What is Cannabis Resin & How is it produced?

If you’ve ever touched a cannabis bud, you know that the plant is very sticky. That stickiness is cannabis resin.

Similar to sap produced by trees, cannabis resin is a gooey plant byproduct. Unlike sap, cannabis resin is contained by fatty structures called trichomes.

In contrast, tree sap is filled with a greater amount of sugar and is liquid in nature. Cannabis resin forms crystal-like structures that can be difficult to separate from the green plant material.

Resin is produced by various parts of the plant, but it is most heavily concentrated on the buds of unpollinated female cannabis flowers. Female plants are grown and harvested for their resin, which is considered the most valuable part of the plant.

The marijuana plant is capable of producing more than 400 different chemical compounds. Many of them are found in the gooey resin it produces. In fact, the primary psychoactive in the herb, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), is contained in cannabis resin.

Flavonoids and terpenoids, which are flavor and aroma molecules, are also present in resin. This makes resin one of the most fragrant and medicinally valuable parts of the cannabis plant, and that’s why the wax for dabs is very popular these days.