The Commonwealth’s medical marijuana program is advancing at an astounding rate – with new patients and new products arriving in dispensaries every day.
Follow along with our latest newsletter series, “The A-to-Zs of Medical Marijuana,” to learn about the potential benefits and unique qualities of each prime product form on dispensary menus. In today’s edition, we’ll give you a prime insider’s look at the impressive test results and diverse textures in our expertly crafted lineup of extracts.
What are Extracts?
Extracts— also commonly referred to as concentrates— are a form of medical marijuana products that are created by saturating plant material in a solvent to extract its essential oils and potentially therapeutic compounds. As their name suggests, concentrates feature highly concentrated levels of terpenes and cannabinoids— including the acidic precursor to the widely known psychoactive compound THC (tetrahydrocannabinol). Concentrates can be consumed through vaporization, using devices available for purchase at your local dispensary. Extracts come in a diverse variety of textures with names like badder, resin, diamonds and sauce, wax, sand, and sugar. These textures are created by the extractor’s decisions on how to mechanically manipulate the concentrate in the lab— whether by shaking, stirring or otherwise agitating the product.
Handcrafted using butane as a main solvent in our hydrocarbon lab, prime extracts offer a range of diverse flavors and aromas. The “dry” designation indicates that a prime extract was crafted from plant material that was cured after harvest. The curing process for dry products may result in unique terpene and cannabinoid profiles from the living plant from which they were extracted. The “live” designation indicates that a prime extract was crafted from plant material that was fresh-frozen at peak harvest.
What Makes prime Extracts Premium?
The quality of prime concentrates starts with our healthy grow environment. The same meticulous care that goes into our premium whole flower also goes into our concentrates. Just like our grow rooms rely solely on environmentally-friendly biologicals, our extraction lab never introduces synthetic additives or reconstituted terpenes to our concentrates. Each prime extract is crafted to the highest standards of quality with the health of patients in mind – using plant material that was bred, grown, and harvested for Pennsylvanians right in our facility.
In addition to strain-specific concentrates, our state-of-the-art hydrocarbon extraction lab produces innovative extract blends that are available only from the prime line. Our Extractor’s Blend concentrates combine the unique qualities of two or more premier prime strains into one expertly crafted extract. Patients can also explore our in-house bred genetics with our newest Beta Blend extracts— first-time releases of the latest strain innovations to leave our grow rooms. We have even launched an “Au” line of live extracts that have undergone an alternative extraction process, potentially providing a more raw expression of the plant’s living terpene profile.
Regardless of their label or designation, all prime extracts are created with purity of the final product in mind— employing a proprietary process to remove unwanted fats, lipids, and waxes in the plant and let naturally occurring terpenes shine.
What are the Potential Benefits?
Many prime concentrates consistently test for well over 96% combined THCa and terpene content— among the highest lab results for medical marijuana offerings in the Commonwealth program. This high concentration of potentially therapeutic compounds means that prime concentrates may potentially enable patients with a higher tolerance to consume smaller amounts of medicine and still experience long term symptom relief, compared to other medical marijuana products.
Terpenes—aromatic compounds that make up the essential oils of the cannabis plant— may potentially alter the blood brain barrier and work with cannabinoids to provide a range of medicinal benefits. For example, the woodsy terpene pinene can be readily identified in medical marijuana products due to its aromas of fresh pine. Our latest batch of Kunduz D #13 live resin packs impressive levels of pinene, boasting nearly 8% total terpenes overall and refreshing aromas of menthol tea and lemon sugar sugar cubes. The pinene content in our Kunduz D #13 live resin may potentially reduce allergic inflammation in affected patients.
Prime Wellness of Pennsylvania encourages all patients to consult their dispensary pharmacist to determine which products might potentially work for them.
