cannabisnews.com: The Myth of Potent Pot The Myth of Potent Pot Posted by CN Staff on November 19, 2002 at 08:08:45 PT By Daniel Forbes Source: Slate Magazine Marijuana lost big on Election Day. Nevada's pot legalization proposal took only 39 percent of the vote. An Arizona decriminalization initiative did little better with 43 percent. And a mere 33 percent of Ohioans voted for a measure to treat instead of incarcerate minor drug offenders.One reason for the ballot-box failure may have been the full-throttle, anti-marijuana campaign tour by White House Drug Czar John P. Walters. Walters, whose official title is director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, inveighed against the demon weed in campaign swings through Ohio, Arizona, and Nevada (twice). At the heart of Walters' sermon: "It is not your father's marijuana." Today's users, he claims, confront pot that's up to 30 times stronger than what aging baby boomers smoked. In an early September op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle, Walters wrote: "In 1974, the average THC content of marijuana was less than 1 percent. But by 1999, potency averaged 7 percent." This is plain wrong. According to the federal government's own Potency Monitoring Project at the University of Mississippi, 1999's average was 4.56 percent. Referring to Walters' 7 percent figure, Dr. Mahmoud A. ElSohly, who runs the project, says, "That's not correct for an overall average." (THC is tetra-hydrocannabinol, the active ingredient in pot.)Walters also wrote that the THC level in "today's sinsemilla … averages 14 percent and ranges as high as 30 percent." (Sinsemilla is the highest-quality pot.) He concluded, "The point is that the potency of available marijuana has not merely 'doubled,' but increased as much as 30 times." A couple of weeks later in the Detroit News, Walters gave even more alarming numbers about regular pot, claiming that "today's marijuana is 10 to 14 percent THC. And hybrids go up to 30 percent and above."Walters' figures are grossly distorted. For starters, his figures for "today's sinsemilla" actually come from 1999. He ignores data from 2000 and 2001. That's presumably because sinsemilla potency spiked in 1999 at 13.38 percent (which, incidentally, rounds off to 13 percent, not 14 percent). But the most recent full-year figure available, 2001, shows a potency of 9.55 percent. Yes, sinsemilla's THC count has been increasing, but its average over the past decade is only 9.79 percent. More important, the potency of sinsemilla has little to do with quotidian reality for most pot-smokers. Sinsemilla comprises only 4.3 percent of the University of Mississippi's sample over the years. It's prohibitively expensive for casual (and young) users: On the East Coast, the very best stuff is $700 an ounce. The pot that most people, especially most kids, smoke is nowhere near as powerful as sinsemilla: The THC content of all pot last year was 5.32 percent; during the past decade, it averaged 4.1 percent. In other words, the marijuana that most kids smoke is about 5 percent THC—not 14 percent and certainly not 30 percent. As to Walters' claim that all those '70s hippies were getting goofy on the 1-percent stuff—the basis for his 30-fold increase claim—the number lacks credibility. No one smokes 1-percent dope, at least not more than once. You make rope with it. The industrial hemp initiative approved by state election officials in South Dakota this year defined psychoactively worthless hemp as a plant with a "THC content of 1 percent or less."Avowed marijuana enthusiast Keith Stroup, head of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, says: "One percent is not smokeable. That's really industrial hemp or ditchweed left over from World War II. All you'll get from that is a headache." In fact, in its formal reports, the Potency Monitoring Project even refers to 1-percent marijuana as "ditchweed." And in Understanding Marijuana, Mitch Earleywine, a University of Southern California psychology professor, writes, "Cannabis with this little THC has no impact on subjective experience." Pot is better, just not the 30 times better that Walters cites to scare today's voters. Walters is disingenuously comparing the best pot of today with the worst of yesterday, rather than comparing average marijuana of a generation ago with average marijuana now. He's ginning up the figures he wants by contrasting stuff you might line your cat's litter box with to the alleged 30-percent pot—the likes of which a lucky (or rich) smoker might encounter once every several years.Nor are Walters' fudged figures consistent from day to day or even consistent with what his own office says. Now he's talking a 30-fold increase, but just last May, Walters wrote in a Washington Post op-ed that pot is "10 to 20 times stronger" than it was a generation ago. (He made his more modest claim before news broke of the legalization push in Nevada and before he started his heavy campaigning.)ONDCP contradicted the boss's 30-fold nonsense in its own anti-drug media campaign, which features an essay titled, "Kids and Marijuana: The Facts." It states that THC levels "rose from under 2 percent in the late 1970s and early 1980s to just over 6 percent in 2000." (It was actually never under 2 percent in the '80s and was 4.88 percent, not 6 percent, in 2000, but hey—close enough for government work.)Those minor exaggerations aside, such were "The Facts" when I checked the ONDCP site this fall. But as the campaign season heated up, and Walters' potency claims jumped from 7 percent to October's superpot of 10 percent and 14 percent, these "facts" faded away. The ONDCP essay now states simply: "Today's marijuana is more potent and its effects can be more intense."The original ONDCP "Facts" correspond with estimates from UCLA professor Mark Kleiman that marijuana has roughly tripled in potency. Kleiman also notes that there is no evidence at all that marijuana is getting kids more stoned than it used to. Writing on his own blog, Kleiman cites the respected annual University of Michigan study that asks respondents about levels of intoxication. Writes Kleiman: "The line for marijuana is flat as a pancake. Kids who get stoned today aren't getting any more stoned than their parents were. That ought to be the end of the argument." Kleiman points out that the average joint is now half its former size, so even if kids are smoking more powerful pot, they are smoking less of it. " 'Not your father's pot' is a great way to convince [boomer parents] to ignore their own experience, personal or vicarious, and believe what they are told to believe."Of course, the Walters scare campaign is nothing new. Back in 1994, City University of New York professor and marijuana advocate John Morgan cited three New York Times articles warning of alarming increases in marijuana's potency. They were published in 1980, 1986, and 1994.Note: The drug czar's latest reefer madness: He claims that marijuana is 30 times more powerful than it used to be.Source: Slate (US Web)Author: Daniel ForbesPublished: Tuesday, November 19, 2002Copyright: 2002 Microsoft CorporationContact: ddanforbes aol.com Website: http://www.slate.msn.com/Related Articles & Web Site:NORMLhttp://www.norml.org/Potent Pot Puts Spin on Decriminalization Debatehttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread14771.shtmlBush's Reefer Madnesshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread14668.shtmlFighting Cheech & Chong Medicinehttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread6533.shtml Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help Comment #8 posted by Truth on November 19, 2002 at 13:28:11 PT: My father's marijuana My father's marijuana was scotch. He died, God bless his soul. I somehow feel he would still be with us if he smoked cannabis instead. [ Post Comment ] Comment #7 posted by konagold on November 19, 2002 at 12:36:37 PT: Potent Hashish I wrote the author the following e-mailAloha Daniel I wanted to point out a couple of salient points that you left out of your excellent article1. high THC content hash has been available for millennium yet none of the drug czars claims of new harm are substantiated if hash is considered2. dose titration cannabis users self limit their high the more THC the less raw material consumed a two fer advantage as not only does it take less Cannabis it also results in a lower volume of the by products of combustion thus less harm to the lungs Aloha Rev. Dennis Shields http://www.TheReligionofJesusChurch.org http://www.TheReligionofJesusChurch.org [ Post Comment ] Comment #6 posted by The GCW on November 19, 2002 at 11:59:31 PT Wasn't it: this is not Your Fathers Buick? And didn't Buick go out of business?"It is not your father's marijuana." (sometimes it is) [ Post Comment ] Comment #5 posted by DdC on November 19, 2002 at 11:47:14 PT Reality, what a concept. Brain dead Waldo Thugczar scares the parents with fascist fibs that the pot they got stoned with is much less stony than their kids. Oh this braindead idiot, gets your taxes to spout his lies, cages and rapes as deterrents to the heathern sinsimillia. Waldo Thugczar political science raising cop budgets and kids dying from booze not included in D.E.A.th expenses. Waldo Thugczar, fascist pig, go back to Nazi Germany. Stop pretending to be American, you are D.E.A.th and pseudofreedom. You are ugly, cruel and mean. You profit tasting piss and breeding snitches to cage patients. Keeping profits in the Korpses, writing off taxes for the same fascist Enron, Arther Anderson, Worldcom or D.E.A.th. War for oil instead of homegrown biomass. Pharmaids creating side effects to treat with Waldo chemicals. Poisoned fields of grain to send the meat over to Japan, leaving the dung to rise nitrate levels. Then treat the illness with more chemicals. Your scam is up, the word is out. Flush the D.E.A.th down the toilet. Cage the Bushit profiteers and free the plant to save the planet. Solidarity among the victims. Time for Waldos rule to end...Peace, Love and Liberty or Waldo D.E.A.th and the Fascist!DdCTHE POLICE STATE COMETH by Rep.Ron Paul http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec97/cr062597b.htm"No class or group or party in Germany could escape its share of responsibility for the abandonment of the democratic Republic and the advent of Adolf Hitler. The cardinal error of the Germans who opposed Nazism was their failure to unite against it. ....the 63% of the German people who expressed their opposition to Hitler were much too divided and shortsighted to combine against a common danger which they must have known would overwhelm them unless they united, HOWEVER TEMPORARY, to stamp it out." -William L. Shirer, Waldo World of D.E.A.th [ Post Comment ] Comment #4 posted by Billos on November 19, 2002 at 10:46:47 PT: Walters Walters is out of his mind. Sinsemilla is, simply put, pot with no seeds. I don't believe strength is as much an issue, although most "sens" happens to be well grown pot, hence the reputation. Also, if Walters thinks pot is now more potent than in the past, let's ask him where the hell he was back in 1975 when the northeast was blanketed with Mexican Gold and Panama Red. Maybe he was too stoned to remember?!? [ Post Comment ] Comment #3 posted by John Tyler on November 19, 2002 at 09:24:28 PT fudged figures, HA! "Walters' fudged figures...", what a nice way of calling his statements LIES. These guys have no clue as to what they are talking about, so saying one thing one time, and another thing another time, is all the same to them. They don't care. They think cannabis is bad. They don't know or care why, but it is, trust them, and that people shold go to jail for using it. Their minds are made up, and they are not going to be changed by the facts. [ Post Comment ] Comment #2 posted by Ethan Russo MD on November 19, 2002 at 08:42:23 PT: Applause Kudos to Dan for publishing the truth. Too bad that Time magazine will not cover this issue. Walters' contentions are about as sensible as saying that beer is okay because it is 3-5% alcohol, while sherry is not because it is 18%. In many indigenous cultures, the words for medicine and poison are synonymous. It is all a matter of dosage.Once again, recreational and medical users stop when they have had enough, irrespective of potency. [ Post Comment ] Comment #1 posted by goneposthole on November 19, 2002 at 08:40:08 PT el toro poopoo has increased 30 times. Maybe even 300 times; nevertheless, John Walters is stepping in it and slipping on it.The methane gas emitted could be marketed at a handsome profit. [ Post Comment ] Post Comment