The Fake Weed kit, five years on

This article has been translated to English.

In April 2021 we added a Fake Weed test kit to the Dual-use range: two vials of Cannabis reagent in one tube, sold for a single job, checking whether plant material sold as cannabis actually contained a cannabinoid. Drug checking results at the time were showing legal, low-THC flower coming back sprayed with cheap synthetics that imitate THC. The separate kit is no longer in the catalogue. The reagent behind it is, and it is the same two tests.

What the labs have shown since

The case for it got stronger, not weaker. Across 100 samples containing a synthetic cannabinoid published by European drug checking services between April 2025 and August 2026, MDMB-4en-PINACA appears in 40. The compounds most people still search for, JWH-018, JWH-210 and AM-2201, appear in none of them. The generation being sprayed today is not the generation the 2021 announcement warned about, and it is more potent.

How the colours read

Unchanged since 2021. Blue means more THC than CBD in the sample. Pink means more CBD than THC. Anything else, including no colour at all, means no THC and no CBD are present, which on material sold to you as cannabis is the finding that matters. A reagent shows presence, never quantity, so a strong effect from a sample that reads CBD-dominant points at something added that the reagent does not see.

The Swiss factsheet we cited in 2021 is still the clearest independent write-up of this reagent. Saferparty Cannabis factsheet (PDF)

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This article does not encourage the use of psychoactive substances and does not replace medical advice.