To any medical patients confused about the pre-ordering process—you need to ask the staff for a link to the online ordering platform just for medical patients. You will get an email telling you your order’s ready. Then go in the front door, show your med card when asked, and tell them you pre-ordered. They’ll pull your order up and it’ll only be about 10 minutes wait. And you can ask if you can sit down if you cannot stand; they will keep your place in line.
Not my favorite daytime sativa--too cloudy & too many visual distortions to write on it, say. Disrupts my short-term memory too much. And has given me panic attacks. But I could see it being good for a party--it certainly made me talkative. And I had much better experiences when i could get outside and walk around a park or other serene bit of nature than cooped up in my apartment. Try it when you aren't actively sheltering in place, or maybe housework or something that burns off the kind of excess energy it gave me.
Could be the pheno, the grower, whatever, too. I was smoking on Grassroots's version. I read a review where the reviewer said that was "cloudier" than other Candyland flower from other growers. Cloudy and hyper not a good combo for me. I like either cloudy and sleepy and calm for bedtime, or energetic but clear.
YMMV.
Form: PTS Black D.O.G. Crumble Wax. Labs: 74% THC, no detectable CBD.
Consumed via a Yocan Evolve Plus pen (an adequate and very inexpensive wax pen for us poor folk who are newbs to wax, but with no temp control, meaning I can’t really comment on the taste.)
The experience:
Lovely indica, very very relaxing but pretty clear-headed. Sleepy but one can fend that off. (I say now. I also do feel like taking a nap. But so far after a couple of hits, I can use it during the day for extra stress and still remember my name. And write this review. How clear it is I leave to the readers’ judgement, as I am medicated with the Dog as I write.
This is only the second time I have “dabbed,” and I have gone from COVID pacing in an unsafe home to pretty chill for now. That’s saying a lot. Whoever compared it to Xanax had a similar reaction to mine. The Dog can eat your stress and fears. Just call for it and fill a bowl. (Or order online. Apparently it can also make one make bad puns out of dispensary measures re: COVID. But still leave you clear-headed enough to remember your face mask when you go out. Which is possible on this strain; though my legs, I note, are kind of wobbly.) No anxiety, paranoia, or racing heart, which are all key because I have a couple anxiety disorders and that is what I am using this for.
The Dog was recommended to me by the bud tender as a good substitute for what I was looking for but they were out of temporarily (PTS’s Champion City Chocolate—aka Chocolate OG—crumble, my first “dab” experience.) That would be my first choice for insomnia and heavy pain, but the Dog is a very acceptable substitute. Not as heavy; but sometimes you want to be chilled, get a great body high, but stay coherent. And it will put you in a nice restful frame of mind from which sleep would come naturally were it near bedtime.
To give you some context, my all-time fave pure or nearly pure indica is Hindu Kush, which is unavailable here in Chicago. (Hi, fellow Illini!) I will most definitely buy this again if the Chocolate OG is out of stock. Very, very nice effects.
Very very nice!! I tried this strain a few months ago in the same form from the same cutivator (Cresco pre-roll) and for some reason found it a little off & not planning to revisit. But since it snowed here before Halloween, it's been freezing ever since, the time change has it getting dark at 4 p.m., and if it snows as late in the spring as it did this past spring (the last week of April), "winter" will be 6 months long, with or without another polar vortex, a tropical fruit and an express train heading south or west (and one too many case of the jitters from racy, purer sativas--I'm looking at you, IESO's version of Maui Wowie) kept stopping me every time i looked at my dispensary's menu. Thus I found myself buying another PE pre-roll by Cresco (THC: 25.68%), unwound it to vape the contents, and was very pleasantly surprised. Very nice, happy, fun, upcheering high. I dunno why i didn't fancy it the first time i tried it. Possibly then it gave me some anxiety, but my tolerance has gone up, as I have been using more cannabis to help me stop completely freaking out about a situation involving my mother and a sudden diagnosis of a rare and aggressive cancer- 'nuff said--so I could be there for her and not be freaking out 24/7. A few hours' untroubled tropical vacation courtesy of this happy strain was just what I needed. (I was still in a good mood when my mom called to say she'd been released from the hospital, and she was happy that I was happy, so that was a win-win; and eff you, evil drug warriors who decided that our official American intoxicants should be alcohol and cigarettes. You can stick to those when your mothers get cancer.) All in all a very nice experience, especially under the circumstances. No anxiety this time. I'm putting this one in my rotation. Sometimes it's good to get back up on the horse. (The animal, not the drug. MMJ is also how I stay OFF opiates. come to think of it, my shoulder wasn't bothering me this afternoon, either. Just starting up again now. So it must be good for pain, as well. Have a pineapple-express!
Vaped flower 24K gold by Revolution Cannabis; 20% THC, .19% CBN, 0% CBD. Top terpenes listed in descending order as B-Myrcene, A-Pinene, Limonene, B-Carophyllene, B-Pinene.
Ah, this is a very very nice strain. Mellow, comforting, gentle, mood-enhancing but not in that pumped-up way that's not so much happy as turbo-charged; this just gently lifted me into a very pleasant "happy."
Def. an indica-leaning hybrid but not a couch-locker. It does give a nice body high and made me sleepy, in that "Why is my chin resting on my chest?" way. For after the day's work is done. Then, relaxation awaits.
A few pinches from an Alien Bubba by Cresco pre-roll (vaped from a Flowermate V.05 vaporizer), 30.12% THC, no detectable CBD (thus I mixed it 50-50% with ground no-THC, high-CBD hemp flower).
Very, very, very relaxing, instantly calmed my racing pre-sleep thoughts and made me think all was well with the world, definitely absolutely helped me sleep. Probably good for pain, but I was asleep too fast to think about that. Which means it's probably good for pain, or I would have been noticing pain and/or been kept awake by it.
I myself wouldn't try to do anything requiring much focus, or mobility, on this (bearing in mind of course that I used it when already tired, just too stressed to sleep; anything that relieved the stress, which this did VERY nicely, would have let me go where I was heading, which was from tired to asleep). And my system is picky--I can't function at all on "vaunted productivity strain" Durban Poison (first too high & anxious, then crashed). I have a low tolerance esp. cf. to someone who uses concentrates more heavy than a couple puffs on an oil pen/cart. The only strains I can do any, say, professional writing on is good old Jack Herer and, to a lesser extent, Jack's most delightful but G13-crossed offspring XJ-13.
Alien Bubba did the usual for a 30%+ indica, on the "happy but asleep within 10 mins." front, but I could see how if you were a more experienced user--like, someone who owns and uses a dab rig--using it with someone else, or in a stimulating social situation like a party (and not with 5 grams of melatonin & some benzos I'm still tapering off that I take at night, that don't do cr@p for my stress levels but are sedating), it could leave one deeply calm, eased in spirit, but still coherent. I was exclusively using it as bedtime weed, trying to calm down and sleep, & with those other sleep aids. That I think AB will have me abandoning, the melatonin first (it's apparently linked to depression in D-prone individuals) and then the Klonopin as soon as I finish my taper. (Public health announcement: If you've been taking a benzo daily for more than a month, you need to taper off it, not go cold-turkey. If you've been taking one at very high dose daily for as little as a week, you really need to taper, as my friend who had a seizure and now has brain-damage from being taken off a week's high daily dose of Atavin cold-turkey can attest. End PHA.)
And I probably took 5 or 6 deep inhales (at 400F or so); because I was worried by a few other reviews saying AB wasn't heavy enough for sleep. For me it was, "Whoah, I feel like I just slipped between fresh yet fuzzy flannel sheets just washed by my mother, miraculously cured of her cancer, in the nicest way." Then the lights went out.
On potential con, which might well just be my tolerance, or lack thereof, plus hitting it too many times: I also had a struggle waking up next morning, and it took a LOT of coffee to clear my groggy head. YMWillDefinitelyV on that.
(Also, these IL dispensary-bought 30%+ indicas just do that to me. One good thing about heavy regulation of the supply chain is the labs and labels on the medical-dispo stuff are probably pretty accurate. One also bad thing about heavy regulation of the supply chain for 30%+ THC strains is that it's hard for me to go low and slow enough. --I just moved here from LA, where I first became a medical patient & had no tolerance, and being disabled and therefore very penny-pinching by necessity, was buying bottom-shelf weed in popcorn/shake out of unlabeled jars from (I've now read) probably one of the hundreds of unlicensed dispos just in greater LA, that an experienced stoner/patient/cannaisseur would no more buy than oregano cut with dandelion leaves. But bottom-shelf weed is actually great for novices on a budget, especially if they don't know they're using schwag is and thus get a nice placebo effect.
Anyway, I brought with me a retrospectively laughable, esp. since I lived in Chicago until age 17, "Cali" attitude about Illinois MMJ. Before I actually bought a couple of the medical-grade 30% indicas grown here and was knocked out as if by general anesthesia and left stoned half the next day. (I'd forgotten this has been an agricultural state time out of mind, "breadbasket of the world" territory and all, because it boasts some of the richest farmland in the world; the topsoil is, like, 6 feet deep, family farmers are millionaires (in non-liquid assets anyway) by virtue of owning a family farm's worth of IL "ground"; and the state's bigger growers can employ a lot of horticulturalists and agronomists and what-all who know a little something about growing things.)
Wow, that was a long-@ss review. I think I'm still half-stoned at 1:30 p.m. next day.
May be just my body chemistry, but both times I've tried this (in form of Cresco disposable vape pen), it was like vaping a panic attack. I love my sativas, but the first time was downright awful. Like what I imagine bad meth scored from a sadistic dealer would be. (Never tried meth, don't intend to, since I clearly can't handle my Sojay Haze.) It was actually worse than a panic attack because those don't usually make me aggressive. this stuff did. I was super-impatient if not downright hostile about having to wait to meet someone, even though I was the one at fault because I got there half and hour late. Couldn't sit still, so the idea of hanging around and waiting was intolerable. At least I don't think it made me paranoid--I'm pretty sure people *were* disapproving of my behavior, because I was acting like a dick. Not usually my MO.
Granted I wasn't in the best place before I hit on the stuff, but I've many times been rescued from bad moods by good ol' MJ. This made it worse. Much worse. I went home and hid, so I wouldn't destroy any important relationships.
The only reason I tried it a second time was in case I'd just overdone it the first time, or it was a fluke. nope. Just a short hit gave me the same way-too-wired feeling, just to a lesser degree. Why SH and I disagree so violently is a complete mystery--as noted, I have happily tried many a sativa, including in cart/refilled-pen form, and while occasionally have gotten the sativa jitters/paranoia, nothing much worse than that. I'm giving it 2 stars instead of 1 because other people seem to love it, so it's probably just my particular brain chemistry in combination with the strain, as can always happen. The pen however is headed for a landfill, and I've returned with relief to my old faithful Jack H cart, which I was glad to find does still work for my on-off depression.
I had high hopes for this strain from the description -- I like me my upbeat, happy, non-racy "functional" buds. But I found this strain curiously "meh." The high had very little character -- it was just a feeling of being high. Not fun, not chill -- just "under the influence of THC." More than anything else, it reminded me of the effects of THC transdermal patches and the like that don't even pretend to include terpenes or an interesting mix of cannabinoids. If there's such a thing as a boring high, this was a boring high. I'm obviously a person who likes effects with distinct characteristics besides "stoned"--Jack H's happy, calm, startling clarity; the unexpected spiritual feel of Hindu Kush (ohhmmm); the goofy giggles I get from GSC; the "Whoah, I just vaped a Harrier jump-jet" that is Jet Fuel. Others may find this "evenly balanced"--my take was more, "Well, it's not an indica, and it's not a sativa. It's just weed." Honestly, I was relieved when it wore off, not because it made me paranoid or anxious or tired but just because I don't like being altered except if it's enjoyable. OTOH, it seems to float other people's boats, so it might float yours.
If you suffer from insomnia and have access to this strain, it is all you need. I micro-dosed a pinch in my dry vape and was asleep, basically, immediately afterwards. Woke up 9 hours later, ready to face the world. (I was already in my PJs, having read other reviews, & suggest that at least lightweights be the same when they try this. It's like instant sleep in plant form.)
Wow. Just, "Wow." This is *amazing* for sleep. My new go-to strain for that. I am looking no further.
(It's probably good for pain, too, and anxiety, and it does give a feeling of happy well-being, but if my experience is any guide, expect to b asleep to fast to enjoy that for long.)
People say they can work on this. My hats are off to them. I personally would not even try. But then I'm still a lightweight.
Full disclosure: As is my SOP, I already had some high-CBD, no-THC legal hemp flower on board when I tried this. That may account for some of the sedative effect and blunted the "high" a bit for me.
Oh, this is a lovely strain. I never thought I was a flavor-driven cannabis consumer, just in it for effects, but this tastes amazing, to start off wit only one of it's virtues. (Yes, this is absolutely a new fave.) So smooth, a subtle sweet (but in no way cloying) fruit taste with hints of orange and, I don't know, something really yummy... lemon? Tangerine? Punch, from the Purple Punch side? I have no idea what I'm talking about when I'm talking flavors, clearly, and I am also delightfully intoxicated in a happy, focused, calm, clear, rosy, happy (I think I said that) confident, yet somehow bubbly way (and here I think I'm thinking of champagne. It's like having a Mimosa on a gorgeous summer evening at the end of a beautiful summer day).
And before I picked up the vape, I should add, I was in a bad place. Not the worst I've ever had. My lifelong depression and anxiety--before I surrendered my wary, "Oh God, now I'm buying pot from a pot store; knowing me, I'm going to turn straight into a zoned-out drug addict hiding in Lotus Land" uptight self to try this healing plant with an open mind--could at times be straight-out crippling.
But earlier today I was deeply worried and stressed and deeply anxious (ok, I was scared shitless. period.)
'Cause my mother is having emergency surgery tomorrow for some kind of growth she won't even talk to me about. (Cancer? not cancer but still an emrgency? Surgery on an 80-year-old woman? emergency since 4 days ago?)
Basically the frame of mind that suggested I might really need to break out the Mimosa tonight to not be buried by stifled dread was (pre-this lovely calmi uplifting almost spiritual flower): "My mom apparently has cancer and tomorrow she's going in for an emergency sugery that a neighbor told her from experience would probably be at minimum deeply deeply painful.")
But I feel ok. So. Much. Better. So much calmer. Ready to deal with whatever happens. Actually ok. Ready to be there for her, because this is not a stupid, stumbly, goofy, or blunt force high that will leave me hung-over, groggy, and surrounded by Snickers wrappers (though there is managable appetite increase). Nor a racy manic jet-fueled hyper high. It's beautiful and serene and joyous, or as much as the circumstances allow...
Which means I am not only STRONGLY recommending this strain, not only planning to keep it constantly in stock, but deeply grateful to it.
It's a beautiful thing. A balmy calm lovely summer breze of a strain, with a lawn and soft jazz and Mimosas and a fountain splashing.
(Though, caveat, you could find yourself rambling on like someone deeply stoned to a world of strangers on the Internet. In really bad prose. But, it's still a beautiful thing.)