As for real life experience, you really have no idea, lets just say I'm fully licensed and have been for a considerable time.

You can prove nearly everything with data, cherry pick and keep one eye half closed.

So you're saying my examples of the guy so stoned out of his mind on pot did not hit the little girl on the bike? That I have not seen people so F'ed up from pot that they could not rember what they had done and said 5 minutes prior. Way to live in the land of pot smoke delusions.



Same can be said for your postings and your one sorce given this whole time.

You refuse to acknowlage facts I've given and accuse me of cherry picking and then demand that I take the facts you give as being nothing but the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Whether marijuana is more potent today than it was 30 or 40 years ago is at the center of much debate. The U.S. federal government has released information saying that the levels of potency have risen anywhere from 10 to 25 times since the 1960s. Is this a myth or reality?

"There's no question that marijuana, today, is more potent than the marijuana in the 1960s. However, if you were to look at the average marijuana potency which is about 3.5 percent, it's been relatively stable for the last 20 years. Having said that, it's very important that what we have now is a wider range of potencies available than we had in the 1970s, in particular," Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse Alan Leshner said in 1999 while testifying in front of the U.S. House Subcommittee on Crime.

Those who support the legalization of marijuana say that the data is skewed because testing was only performed on marijuana of specific geographic origins in the 1960s and 1970s, and therefore isn't representative of marijuana potency overall. Officials obtained the samples from a type of Mexican marijuana that is known to contain low levels of THC -- 0.4 to 1 percent. When these levels are compared to other types of marijuana, it looks as if potency levels have risen in the last 30 years.

Typical THC levels, which determines marijuana potency, range from 0.3 to 4 percent. However, some specially grown plants can contain THC levels as high as 15 percent. Several factors are involved in determining the potency of a marijuana plant, including:
Growing climate and conditions
Plant genetics
Harvesting and processing

The time at which the plant is harvested affects the level of THC. Additionally, female varieties have higher levels of THC than male varieties. As a cannabis plant matures, its chemical composition changes. During early development, cannabidiolic acid is the most prevalent chemical. Later, cannabidiolic acid is converted to cannabidiol, which is later converted to THC when the plant reaches its floral maturation.

To determine the average potency levels of marijuana, researchers need to examine a cross section of cannabis plants, which wasn't done in the 1960s and 1970s. This makes it difficult to make accurate comparisons between the THC levels of that time period and the THC levels of today.

Claims that a large increase in the strength of cannabis over the last decade is driving the occurrence of mental health and other problems for users are not borne out by a study of the worldwide literature, say researchers at the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre (NDARC) and the National Drug Research Institute (NDRI), both from Australia. Their conclusions, published in this month's issue of ADDICTION, are that increased potency has been observed in some countries, but there is enormous variation between samples, meaning that cannabis users may be exposed to greater variation in the strength of the cannabis they use in a single year than over years or decades.

Cannabis samples tested in the United States, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Italy have shown increases in potency over the last decade, but no significant growth in other European countries or in New Zealand has been found during the same period.

THC is the active ingredient in cannabis, which produces the strongest psychoactive effect. In the United States, the level of THC in confiscated cannabis was 8.5% in 2006, up from 4.5% in 1997. Recent Dutch data show that the THC of cannabis sold in coffee shops more than doubled between 2000 and 2004, but has since levelled off.

THC content varies according to the part of the plant that is used, the method of storage, and cultivation techniques. Popular belief is that hydroponic or other methods of indoor cultivation produce higher concentrations of THC than occur naturally, but the jury is still out on this issue.

The ability to control the indoor environment means that plants can reach their full potential, which includes reaching the maximum level of THC. The increase in market share of indoor-grown cannabis seen in Australia as well as North America and Europe may have led to a more consistent product which could explain the potency increases reported in some countries.

While some public debate has linked large increases in cannabis potency to increased mental health problems, there are currently insufficient data to justify this claim, and care ought to be taken when considering policy decisions on this basis. Importantly, further research is required to understand whether cannabis users can, or do, alter their intake in response to a change in potency.

In their discussion of potential health risks, the authors point to studies that observe that some cannabis smokers, when faced with a 'strong' product, act rather like tobacco smokers and adjust their dose by increasing the interval between puffs, or holding smoke in their lungs for a shorter period of time. This behaviour may reduce possible harms caused by increased potency.

The authors also discuss the health risks of contaminants. Possible contaminants include naturally occurring ones such as fungi; growth enhancers and pesticides; and substances added for marketing purposes to 'bulk up' the weight. Lack of systematic monitoring for contaminants makes an assessment of risk difficult; it is important to learn more about the health risks of cannabis of ingesting contaminated cannabis – for example, moulds are known to cause respiratory problems and lung disease.

The authors say "Given the relatively high prevalence of cannabis use it is important we have current, accurate information to help users make informed decisions about their use, and that policy development and media debate about the health harms associated with its use are guided by research evidence rather than rumour."

The potency of cannabis gathered in police seizures has dropped, new official data reveals, casting doubt on one of the government's key arguments for reclassifying the drug from class C to class B.

Figures collected by the Forensic Science Service and seen by guardian.co.uk show that the potency of herbal cannabis, which includes the strong "skunk" strain, has dropped from 12.7% to 9.5% since 2004, when it was first moved from class B to the less serious class C.

This means that samples collected by the police are now weaker than when David Blunkett, the then-home secretary, downgraded the drug in 2004.

According to the figures the level of THC - the main psychoactive ingredient - in herbal cannabis was 12.7% in 2004, 13.5% in 2005 and 11.3% in 2006, before dropping to 9.5% in 2007, the year covered by the latest figures. Cannabis resin, a milder form, has decreased in strength from 3.4% to 2.6% between 2004 and 2007.

The FSS said the figures were not representative and were from too small a sample.

But David Porteous, a criminology lecturer from Middlesex University, said: "This information suggests that, in the time that it has been a class C drug, usage levels of cannabis have fallen and so has its strength. These findings make a mockery of the decision to re-reclassify cannabis and of the government's wider claim to base policy-making decisions on scientific research.

"Furthermore they call into question the validity of other controversial and publicly criticised government claims regarding drug policy, for example the link between cannabis and mental illness or the legitimacy of our current classification system."

Announcing the regrading of the drug in May, home secretary Jacqui Smith told the Commons that the potency of marijuana had "increased nearly threefold since 1995".

A spokesman for the Home Office said that the home secretary's assertion was based on a report from May this year entitled Home Office Cannabis Potency Study 2008. This report gave the median potency of sinsemilla (stronger strains such as skunk) as 15%, that of other herbal cannabis as 9%, and that of resin as 5%. No statistics for 1995 were given.

Another Home Office report, from April this year, also using FSS figures, casts further doubt on Smith's assertion. It says the strength of sinsemilla, intensively grown cannabis, rose from 5.8% in 1995 to 10.4% in 2007, less than a twofold increase. The strength of other forms of herbal cannabis was 3.9% in 1995 and 2.6% in 2007, a drop.

The FSS is a government organisation that supplies forensic science services to ministerial departments, government agencies and police forces. It released the new figures seen by guardian.co.uk earlier this month.

A spokeswoman for the FSS said that the figures seen by guardian.co.uk were "unlikely to be an accurate representation of THC in cannabis across the board as not all samples submitted to the FSS are routinely analysed for THC content. The FSS database also does not distinguish between sinsemilla cannabis and imported herbal cannabis."

She said the FSS had been involved in the May 2008 report used by Smith to make her decision. "The FSS participated in an in-depth study of THC content for the Home Office in partnership with other forensic agencies, and this is likely to be more representative of actual cannabis strength."

The Home Office spokesman said that skunk now made up "a staggering 81% of seized cannabis". This was up from 15% in 2002 and just over 50% in 2004-05.

In May, Smith told parliament the strength of cannabis had increased threefold and there was a "causal link, albeit a weak one, between cannabis use and psychotic illness".

Explaining why she was going to reclassify the drug as class B from next year, she said: "My decision takes into account issues such as public perception and the needs and consequences for policing priorities. There is a compelling case for us to act now rather than risk the future health of young people."

Smith's ruling went against the recommendations of the government's scientific experts, the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, which was asked by Smith to take its third look at cannabis classification in recent years. The council's advice was that cannabis should remain class C.

When cannabis was downgraded, the proportion of young people using it fell from 25.3% in 2003-04 to 20.9% now. Among those aged 16 to 59, the proportion over the same period fell from 10.8% to 8.2%, according to the British Crime Survey.

The more I see of the world the more it strikes me that people want more science, rather than less, and that they want to use it in odd ways: to abrogate responsibility, validate a hunch, or render a political or cultural prejudice in deceptively objective terms. As long as you cherry pick the data and keep one eye half closed, you can prove anything with science.

Last week's Independent on Sunday splashed with the headline: Cannabis - An Apology. It went on: "In 1997 this newspaper launched a campaign to decriminalise the drug. If only we had known then what we can reveal today ... record numbers of teenagers are requiring drug treatment as a result of smoking skunk, the highly potent cannabis strain that is 25 times stronger than resin sold a decade ago."

Twice in this story cannabis is said to be 25 times stronger than it was a decade ago. For Rosie Boycott, in her melodramatic recantation, skunk is "30 times stronger". In one inside feature the strength issue is briefly downgraded to a "can". It's even referenced. "The Forensic Science Service says that in the early nineties cannabis would contain around 1% tetrahydrocannabidinol (THC), the mind-altering compound, but can now have up to 25%."

Well I've got the Forensic Science Service data right here, and the earlier data from the Laboratory of the Government Chemist, the UN Drug Control Programme, and the EU's Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction. I think that people are well able to make their own minds up when given true facts.

The LGC data on mean potency goes from 1975 to 1989. Resin pootles around between 6% and 10% THC, herbal between 4% and 6%, with no clear trend. The Forensic Science Service data takes over to produce more modern figures, showing not much change in resin, and domestically produced indoor herbal cannabis doubling in strength to between 12% and 14%.

The rising trend of cannabis potency is gradual, and driven largely by the increased availability of intensively UK grown indoor herbal cannabis. You could argue that intensive indoor cultivation of a plant that is easy to cultivate outdoors is the cannabis industry's reaction to illegality. It is dangerous to import in large amounts, dangerous to be caught growing a field of it. So perhaps it makes more sense to grow it intensively indoors, producing a more concentrated product. There is little incentive to produce a perversely strong skunk product for the mass market, since most people tend not to pay any more for unusually strong skunk.

There is exceptionally strong cannabis to be found in some parts of the UK market today: but there always has been. The UN Drug Control Programme has detailed vintage data for the UK online. In 1975 the LGC analysed 50 seized samples of herbal cannabis: 10 were from Thailand, with an average potency of 7.8%, the highest 17%. In 1975 they analysed 11 samples of seized resin, six from Morocco, average strength 9%, with a range from 4% to 16%.

To get their scare figure, the Independent compared the worst cannabis from the past with the best cannabis of today. But you could have cooked the books the same way 30 years ago: in 1975 the weakest herbal cannabis analysed was 0.2%; in 1978 the strongest was 12%. Oh my god: in just three years herbal cannabis has become 60 times stronger. This scare isn't new. In the US, in the mid 1980s, during Reagan's "war on drugs", it was claimed that cannabis was 14 times stronger than in 1970.

ALLEGATION #10
“Average THC levels rose from less than 1% in the late 1970s to more than 7% in 2001, and sinsemilla potency increased from 6% to 13%, and now reach as high as 33%”

TRUTH
This statement is both inaccurate and misleading. No population en masse has ever smoked marijuana averaging less than one percent THC since such low potency marijuana would not induce euphoria. In many nations, including Canada and the European Union, marijuana of one percent THC or less is legally classified as an agricultural fiber crop, hemp.76

Although annual marijuana potency data compiled by the University of Mississippi’s Research Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences does show a slight increase in marijuana’s strength through the years,77 this increase is not nearly as dramatic as purported by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. In addition, quantities of exceptionally strong strains of marijuana or sinsemilla (seedless marijuana) comprise only a small percentage of the overall marijuana market. The NIDA-sponsored Marijuana Potency Monitoring Project reports that less than 10 percent of DEA seized marijuana samples are above 15 percent. Less than 2 percent of marijuana seized from the domestic market contains more than 20% THC.78 Data from Europe also refutes claims of increased cannabis potency, concluding "the potencies of resin and herbal cannabis ... have shown little or no change, at least over the past ten years."79 The drug czar’s upper-level THC figures are clearly a scare tactic.

Moreover, it’s worth noting that more potent marijuana is not necessarily more dangerous.80 Marijuana poses no risk of fatal overdose, regardless of THC content, and since marijuana’s greatest potential health hazard stems from the user’s intake of carcinogenic smoke, it may be argued that higher potency marijuana may be slightly less harmful because it permits people to achieve desired psychoactive effects while inhaling less burning material.81 In addition, studies indicate that marijuana smokers distinguish between high and low potency marijuana and moderate their use accordingly,82 just as an alcohol consumer would drink fewer ounces of (high potency) bourbon than they would ounces of (low potency) beer.

Teenagers who start smoking marijuana before the age of sixteen are four times more likely to become schizophrenic. That's the startling conclusion of some of the world's top schizophrenia experts, whose research is featured in the new documentary The Downside of High.

The scientists' groundbreaking work on the connection between marijuana and mental illness also reveals that, for all young adults, smoking marijuana nearly doubles the risk of developing recurring psychosis, paranoia and hallucinations - the hallmarks of schizophrenia.

Ben was first introduced to marijuana while at a high school in BC. His increasingly psychotic behaviour led to a year-long hospitalization. The Downside of High, directed and written by Bruce Mohun, tells the stories of three young people from British Columbia who believe - along with their doctors - that their mental illness was triggered by marijuana use. All three spent months in hospital psychiatric wards, and still wage a battle with their illness. Today's super-potent pot may be a big part of the problem. Modern growing techniques have dramatically increased the amount of THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana - ramping up the threat to the developing teenage brain.

But there's an intriguing twist to the story: in the process of cultivating more potent strains of pot, growers have also been breeding out a little-known ingredient called cannabidiol that seems to buffer the effects of THC. So today's high-octane pot actually contains a double-whammy - more psychosis-producing THC, and less of the protective CBD or cannabidiol.

Tyler was 14 years old when he first started experiencing psychotic episodes. For many people, smoking marijuana is not a big deal - it is, after all, the most widely-used illegal drug in the world. The Downside of High provides a scientific perspective on some of the little-known and little discussed risks of marijuana, particularly for teenagers.

The Downside of High is directed and written by Bruce Mohun, story-produced by Maureen Palmer, and produced by Sue Ridout for Dreamfilm Productions of Vancouver.

Next week he'll share a story about the gay sex he had in college.

anything to buy votes.

The Internet is buzzing about a new breed of marijuana that apparently causes no buzz of its own. Israeli researchers have bred cannabis plants that look, smell and taste like ordinary marijuana — but lack THC, the active ingredient responsible for the spacy, giddy and sometimes hallucinatory part of pot’s high.

What’s the point of weed that doesn’t get you high, you ask? The new product could potentially fight conditions ranging from schizophrenia to Alzheimer’s disease.

The new marijuana isn’t just low-THC ditch weed or hemp by a different name. Tzahi Klein of the Israeli company Tikkun Olam and his colleagues have created a strain of pot that lacks THC but is abundant in cannabidiol (CBD), typically the second most common active compound in cannabis.

“It has the same scent, shape and taste as the original plant — it’s all the same — but the numbing sensation that users are accustomed to has disappeared,” Klein told the Israeli paper Maariv. He said that many patients in his studies felt “tricked” because they thought they’d been given a placebo when they smoked it.

But while CBD doesn’t lead to the “munchies,” hallucinations or other effects commonly felt by marijuana users, it’s far from inert. As I reported last week, a preliminary trial of CBD for the treatment of people with schizophrenia found that it was as effective as a standard antipsychotic drug — with none of the movement disorders, mood issues or weight gain linked to that class of medications.

CBD also seems to protect brain cells from damage, so much so that it is currently being studied as a way to stop the progression of the movement disorder Huntington’s disease, which is caused by degeneration of nerve cells in certain parts of the brain. CBD’s neuroprotective property has also been shown to fight Alzheimer’s disease progression in animal models — though human research has yet to be done — and to reduce seizures.

Further, the compound has anxiety-reducing effects, which may be responsible for making some types of marijuana seem mellower than others. Shorn of THC, marijuana containing CBD might be useful as an anti-anxiety medication or antidepressant. And because it doesn’t produce a noticeable high or impairment, it wouldn’t carry the risks associated with current anti-anxiety drugs like Xanax.

All of this means that the new plant could have huge potential — if its development isn’t stymied by the fact that its ingredients can’t be patented (that means less profit for drug companies) or by the politics of the drug war. Two big ifs.

Here’s hoping that this type of medical marijuana is made available to researchers for further study and then to countries and states where it is legal for compassionate access. Patenting and political roadblocks mean it may be a long time before a synthetic version of CBD hits the market, but many questions about its safety and efficacy could be answered far more quickly.

Until now, it hasn’t been possible to get CBD from smoking marijuana without the simultaneous and possibly counterproductive exposure to THC. The new plant could change that — and perhaps shift the medical marijuana debate as well. While THC will remain essential for some medical marijuana patients — to increase appetite, for example — the non-impairing version of marijuana with CBD could help many others, without inducing the pleasure-producing properties that cause so much unending controversy.