New Marijuana Extract Is Changing the Way People Get High

Extracts are fundamentally changing the weed business.

- Adrian Fernandez Baumann and Chase Scheinbaum

In a converted gas station by an enormous stone Buddha in Mendocino County, Calif., Tim Blake stands in front of a mound of cannabis “trichomes.” These crystalline hairs, collected from dried marijuana buds, are rich in THC, the psychoactive ingredient in cannabis responsible for getting a person high. One of Blake’s male, twenty something employees pours a saltshaker’s worth of these hairs onto a piece of parchment paper, which the employee folds in half and flattens in an industrial heated press. As the crystals melt into a greenish, sticky, translucent solid, a skunky, piney smell permeates the air. They’re making “rosin,” and the aroma of it is as common in these parts as the smell of garbage is in New York City come summer.

Rosin (pronounced RAW-zin) could very well be the future of marijuana, and Blake its Henry Ford. “Right now, rosin is taking over the market,” says the silver-haired 59-year-old, dressed like a suburban contractor in a Carhartt jacket over a fleece and bluejeans on a January morning. Rosin, for those who don’t subscribe to High Times, is a cannabis extract or concentrate, which mean the same thing. Extracts range from solid to liquid and go by names that describe their consistency—including “shatter,” “wax,” and “oil”—depending on the processing technique. Added to other products, they’re responsible for a stunning variety of edible, topical, and smokable marijuana products. Nowadays you can get your fix popping gel caplets, sucking on mints, munching on crackers, inhaling from vaporizer pens, cracking open energy drinks, and slathering on skin cream. If none of those options sounds appealing, there are even suppositories.