small data point I know.. but I recall in circles around dc/va/md in the 80s - you only heard about thai sticks a couple times a year maybe - and when they were

small data point I know.. but I recall in circles around dc/va/md in the 80s - you only heard about thai sticks a couple times a year maybe - and when they were around - they were not a marketing gimmck like taking homegrown and adding a stick and string.. they were fluffy, and appeared to have a coating of hash basically(memory is vague at this point) I have no doubt that places around the country had people try to make similar and sell it as such - but there certainly did appear to be a special type of thai stick that came around once in a while, and not only did it look different, but had a similar effect to packing a bowl with kind sinse and topping it with hash oil before smoking. Sure concentrations might be higher today across the board, but there was some select groups that had access to premium things in the 80s - even if the average smoker was getting compressed brown bud that had more stems and seeds than flowers - that does not mean that there were not a few trained botanists way back when that could deliver quality and fresh - there just wasn't enough to go around for it to be common.