Soap

Most 'soap' is Moroccan resin which is compressed into bars in a heated press. Until the mid 1980s most Moroccan was flat-pressed 'slate'. The bars are now more tightly compressed, with a typical THC content of 3-7%.

One particularly foul smelling batch of soap-bar resin was found to contain 6% THC and a typical Moroccan cannabinoid distribution. However the surfaces of the blocks were discoloured, with yellow deposits and a dull surface, and a stong smell of diesel, presumably from importation within a fuel tank.

Alternatively, other resins appear in similar shapes. "Formula" can include genuine resin heated up and mixed with other substances, or resinous substances manufactured from imported hash or grass oil. A batch of Formula was found to contain between 0.5% and 1% THC, it was brittle in texture with shards shearing from the block when cut or heated.

Caryophyline, a constituent of cloves, is commonly found in Asian resin ('black'), which would enhance the odour of poor quality hashish. It has been reported in 'soap', although there have been a few occasions where the origin of resin has been misidentified, and presumably such errors occur in the FSS database.

Unfortunately, the FSS database only lists cannabinoids and other controlled drugs - most cannabis resin is identified only by microscopy and TLC (thin layer chromatography plates), rather than a confirmatory spectrographic analysis, which would be performed only where matching of cannabinoid profiles is attempted in an effort to link different seizures.