Marijuana’s potency increasing rapidly, along with its demand

More typical Reefer Madness in this article from Alabama, repeating the story of the Potency Monitoring Project’s findings that seized marijuana potency has risen to 9.6%.  But there were a few tasty morsels of cannabis control craziness that I thought deserved special attention:

Marijuana’s potency increasing rapidly, along with its demand | TimesDaily.com | Times Daily | Florence, AL
DEA spokesman Garrison Courtney agrees that the demand to get high and the desire to make larger profits are driving potency levels.

“You’re not dealing with people who are just trying to get people high,” he said. “You can charge more when you have a higher THC count.”

This just in from the Department of No Duh! – people will pay more for good weed.  However, it is the prohibition that causes the most potent weed to be the most desirable.

During alcohol prohibition, consumption of beer and wine dropped and consumption of more-potent liquor increased.  When a product is outlawed, the risk of being caught requires the sellers of the product to produce it in smaller quantities to maximize profits.  Why would you smuggle a trunk full of 3.2 beer when you can make ten or twenty times the profit with the same trunk full of 150-proof rum?

The same principle works with marijuana – why smuggle garbage bags full of less potent and less profitable pot?  It also works in reverse – when the product is legal, taxed and regulated, consumers have more choices and can buy in volume.  In the Netherlands, where cannabis is sold openly in coffeeshops, customers tend to prefer the low-to-midgrade potency marijuana compared to the high-potency strains.  When it’s legal, you can buy the potency that matches your preference, rather than the dealer’s.

While marijuana has a small, natural amount of the psychoactive drug, Courtney said producers chemically adulterate the leaves with THC.

Huh?  What is this, Tinkerbong, the magical cannabis fairy, coming over to sprinkle THC dust on the leaves?  Chemically adulterate?  Leaves?  Don’t you love it when people who have no clue about cannabis botany write scary articles about it?

Robert Thornhill is a primary counselor at Bradford Health Services in Montgomery and a recovering narcotics addict. He said while the potency is increasing, so are the health risks.

“It significantly reduces short-term memory,” he said. “It produces a delusional belief system.”

When Thornhill was addicted to marijuana, he said he experienced the psycho-altering effects of the drug and knew it was time for a change.

“Most marijuana addicts believe they work better or think better,” he said. “It’s kind of the nature of addiction.”

Most drug rehab counselors believe they get more work based on convincing people there is a serious marijuana “addiction” problem.  It’s kind of the nature of employment self-preservation.

By the way, the short term memory thing?  Only when you’re high, Robert.  Afterwards, there is no detrimental effect to long-term or short-term memory for even frequent and heavy cannabis smokers.

Other than mental effects, marijuana increases the heart rate and puts the heart at risk of diseases and can cause emphysema, chronic bronchitis and lung, mouth and throat cancer, in addition the drug impairs motor skills.

Other than marijuana increasing the heart rate (about as much as running up a flight of stairs) and impairing motor skills (again, only while you’re high), the rest of this sentence is unmitigated male bovine excrement.  Marijuana might actually help fight some heart diseases, doesn’t lead to emphysema or bronchitis or lung, mouth, or throat cancers and again might actually help fight cancer.