Marijuana of today is 5x stronger than it used to be. Is that a problem? Does anybody even care?
An older friend of mine has many stories about partying in the 1980’s. One story involved him and his buddies making a giant bong out of a 50-gallon trash can, water from a garden hose, using a soup can as a bowl, which they lit with a blow torch. I’ll bet a good rip off that puppy got those kids higher than they’ve ever been in their lives. This was in the 80’s, where the average greenery seized by law enforcement (the only available source of this statistic) ran a THC content of 4%. Today, you can get vape pens containing 90%+ THC, and get Brute-bong high every day before breakfast.
A quick browse through the Treasure Valley Cannabis Company (Ontario, OR) website shows that marijuana is stronger than it was back then across the board. Sort THC low-to-high and you’ll see Crossbow bud at the very bottom, still 4x stronger than the average in 1990. Sort high-to-low and you’ll find Spritzer, at 35.48%. That’s just flower.
A blog post by Patrick Lynch on wayofleaf.com is critical of the idea that pot is so much stronger these days. They suggest that data may be skewed by a lack of testing, and a lack of good stuff in the sample pool. Back when marijuana was completely illegal, and supply was way below demand, you were more likely to get a bad batch of stems and seeds which don’t contain as much of the psychoactive compound. Plus, the Potency Monitoring Program was only analyzing 18 seizures per year in the 1970s, compared to over 1000 tests per year today. “It is far more likely that the apparent change in THC levels is purely down to an increase in quality and availability,” the blog reports.
That’s not to deny the idea that plenty of growers are breeding new strains to make pot as strong as possible. Stoners love testing their limits. It makes a lot of sense from a consumer standpoint because higher THC means more buzz for your buck. That’s great for regular smokers; not great for return smokers who have been clean for 20 years and want to burn down a whole joint for old-times’-sake. When you don’t have a tolerance built up, a chill afternoon with Bob Marley can go sideways real quick.
While there is no lethal dose of THC, you can definitely overdo it and run into health problems. Getting too zooted too fast frequently results in anxiety, paranoia, maybe even a full-blown panic attack. Edibles especially have tremendous day-ruining potential. There are a portion of the population that are genetically susceptible to a condition called ‘cannabinoid hyperemetic syndrome,’ or CHS. CHS involves sever stomach pain and puking. Throw some panic in there and you’ve got scromiting, a colloquial portmanteau of screaming and vomiting. Some severe cases of the scromits involve electrolyte imbalance which can land you in a hospital. CHS was first medically described in Australia in 2004, and “cyclic vomiting” ER visits DOUBLED in Colorado in 2014 after marijuana was legalized.
Imagine being old and deciding to rip one like the good ol’ days, just to find yourself panicking and driving the porcelain bus all afternoon. That’s not very dank. In response to the onslaught of weapons-grade marijuana on the market today, a demand for weak weed arose. One company filling that gap is called Dad Grass, marketing a casual smoke like they use to have. Dad Grass is rolled without THC, relying on the other compound in hemp (CBD) to produce a much mellower effect without getting you toasted. I read a fun article by Ian Lecklitner for Mel Magazine, titled I Spent 12 Hours Trying to Get High On ‘Dad Grass,’ in which he replaces his daily smoke routine with the weak stuff. He concludes: “Dad Grass does a good job of achieving what they set out to do. It makes you feel a little lighter, but it would probably be impossible to get properly stoned by only smoking Dad Grass.”
When people are left to their own devices without some stupid law in the way, they tend to cause problems. They also tend to immediately solve those problems. In this case, weed got too strong. So somebody solved that problem by making weaker stuff. Everybody wins. ■
Plausible deniabilty from the Editor: Marijuana consumption is not without risk. Side effects may include ennui, anxiety, and time served at the Idaho State Correctional Institution. Ask a doctor in Oregon is cannabis is right for you.
Sources
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5330965/
https://wayofleaf.com/blog/average-thc-content-over-the-years
Spud media 