u/5threel

Image 1 — Meet The Bakers - Cherry Papaya Live Rosin

Meet The Bakers - Cherry Papaya Live Rosin

The Product

Cherry Papaya is a Cherry Runtz x Papaya Bomb cross. Visually the rosin is warm sandy-beige, slightly grainy, consistent with a proper hand wash and good press. No separation, no visible contamination.

Smell/Flavor: Petrichor and rubber, like rain-on-hot-asphalt meets a tire shop. No chemical aftertaste that would suggest contamination.

Effects: Classic couch locker. Came on fast, settled into a heavy full-body effect, and it stuck around. Not a daytime rosin.

Production quality appears legit. Someone knows what they're doing with the wash. The genetics are polarizing but the effect delivery is there.

If the review were simply about the quality of the product this would be the end of things, but Meet The Bakers is one of many unlicensed brands in the state that still operate unregulated through alternative channels. That means getting my hands on it was an adventure in itself, and I really don't think that lot of people would choose it over the dispensary experience when it's all broken down.

The Experience

I commented on the distributor page asking how to get one for a review. The page reached out and set up a meetup. I want to be clear: I don't go around asking for free product and I don't expect it as a default. I buy the majority of what I review. But when a page initiates a meetup with someone asking about a review and never mentions a price once, in the post, in the comments, in the DMs, nowhere, a reasonable person reads that as a sample situation. I don't say that because I feel like I deserve free things, I say that because no reasonable person sets up a whole drug deal without discussing the price of said drugs at some point before the hand-off.

The reason for this is that advertising a price is itself something an unlicensed operation can't do without serious legal repercussions. The information gap isn't an accident or an oversight, it's structural. Every transaction through a page like this is likely going to have that ambiguity baked in because putting a number anywhere public is its own exposure.

It's worth understanding the actual legal reality here: the only distribution method that carries no legal risk for an unlicensed operation is giving product away freely. Patient to patient gifting is protected. The moment money changes hands it isn't, and that's what's on the line for them every time. As a consumer that means you're always going in with less information than you would have in any licensed transaction, by design.

Going in I also had no idea the person I was meeting had nothing to do with making the product. I was ready to ask questions about the brand, the grow, the process. There was nothing in the lead up interaction that indicated I was meeting a distributor rather than someone connected to production. That only became clear after the fact.

This is the core problem with the model and it has nothing to do with this specific person. With an unlicensed brand it's a crapshoot who ends up being the face of your transaction. There's no hiring process, no training, no accountability structure. The distributor page IS the store and whoever's running it is the entire retail layer. At a dispensary the budtender can be having their worst day and I can still go home and review the product on its own merits. The experience and the product are separable. Here, they aren't.

The Value Problem

$140 for 2g is $70 a gram. I have my issues with BOGO culture in the licensed market and it distorts pricing in ways worth criticizing separately, but even setting that aside, you can find quality tested rosin in this state that undercuts $70/g.

And that licensed rosin comes with things this doesn't. Lab testing is expensive, and it's also not something an unlicensed producer can just go do. In Arizona you cannot walk product into a lab as a private individual and have it tested. Testing requires going through a licensed entity. So the absence of a COA here isn't just a paperwork gap, it's a ceiling that comes with the territory of operating outside the licensed market. No safety panel, no batch date, no way to know how old this is or what the source material looked like before it was pressed. Solventless doesn't mean contaminant-free. Pesticides carry through a rosin press.

For this math to work the product would need to be so far beyond the licensed market that walking away from all of that becomes justifiable. It isn't. It's on par with the better rosins I've had from a licensed store which is a genuine compliment to the production quality, but still not a justification for the premium.

There is no version of this where the math works. If you care about documentation, you're paying a premium to not have it. If you don't, you could walk into a dispensary at BOGO pricing, pay for one gram, and walk out with two.

Would I go back?

No. The rosin isn't bad, and that's what makes it frustrating. Someone put real skill into this. But I paid more per gram than I would at a dispensary with no COA, no batch date, no idea how old it is, and no way to reach the brand if something was wrong. I can't even give this model the convenience argument. I passed at least five or six dispensaries on the way to the meetup.

u/5threel — 4 days ago

▲ 86 r/trees

Someone recommended Simply Mary in one of my recent threads and basically made the case that THCa is just unheated THC, so the site is legit. The chemistry is correct. But whether decarboxylation is real has nothing to do with whether a vendor is honest with you. So, I did what I usually do and went through their entire public COA library. The thing they control, the thing they choose to put in front of customers, and this is what I found.

FLOWER

More than a dozen flower products have either broken links that redirect to their homepage or no COA link at all. Banana Zkittlez, Sour Apple, Mochi, Strawnana, Do-Si-Do, Curelato, Pink Slushie, Z-Pie, Super Runtz, Rainbow Guava, and Lemon Cherry Gas are all sitting on the storefront with nothing behind them documentation-wise.

The document linked as the 818-OG COA is actually a Glitter Bomb COA from SC Labs. There is also a separate Glitter Bomb COA from Badger Labs elsewhere in the flower section. Two labs, two COAs, both for Glitter Bomb, and one was filed under a completely different product name.

Six flower strains including Blue Dream, Wedding Cake, Lemon Truffles, Glitter Bomb, Biscotti, and Green Apple Gas all share the identical Badger Labs project number and batch ID. What's being presented as a diverse selection of small-batch genetics is in several cases the same grow submission with different labels attached.

Outside of a small handful of exceptions, not one flower COA in their library includes a safety panel. No pesticides. No heavy metals. No microbiology. Potency only.

EDIBLES

Their entire edible section is backed exclusively by R&D documents. Every single edible COA from Encore Labs contains an explicit disclaimer on the face of the document stating it is not a California regulatory compliance certificate and is for R&D and quality assurance purposes only. These are research documents being presented as consumer product verification.

Their Pineapple gummy and Shirley Temple gummy link to the exact same file. Not similar documents. The identical URL. One document is being presented as proof for two separate products. Their generic named "Rosin Gummy" COA link redirects to the homepage just like the broken Flower links.

CONCENTRATES

The majority of concentrate COAs from Green Leaf Lab, Pinnacle Analytics, and FESA Labs carry the same kind of explicit R&D disclaimer as the edibles. These are not compliance certificates. They are informational documents that the labs themselves say should not be used as product verification.

Bums Breath appears twice in the concentrate catalog under different listings pointing to the same document and link.

Multiple concentrate products share batch IDs in ways that indicate single submissions being split across multiple SKUs. Tropaya and Papaya Juice don't just share a batch ID, they share the exact same extraction timestamp down to the minute. Neon Wreck and Island Panther share a batch. Whitethorn Rose and Ridgeline Rose share a batch. The boutique variety catalog is, in several cases, one batch with different names on the jar.

Then there's the Delta-8 problem. Delta-8-THC does not naturally occur in cannabis at meaningful levels. When it shows up in double digits it indicates either synthetic production or chemical conversion from CBD. Multiple products sold as premium THCa rosin show exactly that with zero disclosure: Moonbow, Trop Cherry, Watermelon Z, Modified Grape, GG X SD, Darryl Strawberry, and Grape Pie all show between 9% and 14% Delta-8. Several carry significant CBD content alongside it, which is consistent with a conversion process rather than natural extraction. None of it is labeled. None of it is disclosed. It sits in the rosin section next to everything else with no distinction.

By the numbers

Across their full catalog of flower, edibles, and concentrates, here's what the documentation actually looks like:

- 11+ products with broken COA links that redirect to the homepage

- 7+ products with no COA link whatsoever

- 100% of edible COAs are explicitly R&D-only non-compliance documents

- Majority of concentrate COAs carry the same R&D disclaimer

- 1 COA being used as documentation for 2 separate edible products

- 1 COA filed under the wrong product name entirely

- 6 flower strains sharing a single Badger Labs batch ID

- 4+ confirmed cases of one concentrate COA covering multiple SKUs, including two products sharing the exact same extraction timestamp down to the minute

- 7 concentrate products showing 9-14% Delta-8-THC with zero disclosure to consumers

- 0 cultivator information anywhere in the catalog

- 0 flower COAs with a complete safety panel outside of a small handful of exceptions

This is their public-facing documentation. The thing they maintain. The thing they point to when someone asks if they're legitimate.

So here's the actual question

This is everything that made it to paper. These are the documents they chose to publish, maintained at their own discretion, on their own storefront. Within that controlled, publicly visible record there are missing documents, duplicate documents, mislabeled documents, R&D paperwork passed off as compliance verification, shared batch IDs across multiple SKUs, and undisclosed cannabinoid profiles indicating synthetic or converted material being sold as natural THCa concentrate.

If this is what they let you see, what does the part you can't see look like?

Look. I'm not here to tell you what to buy. You're an adult and that's your call. But if you've agreed with anything I've written in the past about brand accountability, whether that's been about COA transparency, mislabeled products, or companies that hide what's actually in what you're smoking, then I genuinely hope you can see this for what it is. The loophole being legal doesn't make the dishonesty acceptable. The standard I hold licensed Arizona brands to doesn't disappear because a vendor is operating outside of a regulated market. If anything it should be higher, because there's nobody else checking.

THCa converting to THC when heated is a chemistry fact. It says nothing about whether the person selling it to you is being straight with you. This documentation says quite a bit about that, and none of it is reassuring.

reddit.com

u/5threel — 7 days ago

▲ 4 r/southwestents

FLOWER

Outside of a small handful of exceptions, not one flower COA in their library includes a safety panel. No pesticides. No heavy metals. No microbiology. Potency only.

EDIBLES

CONCENTRATES

Bums Breath appears twice in the concentrate catalog under different listings pointing to the same document and link.

By the numbers

Across their full catalog of flower, edibles, and concentrates, here's what the documentation actually looks like:

- 11+ products with broken COA links that redirect to the homepage

- 7+ products with no COA link whatsoever

- 100% of edible COAs are explicitly R&D-only non-compliance documents

- Majority of concentrate COAs carry the same R&D disclaimer

- 1 COA being used as documentation for 2 separate edible products

- 1 COA filed under the wrong product name entirely

- 6 flower strains sharing a single Badger Labs batch ID

- 4+ confirmed cases of one concentrate COA covering multiple SKUs, including two products sharing the exact same extraction timestamp down to the minute

- 7 concentrate products showing 9-14% Delta-8-THC with zero disclosure to consumers

- 0 cultivator information anywhere in the catalog

- 0 flower COAs with a complete safety panel outside of a small handful of exceptions

This is their public-facing documentation. The thing they maintain. The thing they point to when someone asks if they're legitimate.

So here's the actual question

If this is what they let you see, what does the part you can't see look like?

reddit.com

u/5threel — 7 days ago

▲ 22 r/southwestents

Okay, so hear me out.

I've gone off quite a bit in the past about how brands are banking on you not checking COAs. This one's a bit different though, because while that's all technically legal albeit shady and untruthful towards the customer - this situation could actually result in real consequences for the dispensaries that are blatantly advertising in a non-compliant way.

You get an email. Subject line says something like "BOGO Everything" or "40% OFF ALL CONCENTRATES." Big bold text. Looks exciting. You get in the car.

Then you get to the store and half the stuff you wanted is excluded. There's a fine print disclaimer buried under the giant graphic that lists out five to eight brands that don't qualify. Not obscure brands either -we're talking major in-state names, national brands, and sometimes entire product categories like pre-rolls and accessories as a whole. On "ALL PRODUCTS" sales.

I've been collecting these emails for a while now and I want to show you what this actually looks like at scale, because I think a lot of us have just accepted it as part of the dispensary experience. We shouldn't.

Here's the pattern, just from one chain, documented across multiple months:

"40% OFF ALL VAPES"
"BOGO ALL FLOWER"
"40% OFF ALL CONCENTRATES"
"BOGO ENTIRE STORE"
"ALL PRODUCTS 40% OFF"
"Buy 2 Get 2 FREE ALL PRODUCTS"
"2 for 1 BOGO ALL PRODUCTS"
"ENTIRE STORE BOGO on 1000+ of your favorite products"
"ALL PRODUCTS 45% OFF"

Every single one of those had an exclusion list attached. This is not an occasional oversight. This is a playbook. And there are three Arizona statutes that say it's a problem.

Why this matters legally

A.R.S. § 44-1522 -- Consumer Fraud Act

The actual text:

> "The act, use or employment by any person of any deception, deceptive or unfair act or practice, fraud, false pretense, false promise, misrepresentation, or concealment, suppression or omission of any material fact with intent that others rely on such concealment, suppression or omission, in connection with the sale or advertisement of any merchandise whether or not any person has in fact been misled, deceived or damaged thereby, is declared to be an unlawful practice."

Notice that last clause: "whether or not any person has in fact been misled, deceived or damaged." Nobody has to prove they were hurt. The practice itself is the violation. This is a big difference from a lot of states where damages must be proven in order to take action regarding false or misleading marketing.

A.R.S. § 13-2203 -- False Advertising

The actual text:

> "A person commits false advertising if, in connection with the promotion of the sale of property or services, such person recklessly causes to be made or makes a false or misleading statement in any advertisement."

> "False advertising is a class 1 misdemeanor."

This one is criminal, not civil. And notice the word "recklessly" - not "intentionally." Sending the same misleading email format dozens of times removes any argument that it was accidental.

A.R.S. § 36-2859 -- Cannabis Advertising Restrictions

The actual text:

> "A marijuana establishment or nonprofit medical marijuana dispensary that violates advertising laws is subject to disciplinary action by the Arizona Department of Health Services."

> "In addition to any other penalty imposed by law, an individual or entity other than a marijuana establishment or nonprofit medical marijuana dispensary that advertises marijuana or marijuana products in violation of this section or otherwise violates this section shall pay a civil penalty of $20,000 per violation."

This is the one with teeth. A dispensary that violates advertising law answers to the agency that holds their license - $20,000 per violation, and DHS can take disciplinary action on top of that. Each individual email could arguably be a separate violation.

"But there's a disclaimer at the bottom" - Yeah, about that

This is the argument every dispensary's legal team would run if this ever got escalated, and it doesn't actually hold up if you reference our state statutes.

A.R.S. § 44-1522(C) explicitly tells Arizona courts to use Federal Trade Commission interpretations as a guide when construing the Consumer Fraud Act. That matters enormously, because the FTC has been clear on this for decades.

From the FTC's own Deception Policy Statement:

> "Written disclosures or fine print may be insufficient to correct a misleading representation, and pro forma statements or disclaimers may not cure otherwise deceptive messages or practices."

The FTC goes further in its guidance documents:

> "Advertisers cannot use fine print to contradict other statements in an ad or to clear up misimpressions the ad would otherwise leave. Accurate information in a footnote or text will likely not remedy a false headline because reasonable consumers may glance only at the headline."

And directly on point:

> "If a disclosure provides information that contradicts a material claim, the disclosure will not be sufficient to prevent the ad from being deceptive -- in that situation, the claim itself must be modified."

Because Arizona statute explicitly instructs courts to follow FTC doctrine, this isn't fringe legal theory - it's baked directly into how § 44-1522 is supposed to be applied.

"ALL VAPES 40% OFF ^((excludes these five major brands))" is not a disclosure. Under the framework Arizona law is required to follow, that contradiction doesn't get the advertiser off the hook - it is the violation.

What you can actually do about it

There are two places to report, and I'd encourage doing both:

Arizona Attorney General's Office -- File a consumer fraud complaint at azag.gov/complaints/consumer. This is where A.R.S. § 44-1522 and § 13-2203 complaints live. A pattern of complaints about a specific practice from a specific company is exactly what triggers investigations. (A.R.S. § 44-1531 notes that willful violations carry civil penalties of not less than $10,000 per violation.)

ADHS Marijuana Program -- File a complaint directly with the agency that licenses these dispensaries at azdhs.gov. This is your § 36-2859 hook. They have the authority to take disciplinary action specifically against dispensaries that violate advertising law, separate from and in addition to anything the AG does.

Screenshot your emails and document the headline claim and the exclusion list side by side. That contrast is your entire complaint in one image.

Here's a draft for both complaint destinations as well if you would like to use just be sure to fill in all of the placeholder spots:

For the Arizona Attorney General:

>I am filing a complaint against [DISPENSARY NAME] for a pattern of deceptive advertising in violation of A.R.S. § 44-1522 (Consumer Fraud Act) and A.R.S. § 13-2203 (False Advertising).

>This dispensary has repeatedly sent promotional emails advertising storewide sales using absolute language such as "ALL PRODUCTS," "ENTIRE STORE," and "BOGO ALL [CATEGORY]" while burying significant brand and category exclusions in fine print below the primary advertisement. The headline claims are materially inconsistent with the actual terms of the offer.

>Under A.R.S. § 44-1522, this conduct is an unlawful practice "whether or not any person has in fact been misled, deceived or damaged thereby." Under A.R.S. § 13-2203, recklessly making a false or misleading statement in an advertisement constitutes false advertising, a class 1 misdemeanor. A.R.S. § 44-1522(C) further instructs that courts use FTC interpretations as a guide, and FTC doctrine is explicit that fine print cannot cure a deceptive headline.

>I have attached screenshots documenting this pattern. I am requesting that your office investigate this practice and take appropriate enforcement action.

For ADHS:

>I am filing a complaint against [DISPENSARY NAME], license number [LICENSE NUMBER IF KNOWN], for advertising practices I believe violate A.R.S. § 36-2859 (Cannabis Advertising Restrictions).

>This dispensary has repeatedly sent promotional emails using absolute terms such as "ALL PRODUCTS," "ENTIRE STORE," and "BOGO ALL [CATEGORY]" to describe sales that in practice exclude significant brands and entire product categories. This pattern of advertising creates a materially false impression of the scope of the offer.

>Under A.R.S. § 36-2859, a marijuana establishment that violates advertising laws is subject to disciplinary action by the Arizona Department of Health Services. I am requesting that your office review the attached documentation and take appropriate action against this licensee.

This isn't just one chain

I'm using their emails because I have them and they're a clean paper trail, but this is an industry-wide habit. If you've gotten similar emails from other dispensaries, the process is exactly the same. The playbook of screaming "ALL" in a headline and whispering the exclusions is not unique to any one brand.

Statutes referenced: A.R.S. § 44-1522 (Consumer Fraud Act)

A.R.S. § 13-2203 (False Advertising)

A.R.S. § 36-2859 (Cannabis Advertising Restrictions)

A.R.S. § 44-1531 (Civil Penalties)

FTC Deception Policy Statement, 103 F.T.C. 174 (1984)

reddit.com

u/5threel — 10 days ago

▲ 0 r/southwestents

If you've seen my previous posts on Sluggers, you already know the deal on what type of brand Sluggers is as far as honesty and transparency goes. If not, look through my post history if you found this post interesting.

So Sluggers dropped the 3-Chamber Super Switch. Three strain chambers, seven combinations depending on how you mix them, 3g AIO. Multi-chamber vapes have been around long enough that Boutiq basically built a whole brand identity around the format, so the hardware itself isn't doing anything groundbreaking. What caught my attention is what they decided to layer on top of it.

They're calling it the Home Run Scoring System. You pick your combination, draw, watch LED bases light up in sequence. Fill all four and you get a home run animation. The part that caught my eye though was: the longer your pull, the higher your score. That's not me reading into the vibes, that's verbatim from the marketing copy. "Longer the inhale, larger the score."

Now look, there are other devices doing stuff in this neighborhood and I want to be specific about why this is different, because the distinction actually matters.

The Boutiq tracks your lifetime blinker count. Does that nudge you toward taking blinkers? Sure, a little, because that's the only thing moving the number. But it's a count. One blinker, plus one. It's just logging what you did.

The Rove Embar flashes, vibrates, and animates when you hit blinker territory and has random QR codes tied to a points system. There's arguably some light gamification there, but the key word is random. How long or how often you pull doesn't affect when those codes show up. The randomness is doing real work there because it breaks the direct feedback loop between pulling harder and getting rewarded for it.

What Sluggers built, if the marketing is telling the truth about how the scoring actually works, keeps that loop completely intact. Pull length directly scales a numerical score in real time. The full mechanics aren't entirely transparent from what's been made public so there's some genuine ambiguity there, but they put "longer the inhale, larger the score" in the copy themselves so I'm going to take them at their word. I'm skeptical that the hardware actually has something with enough logic to be more than a hit counter or possibly a cumulative timer display to show how LONG you've pulled for vs how many hits were taken, but that's what the marketing says.

Of course, there's not a lot of reasons they've given me to actually believe what they tell their customers though.

While I was poking around their site I pulled the COA they have posted for this thing. The product is marketed as a THCp vape, wall to wall. "Premium THCp Oil." Big 74.19% number front and center. Here's what's actually in it according to their own lab results:

Delta-8 THC: 72.36%

THCp: 0.69%

Delta-9 THC: Not Detected

It's a Delta-8 cart. THCp is less than one percent of the total. They took the total cannabinoid figure, put THCp branding all over it, and let consumers do the math wrong. They also call it in their marketing a "Live Diamond Vaporizer" and list "Liquid Diamonds, Live Resin" as ingredients, which is a fun thing to claim about a product built on Delta-8 that comes from CBD isomerization and not a live resin process. Very Sluggers of them. The COA also has "QA Testing Testing" stamped across the header on every page, which is Confident LIMS language that typically shows up in test environment documents rather than final issued ones.

Anyway. The reason any of this is relevant to Arizona specifically is that I can see a potential regulatory situation. The Super Switch is currently shipping nationally through their site as a "hemp" product. It's not in dispensaries here. But their whole catalog runs through Flow and eventually makes that jump, which is why it feels worth talking about now rather than after it's already on the shelf at your local spot. Considering they already source Distillate for their regular vapes, I can't imagine it will be very long if they haven't already launched and I just missed it in my digging.

HB 2179/2451 specifically prohibits cannabis advertising designed to appeal to people under 21 including by use of:

a) names that resemble or imitate food or drink brands marketed to children;

b) images or likeness of toys, cartoons, or animated or fictional characters, including Santa Claus, that are designed to appeal to or encourage individuals under 21 years old to consume marijuana or marijuana products;

c) a medium that specifically appeals to individuals under 21 years old such that the advertising has a special attractiveness beyond the level of general attractiveness for individuals who are at least 21 years old.

Baseball. Animated bases. A home run celebration. A scoreboard. On a weed vape. I don't think I need to draw that one out any further.

The other question, and this one is genuinely more interesting to me, is whether ADHS would ever look at a device engineered specifically to reward longer consumption and have anything to say about it under Prop 207's public health mandate. Obviously in that regard it's breaking any laws right now, but it's a question that seems worth somebody asking out loud.

u/5threel — 14 days ago

▲ 11 r/southwestents

ZenLeaf just launched their new in-house brand Hyphen, specifically "The Essence" Live Rosin pod system. It's a side-bar battery with a proprietary pod format, currently being pushed hard at launch pricing of $49.50 (down from $69.50) for 1g plus the battery. I picked one up and want to save you the trouble.

The Oil Is Legitimate

I pulled the COA before buying. Tested at Smithers CTS Arizona, batch 251230DDUSOTR, Dulce De Uva x Strawguava. Production method listed as Ice/Water. Solventless claim checks out, residual solvents panel came back completely clean, and the cannabinoid profile looks like a real full-spectrum rosin: 77.4% THC, CBC at 1.6%, CBG at 3.75%, THCV present. Not a distillate fingerprint. The extract is sourced from Grow Sciences, which isn't surprising and actually adds some credibility here.

One minor footnote on the COA: it was originally submitted under the name "On-The-Rocks Solventless Live Rosin Vape" and revised on 3/12/2026 to remove that branding. On-The-Rocks is a ZenLeaf house brand being phased out. It's a small thing but it does paint a picture of a product that was rushed to market fast enough that someone submitted it under the wrong brand name and had to issue a correction 10 weeks after the sample was collected.

The Hardware Is The Problem

The pod itself actually has noticeably better airflow than most live rosin vapes I've used. Grow Sciences' own branded 2g rosin AIOs, Made, Project Packs, Green Dot Labs all suffer from restrictive draw and torched terpenes. The Hyphen pod opens that up, which gave me some genuine hope early on.

That hope doesn't survive contact with the voltage settings.

The battery runs at three settings: 2.6v, 3.0v, and 3.4v. The floor is 2.6v. For context, the generally accepted sweet spot for live rosin is 2.0-2.4v. You're starting above that range before you've even made a choice. There is a preheat mode at 1.5v activated by inserting the pod rapidly twice, but you cannot take a draw during preheat. The moment you pull it switches to whatever your voltage setting is, minimum 2.6v.

The result: within a few pulls the oil was already tasting brown. Sneezing, throat irritation, degraded terp byproducts. Even after cooling down completely the burnt character had already set into the oil and didn't go away. I returned it.

The Return Was Fine, The Staff Knowledge Was Not

ZenLeaf took the return without an issue, which I'll give them credit for. What I can't give them credit for is the employee handling my return not understanding the hardware on a product their own colleagues used as a selling point. When I bought it, a different employee told me directly that staff had beef given sample units to learn what they're selling. So when the return employee countered my voltage floor concern by asking if I had tried it at 1.5v, I was genuinely at a loss. 1.5v is the preheat voltage. You cannot vape at 1.5v on this device. It does not work that way. If you've actually used it, you know that.

This is the same pattern I've seen before with brands that prioritize launch momentum over product readiness. I don't expect a budtender to know everything about every product they sell, but something as basic as the voltage range on the hardware, or at the very least knowing if it's at all different from the models being sold with Distillate pods seems like the bare minimum for a new product launch.

Bottom Line

The Grow Sciences rosin inside this pod is the real thing. ZenLeaf's hardware undoes it. At $49.50 on sale you're paying for good oil that the delivery system is going to cook before you can properly experience it. Until they address the voltage floor, skip The Essence and find another way to get Grow Sciences rosin in your lungs if that's what you're chasing, but if you've read my posts in the past unfortunately GS's own Rosin pen functions about the same.

reddit.com

u/5threel — 17 days ago

▲ 9 r/southwestents

Lost Dutchmen Cannabis Co. is a smaller, family-owned Arizona operation that showed up to Best in Grass this year and truly made a statement. They walked away with third place in Hybrid flower with Sour Diesel and first place in Sativa flower with Meyers Lemon. Personally, after trying all 3 BiG bags myself I think they definitely deserve the recognition.

The hash hole itself was gifted to me directly by owner Russell Macdonald at the event. Their flower and rosin individually are available at Deeply Rooted, TruMed, and Sticky for anyone looking to get familiar with the brand.

Packaging is a clean glass tube with a gold metal screw cap. Nothing flashy, but it feels intentional and they clearly give a damn about presentation.

The pre-light smell was gassy and funky with a citrus lean, and that carried right through to the smoke. Even towards the very end it stayed mostly neutral and citrusy. Never got harsh. Burned slow and even the whole way through on what I'd estimate was about a 1.5g unit.

The high came in heavy but never pinned me to the couch. Uplifting and motivating with real weight behind it. A rare combination that's hard to pull off.

Hats off to the Lost Dutchmen crew.

Unfortunately because it wasn't actually tested or labeled I don't know what strains it was made from, but I've yet to have anything from their team that I haven't enjoyed.

u/5threel — 17 days ago

▲ 9 r/southwestents

After 28 days and 3 ignored follow-ups, Sluggers finally responded to my COA investigation. What they said confirms something way bigger than one brand's practices.

According to their rep: strain names on infused pre-rolls don't refer to cannabis genetics. They're just marketing labels for proprietary terpene spray formulas.

And here's the kicker: "I would agree it's near impossible to guarantee two different batches of infused pre-rolls will have the exact same effect."

Their own words. You can't buy the same product twice.

The Admission

I documented 16-point THC variance, 30+ rotating strains, and marketing that didn't match COAs across 6 Sluggers "Temptation" batches. Contacted them March 25th, promised response "by end of week." Got nothing. Followed up March 30, April 1, April 5. Still nothing. Higher-ups from Flow Distribution were copied in on the last follow-ups.

Finally got a response April 22nd.

On the strain names:

>"The strain names & flavor profiles are based off the proprietary terpene mix we've from Sluggers CA corporate team infused into the blunts, pre-rolls and vapes... the bulk flower used in the pre-rolls will sometimes be a blend of bulk flowers... Therefore the base terpenes will change from batch to batch depending on the input flower, but the added terpenes will always remain the same ratio."

Translation: "Temptation" isn't a cannabis strain. It's a terp spray recipe. The actual flower changes completely batch-to-batch.

Anders described this as "standard practice with infused pre-rolls."

On whether you can replicate an experience:

>"We lean on the terpene infusion and manufacturing consistency to provide the most consistent experience across products and between batches, but I would agree it's near impossible to guarantee two different batches of infused pre-rolls will have the exact same effect."

The Testing System Is Broken

Here's where it gets interesting. Anders was honest about something the industry doesn't really talk too much about publicly, though it's fairly well known among the community:

>"Unfortunately, the discrepancies we get back from labs also make us uncomfortable sometimes. We've had products from other brands test at over 100% total THC and have seen some whacky stuff coming out of the labs here in AZ."

Even the brands know Arizona's testing is unreliable.

And here's the regulatory reality: brands have almost no way to fix it.

Under A.A.C. R9-18-311, brands can only request retesting if:

The product FAILED a test (and even then, both new labs must pass)
ADHS, another establishment, or a dispensary formally notifies them the result "may be inaccurate"

Brands CANNOT self-initiate disputes over their own inflated or suspect results. If a lab reports 45% THC flower, or 100%+ total cannabinoids, the brand is stuck with that COA unless a third party formally challenges it.

The 16-point variance in Sluggers batches? Different labs tested different batches.

This isn't Sluggers failing quality control. This is Arizona's regulations making quality control next to impossible.

What They CAN Control (But Don't)

The testing variance? Systemic problem, not their fault.

The strain name deception? That's a choice.

Their own website contradicts the "terpene infusion" defense. Cactus Breath is marketed as: "A crafty curated cross of Cactus and Mendo Breath"

That describes genetics. Parent strains. Breeding. Not "proprietary terpene infusion formula #3."

If "Cactus Breath" just means "we spray this terp blend on random flower," why describe it as a genetic cross?

Because they know consumers expect strain names to mean genetics.

The "33" Example

I found Sluggers grows strain "33" in-house - it showed up in COAs as source flower for a June Temptation batch. They cultivate it themselves.

Their product literally named "33"? COA shows Banana, Crescendo, Garlic Cake, Purple Punch, Kush Mints. Zero strain "33."

Their response: "The names of the Sluggers strains are defined by the terpene infusion, not by the actual input strains."

They own the genetics and grow it in-house. They don't use it in products bearing its name, because the name "doesn't refer to genetics."

What This Means

Arizona regulations create a system where:

Different labs produce wildly different results
Brands can't challenge suspect results without third-party notification
±20% tolerance means 32% and 48% THC are both acceptable from the same source
No regulatory mechanism exists to guarantee consistency

Brands operate within this broken system while:

Marketing strain names as genetics when they're "just terp formulas"
Using website claims that contradict actual product ratios
Offering no batch versioning so consumers can track formulations
Providing no timeline for fixing known inaccuracies

What They're Still Not Fixing

Website still claims "1.5g flower + 0.5g live rosin" (actual: ~1g flower + ~.45g concentrates total)
Website still says "solventless hash" (COAs show butane-extracted THCA)
Website still markets genetic crosses when names are "just terp formulas"
No timeline for fixes ("ASAP" with no date)
No batch versioning
No transparency about cultivator/extractor sources per batch

The Bottom Line

Can Sluggers control lab variance? No. Arizona's regulations make that impossible for any brand.

Can they control marketing transparency? Yes. And they choose not to.

Can you buy the same thing twice? According to their own rep: no.

The Regulatory Fix Needed

Tighter potency tolerance (±20% is absurd)
Mandatory reporting of all test results to ADHS
Brand-initiated retest pathway for suspect results
Standardized testing protocols across labs
Requirement that strain names on infused products reflect actual genetics OR be labeled as "proprietary blends"

What You Should Do Now

Scan QR codes, and read COAs
Note batch numbers when you find something you like
Don't trust strain names on products
Understand that buying the same product name twice doesn't mean you're getting the same product.

u/5threel — 17 days ago