get rid of other naturally occurring fats and waxes — which is how it manages to pack its active ingredients in crazy high amounts (regular weed, when smoked, only has about 5-18 percent cannabinoid content). While this extra step optimizes purity, it also filters out the dank hydrocarbons known as terpenes, which make up marijuana’s flavor and scent.

Over the past couple of years, a new form of marijuana has appeared on the market called marijuana “wax”, and it is quite possibly the highest you could ever get from weed. It’s otherwise known as BHO, which stands for Butane hash oil. It gets its names from the ways it is prepared and the way it looks. The substance looks like a thick, oily substance or a little like honey. Butane is used in the process of making it (not such a kitchen friendly process) which is why it is otherwise known as BHO.
How is Wax used?

There are two ways to smoke marijuana wax. One is in a bong and the other is in a vaporiser. Some people put dabs in their joint, but it’s more common to smoke it solo. A blow torch or a hot stoker is used to burn the dab in the bong, and the vaporizer naturally turns your concentrated wax into a lung full of pure THC.