Foggy’s Take:

Fast Lane Sativa

HIWAY

Introduction

2023 has been the year of revisiting brands that I had previously blacklisted due to consistently poor quality, and one brand I was curious about was HiWay. Back in 2021, I had a few experiences that left such a poor taste in my mouth that I could never honestly recommend a HiWay product again. 

Do I recommend them based on price per gram, if the consumer is right? Absolutely.

Do I feel comfortable recommending them to anybody looking for quality? Absolutely not. 

But as far as mass producers go, Canopy as a whole has pushed out some of the biggest quality improvements I’ve seen to date, trying to show that they are taking feedback to heart and that they still want to compete in this race. So when our HiWay pre-rolls saw a huge influx in sales in-store following the release of the Fuego pre-rolls, some of my staff were telling me I had to give their flower a chance. With so many factors contributing to my curiosity, I purchased a bag of the Fast Lane Sativa to find out if HiWay’s quality has also changed. 

I should specify that this product is a rotating strain, and the lot I picked up was a cross of GMO Cookies and (Zkittlez x OG Kush).

Review

Lineage: GMO Cookies x (Zkttlz x OG Kush)

Price: $92.99 

THC: 26.9%

CBD: 0.05%

Terpenes: 4.55%

Dominant Terpenes: Caryophyllene, Limonene, Myrcene

Market: Recreational

Packaging 3 / 5

This came in a basic mint green mylar bag, absolutely nothing special about the packaging. However, I will say that I appreciated the amount of information included by a budget brand. THC and CBD were of course included, but they also listed the dominant terpenes with percentages, as well as the strain rotation. I’ve heard from some other budget reps that they won’t include terpene percentages on the bag because it costs too much in ink, so to see HiWay spend the extra few cents on the packaging earned them an extra point here. However, we don’t see anything like harvest dates, cure time, or if there was an outsourced grower that should be credited for this. It’s a step in the right direction for what I want to see on the packaging, but there is still a lot left to be desired. 

Bud Size 4 / 5

This pleasantly surprised me. I was expecting nothing but popcorn if I’m being honest, but there were a good chunk of large buds in my bag. I’d say roughly a quarter of the bag was indeed popcorn, but there was at least 14g of good sized nugs in there. 

Bud Density: 3.5 / 5

These weren’t rock hard buds, and they still had a good amount of squish to them, but they weren’t loose and airy by any means. 

Moisture Content: 5 / 5

I will be the first person to admit that I hate the moisture content from the vast majority of products that are on the market, even with a humidity pack. They’re often FAR too dry still. I understand that there is a very fine line between well hydrated cannabis and ending up with moldy cannabis as well, but if there’s one thing I miss about the blackmarket days, it was that my bud was always fresh. In this aspect, HiWay did a phenomenal job. There were no crunching sounds when you squished the bud, with a good amount of nerfiness to it as well. This was probably the most pleasant surprise of the bag. Even after a week, the buds were showing no trace of dring out. 

Visual:   2.5 / 5

One of my issues with HiWay used to be that their product was brown, not green. I had a regular customer ask if we were selling him tobacco as he unrolled a pre-roll onto our counter once. The buds in this bag were actually quite nice! They were a very light green, almost verging on the mintiness of the bag, covered with trichomes and some orange hairs. The bigger nugs averaged about 1.4g each. The buds were nicely trimmed as well, my only issue with the trim was they could have cut off some of the excess stem. I’ve seen worse stem for sure, but they could have cut the really long ones down. 

Under the scope, this bud was kind of strange. The closer I zoomed in, the more unsure I was of what I was looking at. The typical trichome structure that I was looking for seemed like the trichomes had all started to melt (is that a thing?). I guess some were still cloudy, but starting to verge on the darker side.

Aroma 3 / 5

This was a little heavier on the gas, with a little bit of limonene that comes through to kind of brighten it up. I was a little surprised here because what I was smelling was very much the profile of something more “indica” if you will. With a terpene content of 4.55% I think I was expecting a little bit more of a punch to the nose, but the terpenes certainly didn’t get lost. 

Taste 1 / 5

This disappointed me in the taste category. There were lots of different notes you could pick up in the smell, but none of them came through in the flavour. After letting the bag breathe for a couple of days, it started to take on some mild spicy flavours, but not quite as much for something with 1.63% Caryophyllene. 

Smoothness 2.5  / 5

This wasn’t awful. It didn’t feel like you were immediately being choked out, but it did give me a little bit of coughing. I didn’t think it was terribly harsh until I smoked something else and remembered what smooth feels like. 

Effects 2 / 5

I don’t even know that I felt any effects, this wasn’t a good smoke.  It was very much one of those strains that I smoked and wasn’t sure if I even caught a buzz. So I kept smoking… and kept smoking… and still felt very sober, but simply in my own head. I’m somebody who feels like I spend hours trapped in my own head and I like to use cannabis to help get me out of my head. So this wasn’t great for me. I was hoping to smoke something and relax and feel less stressed, but instead I smoked this and spent a while ruminating over my day. I found myself more stressed out, and when I tried to smoke more to ease my anxiety, I quickly realized it was the cause of my anxiety. I got no physical sensations from this one, or any type of body buzz. 

Duration of Effects    1 / 5

Like I said, I wasn’t even sure that I got stoned. I kept going outside every 15 to 20 minutes to smoke more, and it didn’t do anything. 

Burn   3 / 5

It wasn’t bad. Despite how fresh the bud was, it burned evenly, and I got a mostly salt & pepper coloured ash from this. A little on the darker side, but not enough for me to call it a black ash. 

Burnout   5 / 5

This came with no burnout effects to it. It was a very mental high without much of a body feeling at all, so apart my from thoughts slowing back down, there was zero burnout. 

Overall   35.5 / 60 (59%)

This was an interesting brand to revisit, and although they’re certainly improving, I’m not sure that I’d recommend this. Or even revisit them again. Right off the bat, I’m a little concerned about the strain and product labeling. I have questions. Like how do you take 3 indica-dominant strains and end up with a sativa? The smell was very much what you would expect from an indica-leaning cultivar but none of that aroma came through in the taste. GMO is always a go-to offering for me, so I was really excited to see a sativa GMO, but I might actually be turned off from any others going forward. 

This was the kind of bud that belongs on display or something like that. It feels good, it looks good, it smells okay, it checks most of the boxes from afar. But when you smoke it there’s not a ton happening. Underwhelming to say the least. By the second day of smoking this, I was over it and went to purchase something else to smoke. I shared what was left of the bag with some of the staff at my store, and most of them felt similarly. Some of them also reported similar feelings of anxiety after smoking this one. I really enjoy a good sativa, but this one wasn’t for me. It left me frustrated and looking for something else.