cannabisnews.com: State's Pot Among Most Potent in Nation





State's Pot Among Most Potent in Nation
Posted by FoM on October 15, 2000 at 07:30:20 PT
By S.J. Komarnitsky, Daily News Mat-Su Bureau
Source: Anchorage Daily News
Alaska is home to some of the most potent pot in the country. In 1992, a crop from Copper Center registered a whopping 29.8 percent THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol, the ingredient that makes users feel high. The figure was nearly seven times the national average and stood as a record until an Oregon grower topped it at 33 percent. Since then, drug enforcement officials have often cited the Copper Center measurement as evidence that modern pot is far more dangerous than the pot of yesteryear. 
"The critical thing to remember is that the marijuana of today is not the marijuana of the 1970s," said Lt. Col. Bob Kean, who heads the National Guard Counterdrug Support Program, reciting what is a litany among law enforcement in Alaska and elsewhere. But high-potency pot is the exception rather than the rule, according to government statistics at the University of Mississippi's Marijuana Project. The federally funded program is sent samples of pot from busts around the country and has tested more than 38,000 samples in the past two decades. According to the university lab, average potency has risen only slightly in 15 years, from about 3.5 percent to about 4.5 percent THC. Most tests at 5 percent or less. In Mat-Su, the average potency from marijuana seized last year was 9 percent, according to members of the Mat-Su drug team. Those figures are conservative, though, said trooper Steve Adams, one of five officers in the unit. In many cases, the plants sent to be tested had not fully matured and had not yet reached full potency, he said. Still, Alaska drug officials said they know of no evidence that stronger pot is more dangerous. Legalization proponents argue that more potent pot is better because people smoke less of it to obtain the desired result. That's not to say marijuana doesn't have harmful health effects. According to a 1999 study done for the federal government by the Institute of Medicine, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, smoking marijuana may cause lung damage, is linked to changes in behavior, and in some cases users can become reliant. But the same report also found that marijuana is not as addictive as heroin, cocaine or nicotine. And unlike with other drugs, no one has ever overdosed on marijuana. The report also dispelled the notion that marijuana leads to the use of harder drugs. "In the sense that marijuana use typically precedes rather than follows initiation into the use of other illicit drugs, it is indeed a gateway drug," the report states. "However, it does not appear to be a gateway drug to the extent that it is the cause or even that it is the most significant predictor of serious drug abuse. That is, care must be taken not to attribute cause to association. " Reporter S.J. Komarnitsky can be reached at: skomarnitsky adn.comSource: Anchorage Daily News (AK)Published: October 15, 2000Author: S.J. KomarnitskyCopyright: 2000 The Anchorage Daily News Contact: letters adn.com Website: http://www.adn.com/ Related Articles & Web Sites:Free Hemp in AlaskaAl Anders, Chair2603 Spenard RoadAnchorage, Alaska 99503 (907) 278-HEMP E-mail: freehempinak gci.netVisit their web site: http://www.freehempinak.orgHemp 2000R.L. Marcy, ChairP.O. Box 90055Anchorage, AK 99509907-376-2232 (p)Fax: 907-376-0530 (f)E-mail: marcy hemp2000.orgVisit their web site: http://www.hemp2000.org Alaska's Top Crophttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread7344.shtmlImaginative Growers Strive To Be Stealthy http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread7343.shtmlHemp Initiative is Foolish and Dangerous http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread7317.shtmlHigh Hopes in Alaska for Sweeping Pot Law http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread7173.shtmlAlaska Hemp Initiative 2000http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread6045.shtml
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