Has My Weed Gone Bad? 13 Signs Your Stash Is Trash

11. It’s Moldy

The Brits spell it “mouldy,” which kind of makes your mouth do the disgusting face you should be making if you are so unlucky as to end up with a moldy stash. Double if you were trying to save it for a special occasion.

Where there’s smoke there’s usually fire. And where there’s wetness, there’s usually mold. The analogy isn’t so great but you get the idea.

There’s no way around it: weed that’s moldy is going in the trash. Don’t smoke it unless the idea of mold spores in your lungs sounds like a good time to you. Thought not. Flush it like a dead goldfish.

Mold can be notoriously hard to spot, considering it’s green, white, generally floral appearance. Smell is usually the giveaway. A musty, under the basement sink smell with faint overtones of urine and men’s locker room means mold.

Theoretically, you could get away with cutting off the mold-infested parts of your buds, if there are any. But you know what you’ll be thinking when that paranoia sets in.

10. No Smell At All

Since we’re on the olfactory elements of weed, let’s talk smell. Weed should, simply put, smell like weed. Sadly, if your old stash has no smell at all, you may have to label it weed gone bad.

At least this form of “going bad” isn’t nearly as fatal as mold. You can still smoke this herb, but don’t expect much from it.

No smell is a sign the weed has really deteriorated in potency and therefore quality. It means most of the organic compounds in the weed, especially those that make up its “signature,” have broken down.

9. Bud Integrity

Speaking of breaking down, the integrity of the buds in your ancient stash is a good tell of whether or not that weed has gone bad.

This one is mostly in the feel. Give your buds a quick, firm pinch. If they easily bust up, this is another sign of overall weak weed.

Sometimes, the weed that has gone bad will take care of this step all by itself. Revisit an old bag of cannabis after a few months in storage. Sometimes, there’s just loose shake where once tight buds used to be.

It’s almost as if existing that long, under such neglect, was too much for your forgotten weed to bear. Or maybe it’s just that cosmic law of entropy at work. Remember, your weed, just like you, is circling the sun at a cool 1,100 miles per hour.