Pardon the slight derailment, but all of this talk about converting this and decarbing that got me thinking. (Start dream sequence music)...
When I went to Barcelona with a few grams of my very recently harvested (but NOT cured or aged) buds, I had a little inside one of the fake metal cigarette tokers. It was like a magnet the way the customs guy found it, and promptly escorted me to the basement of the airport. I feared a metal mattress frame and some heavy duty jumper cables, but instead they had a triple beam scale and some of the instant drug tests that you see on TV. The "agent" took a sample of the bright green indica bud that I had and looked at it puzzled, like he had never seen anything like it. It was skunky as hell and smelled up the room. When he put a small bud into one of the tests and cracked the vial, he at first sort of smirked as he expected it to turn colors, but instead, no reaction took place, with only green stuff floating in the clear liquid. It turned out that this was the agents first day and I was his first major bust. All of the other officers were giving him ship over his big score of 1.5 grams of suspected marijuana. He asked me if it was MJ when the test showed nothing, and I just shrugged my shoulders. I was given back the toker, without the buds, and turned loose.
OK...back to the topic. I wonder if the lack of active THC in the sample was the reason that nothing reacted? I KNOW it was great bud, but it didn't react. I'm unsure what the actual reaction involves.