Having a limited understanding of chemistry can be dangerous in a world full of chemicals finding their way into food, medicine, and basic everyday essentials.
If my grandparents had been more careful with dangerous pesticides when they were my age, would they have all died from various forms of cancer? We have a long way to come when it comes to exposing ourselves to carcinogens, but improvements and strides have certainly been made.
Thankfully, education in elementary school and middle school focuses heavily on the natural sciences these days, and tries to offer students the best possible assortment of information available. That’s where some of my friends first developed their interest in math and science. Roger is an extraction technician for a marijuana concentrate company out west, and he said that his interest in chemistry started in school. Once he tried cannabis towards the end of high school, the two interests started to collide. He knew in college that he wanted to eventually work in the nascent cannabis industry, but he didn’t know that he would become a specialist in cannabis concentrates. The technology has definitely evolved in the past decade, with some of the hydrocarbon setups being the most sophisticated extraction techniques in the industry. But marijuana oil can also be extracted using ethanol or carbon dioxide in a critical stage. On top of that, solventless extracts like rosin and hashish have a huge market among connoisseurs as well. My brother is a huge fan of making live rosin because it utilizes plants that are freshly harvested and frozen immediately to retain the terpenes profile of the plant before terpene degradation can begin. These products are becoming increasingly popular in both medical and recreational cannabis markets.