Pubdate: Thu, 31 Jul 2014
Source: Boulder Weekly (CO)
Copyright: 2014 Boulder Weekly
Contact:  http://www.boulderweekly.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/57
Author: Leland Rucker

THE MYTH OF SUPER POT

It's not your grandfather's pot," I keep hearing. Every time I attend
a forum or turn on the TV or the Internet, there's somebody saying
that today's marijuana is fearfully strong and therefore much more
dangerous than it used to be. "Studies reveal that marijuana potency
has almost tripled over the past 20 years," it says right on www.
WhiteHouse.gov, citing studies that suggest that today's marijuana has
much more THC, the cannabinoid that gives users the "high" they seek
and that prohibitionists seem to dread most. High Times magazine's
annual rundown of the world's most potent cannabis this year were all
certified and lab tested at more than 23 percent THC.

So is it more potent? Probably so. The cannabis people smoked back in
the 1970s that came from Mexico and Columbia was strong enough - why
would so many millions of people risk using it illegally if it wasn't
at least somewhat potent? But it's not hard to understand why
commercial strains today, grown under more favorable conditions and
hybridized specifically to create higher THC levels, would be
considered stronger.

The potency-is-dangerous meme really got rolling in the early 2000s.
After The New York Times published articles warning of alarming
increases in THC levels in 1980, 1986, and 1994, the government used
them as part of the scare tactics that have been a trademark of the
prohibitionist movement. This followed on the heels of the
governmentinduced paraquat scare in the late 1970s. Paraquat, a
well-known pesticide, was applied to Mexican cannabis fields,
sponsored, of course, by the U.S. govern ment. After applying it, the
government told citizens that the paraquat made the marijuana
dangerous and unsafe to smoke.

It was a lie, of course, intended to scare Americans using pot. A 1995
study found that "no lung or other injury in cannabis users has ever
been attributed to paraquat contamination," and an EPA manual says
much the same thing. "Toxic effects caused by this mechanism have been
either very rare or nonexistent." So much for the paraquat scare.

The potency issue gained even more traction in 2004, after a Reuters
story boldly proclaimed: "Pot is no longer the gentle weed of the
1960s and may pose a greater threat than cocaine or even heroin
because so many more people use it." It went on to say officials at
the National Institutes of Health and at the White House are hoping to
shift some of the focus in research and enforcement from "hard" drugs
such as cocaine and heroin to cannabis.

This news story, though it includes not one smidgen of evidence that
stronger strains are more danger-ous than lesser ones, is still cited
today to bolster arguments that higher THC levels are extremely danger-ous.

"I would predict that stronger pot makes the brain less likely to
respond to endogenous cannabinoids," Dr. Nora Volkow, then and now the
director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, said in an interview
for the Reuters piece that year.

"While the research so far is inconclusive," the story went on,
"Volkow believes that cannabinoids affect the developing brain and
that stronger pot, combined with earlier use, could make children and
teens anxious, unmotivated or perhaps even psychotic."

Let's see. The "proof " is based on Volkow's "belief " in how
cannabinoids affect the brain, and the story admits the research is
"inconclusive." That's the kind of "proof " I always look for when
planning a scare campaign.

So is cannabis more dangerous because it's higher in THC? That's the
trickiest part of the argument. If you believe, for instance, as does
Volkow, that all cannabis use is "abuse," and that the effects of THC
are all negative, then you would probably "predict," as she does, that
higher potency would create greater abuse.

Stronger strains of cannabis have always existed. Though much of the
cannabis I smoked in the 1970s was probably mostly of Mexican origin,
we could splurge (as in spend $40) for an ounce of "Columbian,"
"sinsemilla" or some exotic strain of "Michoacan" Mexican that was
obviously more "potent" than the basic $15-an-ounce weed. And there
was always hashish, which was generally more potent than leaf cannabis
back then. So the idea that "your grandfather's pot" was just a bunch
of hippies smoking hemp who didn't know the difference doesn't wash.

Warnings include claims that growing numbers of teens are in treatment
for cannabis abuse. Though there probably are more teens in therapy
for marijuana use, they generally have little or no choice in the
matter. Most were arrested and given the choice of jail or treatment.
This creates a situation where the government forces teens to go into
treatment and then boasts of those higher numbers as proof that
cannabis is strong and addictive.

Just another scare tactic from the same people who gave you paraquat
pot and Reefer Madness.
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MAP posted-by: Matt