Pubdate: Fri, 25 Mar 2016
Source: Globe and Mail (Canada)
Copyright: 2016 The Globe and Mail Company
Contact:  http://www.theglobeandmail.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/168
Page: A12

Marijuana

CONTROLLING THE HIGH

Today's marijuana might surprise the counterculture types who smoked
an occasional spliff in their misspent youth. The main psychoactive
chemical - delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC - is often present in
exponentially stronger concentrations than even a decade ago. It's a
result of modern horticultural techniques and careful breeding. What
will be the consequences when the federal government legalizes pot?

Weed advocates like to say that marijuana has no known fatal dose -
unlike booze or hard drugs. But there is good evidence that a habit of
elevated THC can have serious, lasting effects on teenaged brains.

Canadian governments limit the amount of alcohol by volume in beer,
wine and spirits. Will they cap THC levels, too? Should they? That
would risk yielding a profitable niche to the black market. Leaving it
up to growers could have unintended consequences.

The point of legalization shouldn't be to cripple the marijuana
business with regulation upon regulation. But the federal government
will presumably have to enact measurement and labelling standards for
recreational pot.

Licensed medical cannabis producers are already obliged to show THC
concentration, but the testing and measurement are mostly left to
industry. ( Health Canada has issued a "guidance document" for quality
assurance rather than hard rules.) It would follow that similar
measures should be applied to recreational pot, but that implies
costs, and recent experience in the U. S. shows a label can be inaccurate.

Then there's the potency of derivatives like "edibles." In Canada,
food products containing marijuana are illegal for recreational use.
Presumably, that will change - bringing its fair share of headaches.
Two years ago, Colorado set a limit on THC content in edibles, which
are immensely popular everywhere pot is legal. It was soon discovered
that uniform concentrations are tricky to achieve - which can lead to
unintentional over ingestion. The maximum dosage per unit was swiftly
lowered. The state also rushed stiffer childproof packaging
requirements into law last fall amid reports of small kids
accidentally eating marijuana-laced snacks.

There is much work ahead for Ottawa.
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MAP posted-by: Matt