The Dopest THCA Flower Smalls Review - 2/5 Stars • Push Pressure

My experience with The Dopest Shop’s THCA flower smalls has been an interesting one.

Before we go the rest of the way in, The Dopest has gone above and beyond and let me know that their company leadership is reviewing all of the concerns brought to their attention. I hold no negative feelings towards them, and look forward to seeing them grow. I will make another purchase in the near future, likely I will be investigating the edibles.
Sometimes, when we grow, there are a few growing pains, and that’s expected. I hope this review will create valuable insight.

This review will not be absent of any negative details for the experience, because transparency is necessary to fully convey my review score for this first purchase experience.
When my first purchase came in, I won’t lie, I was genuinely shocked and got a little heated.

My second experience is better, but, they neglected an important detail.

The COA is still not present. Despite these issues, customer service did take care of my situation, and they did it with great speed. Same day level responses and fast shipping. This shows strong good will and good intentions as a company to show that they are doing the best. I accept that.

Ultimately I believe this company is trying to be a positive player but hasn’t been fully rattled yet by any major inspector, and therefore, may not be fully aware of what they need to do, and weren’t necessarily prepared for a reviewer like myself that has gone through the FDA ringer a few times for compliance and packaging. It’s not the easiest thing to learn how to do.

In this review, I will detail the bad just as much as the good things, because they are important.

At the end of the day, what they have for THCA flower isn’t bad so long as it’s not one of the products falling through the metaphorical or literal cracks.

I assess that my first order’s issue can be attributed to a few things, but the most important one is lack of compliance being their bane of existence and a point of quality control failure. I happen to know that I am not the first customer with this experience.

Shopping Experience

Shopping on The Dopest website is pretty straight forward, you can find what you are looking for in terms of general category, product type, and important resources such as lab results. The website works well, and the tracking updates are nice. Shipping came through smooth.

The packaging it arrived in was a nice premium feeling.

Pricing was pretty low, and felt affordable for most people.

COAs are not easily available on each product page, and when you want to care about what is in it, you need to take extra steps to see if the COA exists. Having to guess if there is one typically results in believing there is not one, and most people won’t take the time to read or search.

Packaging & Compliance

Before we talk about the product itself, we need to address a few trivial but still important things that every hemp company should have:

Missing COAs for more than 1 product.
Missing required labeling elements such as batch code and packaging date, making them non-compliant by legal standards, and poses a threat to smoke shops carrying this product.
Out of date bills cited on back.

Some Factors to Consider:

I knew I was buying a product without a listed COA, but felt like there might be a chance they would send the COA with the package, or, it would be directly linked on the package. – The COA QR is present, however, it links to their labs online database, which is acceptable, however, there are missing COAs. The two flowers I received did not have any COA. Potency and terpene content are left up to educated guesses. Safety is essentially a mystery. Not a great first start.
Package does not have packaging dates or expiration dates, making it very difficult for even their own team to determine what is safe to sell and what isn’t.
Package is otherwise generally suitable, mylar, standard, proper sealing. It would benefit from tray inserts or transitioning to jars.
The warning text on the back is incomplete and cites the incorrect bills. It references the 2013 Farm Bill and another bill that is not easily located.

Packaging & Compliance

The First Chemdawg Smalls

My first order with The Dopest was the Chemdawg Smalls. I was excited to try them, however, when they arrived, I was sorely disappointed.

Aroma: Hay/Grass (⭒ ⭒ ⭒ ⭒ ⭒) 0/5

Taste: Hay/Grass/Pneumonia (⭒ ⭒ ⭒ ⭒ ⭒) 0/5

Appearance: Greying and browning leaves, broken trichomes, and what appears to be mold starting, likely from storage conditions/packaging & lack of compliance on dating products. ( ⭒ ⭒ ⭒ ⭒ ⭒) 0/5

Potency: Low power, low time, it would last about 10 minutes if it was present, but came at a high risk and cost. Coughing was very reminiscent of developing pneumonia. ( ⭒ ⭒ ⭒ ⭒ ⭒) 0/5

Customer Service

At first, customer service was perhaps confused about my order, or maybe they were busy that day, and mixed up some information. They responded a little strangely at first. Either way, they did not exactly respond the way I anticipated. So I went ahead and let them in on what was happening and who I was.

After a quick exchange, the team was fast to provide a replacement of greater size and value, which was more than what I was requesting, and I was pleasantly surprised that the team was willing to work towards resolving the issues.

Insights & Perspectives

I was around when The Dopest started up with Dope As Yola at the helm. They are still relatively young in retrospect, but, I am just a little surprised their team hasn’t been made aware of the compliance issues, seeing as how whenever I would sell to smoke shops, they were very eager to ensure we were compliant most of the time. Only the cheaper shops that never bought from us never asked about compliance. They cared about resale price.

I am thinking that The Dopest Shop team is still working out a lot of their products, nailing things down, working on RnD, and focusing on sales, but their compliance team (if dedicated), is not able to either keep up, or get fulfillment done in time, and there may be some products are likely being sold faster than they can test. Flower is notorious for this. So rather than holding, they decide to sell now, and ask for forgiveness later.

This is a common thing, and I won’t say most companies don’t do this when just getting started, and I won’t say that every company is perfect at compliance yet.

This is something that has to mature and get better over time. It starts by talking about it.

There is a chance the FDA is not looking at them simply on monetary reporting for the year alone, and they may not be subject to very intense inspections just yet. The bigger the bucks in the medium realm on up, the more inspections and less leniency.

The Replacement Flower: Super Glue (28g)

The team was very generous, and I am very appreciative and grateful that the customer service team chose to replace my product with something greater than what was requested. I bought 7g, and they replaced me with a full ounce.

A very respectable and appreciated response after all that happened.

That said, I did tell them that once I got it, I would conduct my final review, and I would be holding it to the same review process I held my first purchase too, and then would be creating this review.
The replacement THCA flower looks much better under the scope. But because there is no COA, which was one of my first problems, it didn’t exactly do the most in reassuring me that compliance was being paid attention too.

Forgive the quality, I shot this in a video and extracted frames of what I did. The video audio on my voice is attrocious, it would never get any views, so I will be trying to shoot a new review video once I get my microphone back. (It’s a RODE and I miss it dearly).

I know how it goes. I understand why compliance can be hard to keep a handle on.

Some farms will send a bunch of flower to you at once (because that’s how you typically order), and provide most of the COAs with maybe one or two missing from time to time, and the guy who needs to get it up, needs to get it up, pronto.

Their job is to listen to whoever tells them what to do, and get that product up and ready for sale.

If there is no COA, they are likely not checking, and it may not be in their scope of responsibility, so there is a strong chance that very few people or nobody is going back and saying “Hey, I need a COA for these things so it can be sold legally.”
UPDATE: Some people found the COA, however, I had purchased the flower several days before their upload.

UPDATE: Lowered score from 3.5 to 2: This flower ended up being the same as the chemdawg smalls in the bottom half. After getting to that portion of the flower, the pneumonia cough returned, and other flower was not causing the same issues. This does seem to furher indicate an issue in the grow.

Aroma: Light – Gassy, Citrus, Chem [★ ★ ⭒ ⭒ ⭒] (2/5)

Taste: Sharp / Lower Terpene Presence – Gassy Chem Peppery Earth [★ ★ ⭒ ⭒ ⭒] (2/5)

Appearance [★ ★ ★ ★ ⭒] (4/5):
Medium green, well coated in trichomes, orange/amber pistils, and fair retention of trichome structure, no signs of molding or mildew. No signs of altering.

Potency [★ ★ ★ ⭒ ⭒] (3/5):

Estimated – 23% – 24% Total THC Content 0.7% – 1% on the terps. Fair considering typical industry standards of potency, this is more up in the upper middle common range.

Euphoric Experience [★ ★ ★ ☆ ⭒] (3.5/5):

This is a relaxing style of smoke, but the sharpness has it’s drawbacks from the coughing episodes that seem more present with it than other strains I have on hand. The euphoria can last anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes.

The first feeling is it hitting your eyes, you feel your eyelids do that forced low-lid squint, where it looks like your eyes are closed even though you can still see. It takes on the rest of the body, and adds a nice sense of relaxation. The mind buzz is a bit more of the creative and uplifting kind, where I find myself wanting to create things.
The cotton mouth is not very present in this particular strain for me.

I note that this strain does help me with eating and combating my nausea.
This strain, for me, is a good work strain and can work fine as a before bed strain too.

What I liked about it:

This flower is higher quality and in better condition than the Chemdawg with decent efficiency.

What I didn’t like about it:

This flower is a bit harsh for me to smoke back to back tokes, because of the sharp peppery earthy taste.

Final Thoughts on the Super Glue:

This strain is overall a relatively nice strain, but with the harsh burning cough it causes, it doesn’t quite sit where I would want it too on my pallet for this particular strain. It’s a little sharper than I typically go for. The potency is of average range by experience (no COA to verify), so it’s suitable and is overall a decent option to have on hand.

At this time, December 1st, 2024, The Dopest Shop will earn a 2/5 stars. Recommendable with room for improvement.

The Dopest Final Score ★ ★ ★ ☆⭒(2/5)

What They Did Right With Me:

Good and fast customer service (Responses come relatively fast)
Good website (Good design, speed, and layout)
Decently Fast and reliable shipping practices (1 week from order average)
Good prices (affordable for most people)

Where The Dopest Needs Improvement Based on My Experience:

Certificates of Analysis for all flower products
Full Panel certificates of analysis on edibles
Packaging and Labeling Updates with packaging dates, expiration dates, law citations, revised child safety/consumer safety statements, and batch numbers.
Quality control and safety – Blind check products, make sure storage facilities are in optimal condition, proper storage environment for cannabis products, and reviewing shipping and production areas to identify any possible pain-points and assess.

Disclaimer:

This review is not paid for or sponsored by any other means. This account is not yet monetized. For more reviews of great detail, be sure to like, follow, and drop a comment below with your thoughts and questions to help build the stoner community!

The Dopest Shop was only aware of my review after the purchase was made, and has not offered any additional compensation or product in the name of coaxing a more favorable review.

The contents of this review are 100% authentic to my exerience, and my perspectives come from being an executive in the hemp industry that has a considerable customer base and international presence.

This product review is not meant to serve as medical advice and is not meant to diagnose, prevent, cure, or otherwise alleviate any illeness, injury, sickness, disease, or any medical conditions.

Any and all references to any medical conditions are subject to the unique experiences of PushPressureTM. Consult with your licensed healthcare practitioner or physician to better understand how cannabis is/could play a role in your healthcare.

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