Strane

Holistic Industries

Alien Mints (Alien Cookies X Kush Mints 11)

Package date 3/7/25

I had a friend pick up some pre-rolled joints for me while I didn’t have a valid state ID, and they brought me two packs of these. Strane is a brand name used by Holistic Industries, an MSO selling products in MA, PA, MD, and WV.

This product is two 0.5 g pre-filled cones nestled in a plastic “doob tube,” sold for $10 plus tax. The packaging kept them pretty fresh, and it’s definitely efficient. As we’ve watched markets consolidate and margins shrink, I’ve gotten more used to simplified, “budget” packaging.

The package has so little space for information, and there’s so much they want to tell us. One of the label stickers that are mandated by regulations got slapped right over the brand logo and strain name. The text everywhere is tiny. The label says, “peel for more information;” after a challenging peel I find the opposite side has all the warnings.

These joints smelled a little herby and minty. I could taste a bit of mint when I smoked them, and a minty feel stuck to my tongue and throat. The smoke brought my mind to a happy place and left me feeling energized.

One of the worst features, though, was that each joint clogged after I’d smoked about 2/3 of it. I’ve been sampling a lot of pre-rolls lately, and this seems to be a common problem. The filling process tends to allow the smallest crumbs of weed to settle into the narrow part of the cone near the tip; as I smoke, resin builds up in there to eventually clog the airways.

When I was cutting these open to test, I really noticed the pleasant smell of this flower. To my nose, it carries hints of citrus and mint. Lots of pre-rolls smell like “generic pre-roll;” not these. It’s a strong point in their favor.

We tested the flower from inside two of these joints using the LightLab3 HS from Orange Photonics. We ran it three times and averaged the results, which were very consistent. The label listed the THCA% as an astounding 31.2%, but we measured 24.4%, a difference of 6.8%. At this point, we hardly bat an eye when we measure THCA% six or seven points lower than the label, but other results surprised us.

CBCA wasn’t reported on the label, which listed several cannabinoids and “0.0%” of all others, yet we measured a substantial amount. If the compliance test that produced the label truly sampled the batch of joints I bought, it should have found a significant amount of CBCA, just like I did. With the full COA from compliance testing, we could learn whether this was a labelling error or evidence of a spoofed sample. If only we had that COA!

Despite a few complaints, I would still probably buy these again. A couple pre-rolls with decent weed at about 25% THCA for $10 is a pretty good value. It would feel nicer if they labeled them that way, instead of purporting an unbelievable TAC.