I am partial to classic Sativa weed landraces such as Chocolate Thai and other varieties from Columbia, Jamaica, and South and Central America. And if your weed-smoking days were back in the 1960s, 70s, and the majority of the 80s, that was basically all the choices you had aside from super-strong hashish that was being imported into California and Europe from the Middle East and North Africa at the time via famous international pot smugglers like Howard ‘Mr. Nice’ Marks. And then the game changed forever.

The hybrid weed we smoke nowadays is immensely stronger than the hippie weed from back in the day. and that first started to change in the early 1990s. For sure, some people might have been smoking new hybrid varieties of “hydroponic” OG-style weed in the late 80s, especially on the west coast of the U.S., but it was during the 1990s when the rest of the world started to take notice as it filtered into society.

Was it really so different? My First Hydro Experience…

Back in 1993, I was a fledgling cannabis smoker in the UK who routinely smoked low-quality Moroccan hashish from dubious sources. It was nasty stuff that was known on the street as “soap bar,” and it wasn’t anything like the high-quality resin that usually comes from that part of the world. I dread to think what was in the recipe, but it was really cheap and nasty.

The only solace I had was traveling to see my friends in the Caribbean communities of Nottingham, England, where I could buy what we called “yard weed.” The term “yard” was a slang word to describe their homeland, Jamaica. So yard weed was essentially imported Jamaican weed that came in a compressed block like Thai weed. It was an okay sativa that was much more forgiving than the dodgy hash I was consuming.

And then one day I visited a recording studio in Nottingham and I smelt a pungent aroma that I had never smelled before. It was sweet, skunky, fruity, and delicious. It looked almost luminous green compared to the dark and dank brown yard weed, and when I took a toke, it dragged me to the floor quicker than a US police officer after asking him a simple question. In the UK, we started to use the word “skunk” to describe this new kind of weed because of the aroma. And if you are English, you know the term is still widely used today.

Is modern-day marijuana that much stronger?

The “skunk” I was smoking in the early 1990s probably had a THC content of around 15%, and that was massively stronger than the hippie weed from the 60s, 70s, and 80s that was closer to 5% THC content and even less in some cases. The hybrid weed strains of 2023 can sometimes top out at around 30% THC or even more. Even the average strength of weed in modern times is mostly over 20% THC concentration. It’s like a different weed dimension when compared to the hippie days.

These newer weed products used high concentrations of indica strains, as opposed to the sativa strains that made up the majority of weed in the Western world at the time. It had a different feeling and a different vibe. After many years of crossing different strains of weed, we now have the most optimized cannabis strains than ever before in 2023 that are designed for potency, yield, and many other things. If Bob Marley smoked modern-day hybrids, he might never have written “No Woman, No Cry,” because he might have been too f**ked up to move, let alone sing.

Smoking Skunk in Thailand in 2023

When the Thai cannabis laws changed in 2022, it literally changed how to buy cannabis in Thailand and also the choice on offer. I moved to Thailand in 2005, and it wasn’t until 2014 that I first had a chance to buy hybrid ganja with high THC content. I pretty much spent ten years smoking very illegal and compressed Thai weed. It was like being back in the 1990s in Nottingham all over again. Don’t get me wrong; it was immensely cheap to buy, and the quality of the Thai weed was sometimes very good, especially when I could obtain Thai stick varieties. But it just didn’t touch the “skunk” that I was accustomed to.

So when the laws in Thailand changed, overnight we had access to some of the strongest weed strains in the world with THC concentrations way above 20%. It’s like being in a tropical version of California. For sure, at the time of writing, cannabis in Thailand is only legal for medicinal purposes, but it is decriminalized, so we cannot be arrested and imprisoned for possession, and that’s a great start. You can’t openly smoke it in public, but you can legally purchase it.

Buy potent cannabis in Thailand.

The type of potent high THC content we can buy in Thai weed shops and Bangkok weed dispensaries is vastly superior to the hippie weed from the 1960s. Weed strains in 2023 are like nothing we have experienced before. The terpene profiles, the amount of THC crystals, and the overall look and quality of high-potency ganja in Thailand are now off the scale. And if you are reading this in another part of the world, you already know where your next holiday and vacation destination should be. Just make sure that you know the laws here beforehand. 

Come and see us at the Mary Jane Weed Dispensary in Bangkok to find some of the best-quality cannabis strains in the world. We might not have reached the lofty heights of California, Canada, or Amsterdam just yet, but we are nearly there. Times change, weed potency has changed, and the laws across countries in regard to weed legalization and decriminalization are also beginning to catch up and change. It’s an exciting time to smoke the best 2023 weed stains in the world in Thailand. Don’t forget to check out more on our facebook page