This 2011 Reefer Madness propaganda is Anslinger Approved!

It’s end-of-year retrospective time!  While my colleagues on the NORML Blog (go check out the new look that matches the new site) are going to bring you the biggest marijuana news stories of 2011, here at The Daily Stash Blog we’re going to bring you stories that may have fallen through the cracks of other drug policy 2011 remembrances.

Today we bring you the Top Ten “Reefer Madness” Stories of 2011.  ”Reefer Madness”, of course, is the 1936 anti-pot propaganda film showing young people becoming crazed and violent on the effects of “reefer”.  Today, we use “Reefer Madness” as shorthand to describe the hysterical warnings by the anti-drug zealots as reported unchallenged by a complacent media.

Tomorrow we’ll look at the Top Ten Cannabis Science Stories of 2011.  Thursday we’ll cover the Top Ten “Stupid Stoner Stories” of 2011.  Friday we’ll cover the Top Ten People in Marijuana of 2011.

Top Ten “Reefer Madness” Stories of 2011 (audio mp3)

10. Oregonian editorial board hypes fears of medical marijuana and teen pot smoking

(The Oregonian – “Seeing through the smoke” editorial) It’s about time someone took action on the increasing number of medical marijuana dispensaries. … Right now, anyone, including teenagers, can apply [for a medical marijuana card]. A study done by Oregon Partnership found, for example, that 35 percent of students at Wilson High School and 46 percent at Marshall High School knew someone with a card.

Unlike the Oregonian editorial board, I check sources (I work for NORML: I have to.) The survey they refer to was addressed at a Marshall High community town hall meeting. The poll was conducted by students as part of a project called “SMASH” in a “confidential, random, peer-to-peer” survey – meaning one high school kid asking another high school kid. We have no control group, no control for confounding variables, not even a mention of the survey size or the randomness of those polled (maybe the SMASH kids are more likely to “randomly” speak to their friend, for instance, or stood in the hall and talked to anyone passing by who would answer.)

But besides all the methodological issues arising from trusting the polling data of high school kids talking to their friends, it’s important to note what their survey actually said:

PERCEPTION: Students surveyed believed that 8 out of 10 students smoke marijuana

REALITY: 7 out of 10 students DO NOT smoke marijuana

Kids surveyed thought 77.3% of others were smoking marijuana.  76.07% of kids never smoked marijuana, another 12.27% smoked it once or twice a month.  So, kids think 3 out of 4 other kids smoke pot when 3 out of 4 kids actually don’t.  Where, oh, where could the kids be getting the message that youth cannabis smoking is out of control, when, in fact, Oregon’s 12th grade monthly cannabis use rates have declined 14% (before | after) since 1999, when medical marijuana got underway in Oregon?

9. Papa John’s Pizza supports driver who reported medical marijuana patient to police

You would think that pizza delivery companies would understand who their customers are and that a great number of them smoke marijuana.  If you’re a pizza delivery company in Colorado, you’d understand that many of the marijuana smokers in your delivery area may be legally using cannabis for medicinal purposes.  But apparently Papa John’s pizza in Colorado doesn’t care too much about its drivers violating the privacy of its customers who are medical marijuana patients.

(9News) The man was smoking medical marijuana just before the pizza arrived on Friday evening. The delivery driver smelled the marijuana and called the cops. The Papa John’s employee, who was not identified, was concerned because the customer’s 9-year-old daughter was in the house.

8. The annual scaremongering about marijuana-laced Halloween treats begins now

L.A. County Sheriff’s Department Sgt. Glen Walsh said parents should definitely inspect the candy their children bring home after trick-or-treating.

Walsh said a pungent smell or an odd taste can serve as indicators on whether the food contains marijuana. As for the potency of the marijuana-laced prodcuts, Walsh said the level of THC, the chemical found in marijuana, can vary from zero to over 90 percent.

OK, so watch closely, parents.  You don’t want your kid getting a candy with 0% THC in it.  But if you find any of that 90% THC stuff, you can send it my way for proper disposal.

How stupid is this?  First off, if there is a person out there who would intentionally hand THC-laden treats to children, they are a criminal.  They’d be just as likely to poison Halloween treats or put pins or razor blades in them.. which is an urban legend with no truth to it whatsoever.

Second, if you are a person who uses THC-laden treats for medical or recreational purposes, why are you handing out a $20 “Buddafinger” when you could pass out a 20-cent “Butterfinger”?  You want to be so sure some kid you don’t know and won’t see gets high that you’ll spend 10 times more on Halloween candy?

7. Portland Reporter Anna Canzano: A medical marijuana-hating sheriff’s best friend

[Oregon Sheriff's Association President] Tom Bergin said at the rate Oregon is going, he believes Oregon is three times sicker than California. Why? Well, more than 90 percent of cardholders say they’re using pot to treat pain — not glaucoma or cancer — as the bill was initially marketed.

Here are the facts from the state’s medical marijuana program registry:

• There are 49,220 medical marijuana patients
• There are 44,756 patients who indicate chronic pain as a qualifying condition

So Canzano, Bergin, and every prohibitionist who scoffs at people in serious pain treating it with a non-toxic herb pull out their calculators and exclaim “90% of cardholders are using it for pain, not glaucoma or cancer!”  (The number is actually 90.9%.)

What Canzano distorts lies in the word “not”.  Under Oregon law, a registry cardholder can qualify under more than one condition.  The state even puts “A patient may have more than one diagnosed qualifying medical condition” right there on the website where you got the numbers to crunch.  Are we to believe people with cancer and glaucoma don’t suffer chronic pain as well?

6. Florida Woman Sues Over Being Arrested for Sage

A woman in Florida who was arrested for felony marijuana possession is suing for wrongful arrest. She might just have a case, she was charged with marijuana possession even though the bag they caught her with turned out to be Sage. 49 year old, Robin Brown says a Broward County Sheriff’s deputy caught her while she was bird watching back in March of 2009. He used his field kit on the herb she had in a bag, and said that in the field it tested positive for marijuana. The deputy sent the 50 grams of substance to a state crime lab.

Her lawsuit says that she was arrested before the test was performed. Her arrest was ordered by the Assistant State Attorney, Mark Horn, in June of 2009. She was arrested at her place of business, Massage Envy in Weston. She said that she was arrested in front of co-workers and her customers and subjected to a full body cavity search during her overnight stay in jail. When her lawyer discovered the herbs had not been tested a second time, he used the courts to force the tests which determined what Ms. Brown was contending all along, her sage was completely marijuana free.

5. Teen dies after plastic fumes scar lungs, media blames synthetic pot

The boy smoked the fake marijuana out of a plastic PEZ candy dispenser. The chemicals in the drugs caused extensive damage to his lungs. Brandon was put on a respirator in June and had a double lung transplant in September.

So, we’re to assume here it was the K2 that scarred the boys lungs and not the freakin’ fumes from the melting plastic of a PEZ dispenser?!?

Tonya Rice told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review newspaper Brandon was put on a respirator in June after smoking Spice fake cannabis, which is said to be ten times more dangerous than cocaine.

Not to be cruel or insensitive about the boy’s death, but he didn’t suddenly die from the acute effects of K2 use.  He used it in June, fell very ill, was given a double lung transplant, and died from an infection because of his lowered immune system in October.  So, to compare, we have cocaine, which can give you a heart attack by overdose and kill you the minute you snort / smoke / inject it, versus a synthetic cannabinoid smoked through plastic, requiring a double lung transplant, leading to a fatal infection four months later in the hospital that kills one boy.  We’re not trying to say K2 is safe – it isn’t – but it’s not “ten times more dangerous than cocaine”.

4. CASA’s Joe Califano blames marijuana for Arizona shooter

I haven’t seen press reports or talking heads discuss their concern about how easy it has been for this mentally ill young man to get marijuana. And there has been no mention of the potential of marijuana to spark latent psychosis and exacerbate schizophrenia and other mental illnesses.

So as we continue to think about this killer and his deranged mind, we should be asking this question: Is Jared Loughner an individual whose psychosis was prompted or exacerbated by the use of marijuana?

Gee, Joe, what do you think we ought to do?  Make marijuana illegal?  Lock up people who use it?  Break down their doors at night and shoot their dogs?  Use helicopters and infrared to eradicate the plant wherever it’s grown?  Throw billions at American and Mexican law enforcement for armor and weapons to fight its traffickers?  Train dogs to sniff it out?  Drug test employees, high schoolers, even middle schoolers to detect its use?

The facts are that 1% of the population exhibits schizophrenia, whether it is 1979 and 60% of high school seniors have tried marijuana or it is 1992 and 33% have tried it.  A study of 186 UK mental hospitals found no increase in schizophrenia or psychosis admissions, despite use rates of cannabis increasing greatly during that decade.

3. UK Daily Mail: Cannabis ‘kills 30,000 a year’

Cannabis ‘kills 30,000 a year’

Oh, dear.  From zero deaths* in 5,000 years of human use to ’30,000 a year’.  That sounds serious.  Let’s read on…

More than 30,000 cannabis smokers could die every year, doctors warn today.

Wait, “could die”?  We’ve gone from the active headline verb “kills” to the lede adverb “could”?  Usually you bury that wiggle room somewhere in paragraph umpteen.  Continue…

Professor John Henry, a leading authority on the drug, said the change – due to take place this summer – had undermined doctors’ efforts to highlight the risks.

He said: “Cannabis is as dangerous as cigarette smoking – in fact, it may be even worse – and downgrading its legal status has simply confused people.”

“May be” worse?  Where are the wards full of cannabis smokers?  Britain actually has some level of health care worthy of a civilized (civilised) people.  You’d think the National Health Service would bring these figures up.  It sounds like quite a cost to the government.

2. American Cancer Society says marijuana use can lead to amputation

Although it is rare, severe shutdown of blood circulation to the arms or legs has been reported in young people who smoked marijuana. In some cases, it was so severe that amputation was required.

In all my years beating back reefer madness, this is a first.  I have never heard a story of someone’s marijuana use leading to amputation.  I have covered stories of people who use marijuana for their already-existing amputation, since it is a superior medication for “phantom” pain, and I’ve covered one double-amputee diabetic’s eviction for her medical marijuana use, though.

1. Butt-chugging, vodka tampons, drinking bleach, and other parent-frightening urban legends

(KPHO) [School Resource Officer Chris] Thomas spends his days patrolling the halls of a Valley high school. He’s heard first hand how kids are getting tipsy.

“What we’re hearing about is teenagers utilizing tampons, soak them in vodka first before using them,” Thomas said.

“This is definitely not just girls,” Thomas said. “Guys will also use it and they’ll insert it into their rectums.”

Rather than the traditional beer bong you’d find at a college party, kids are sticking the tube elsewhere to get wasted.

They’re calling it “butt chugging.”

Rrrighttt… young teenage males, typically the most homophobic and self-conscious creatures on the planet, are dropping trou in front of their peers and inserting plastic tubes up their ass to chug beer.  And the vodka tampons?  Huffington Post reports that “the practice remains unverified despite multiple reports of incidents in the U.S. and elsewhere” and that a blogger “conducted her own informal trial to see whether the purported method worked“, where she notes the alcohol dissolves the glue and consistency of the tampon so much it couldn’t be inserted and that even if it were inserted, the burn you’d feel on your sensitive lady parts would not make this an enjoyable drunk.  Plus, the idea that it would help teens avoid detection with no alcohol on their breath is false, as alcohol metabolizes in your breath no matter how you ingest it.

I just happened upon this great cartoon from Twitter’s @ricklondon.

You can buy your own copy at Zazzle in various poster-sized forms.

Of course longtime NORML readers know this isn’t the first time we’ve seen marijuana in a bodybuilding gym (Gov. Schwarzenegger famously toked a doob in the film “Pumping Iron”.)

By the way, there was strong pot in the 60′s, too.  When the government tells you that potency has gone up, remember this is a sample of the potency of what they have seized.  Back in the day, the feds seized a whole lot of feral hemp – ditchweed that nobody tokes – and that dropped the overall average.

Cannabis potency overall may have doubled since the 60s and 70s, thanks to more indoor growing and selective breeding, but it’s nowhere near the 8x-400x (really!) more potent some prohibitionists claim.  Potency is irrelevant because THC is non-toxic; all more potent pot does is get you high with less of it.  Back in the day, you “smoked two joints in the morning” because that’s what it took to get high.  Now you smoke a bowl or two and get high, requiring less pot and therefore less smoke in your lungs.  Isn’t that a good thing?

Today’s dose of reefer madness comes from Chet Phillipe, who has been employed for the past 35 years in the treatment of substance addiction and 12 years of teaching about substance addiction at College of the Sequoias, Porterville College and Merced College. He lives in Visalia, California.

(Visalia Times-Delta) The issue of medical marijuana is a charade. Consider the following:

Its destructive power: Nicotine is the most addictive drug in the world and kills 400,000-plus people annually. Marijuana is addicting and more dangerous than nicotine because of the euphoric feeling. It’s seven to 14 times more powerful today than in the 1960s.

No it’s not.  Marijuana may be twice as potent as it was in the 1960s, if that.  And marijuana kills how many people annually?  Oh, yeah, zero.  For a substance abuse expert, you sure seem ignorant about the nature of addiction.  According to Jack E. Henningfield’s evaluation of addictiveness for the National Institutes on Drug Abuse, here is a comparison on the addictive qualities of nicotine vs. cannabis, and for fun, let’s look at the caffeine we ingest regularly in coffee and sodas:

Marijuana causes cancers throughout the respiratory system: nose, throat, mouth, tongue, lungs, breasts, etc.

No, it doesn’t.  In fact, a government-funded researcher named Dr. Donald Tashkin tried for thirty years to “expose” the association between marijuana smoking and lung cancer.  He instead found “no association and even a suggestion of some protective effect.”  Tashkin continued to say, “Early on, when our research appeared as if there would be a negative impact on lung health, I was opposed to legalization because I thought it would lead to increased use and that would lead to increased health effects.  But at this point, I’d be in favor of legalization.”

It is instrumental in destroying the body in other ways due to its damaging effects to the immune system.

Which is why tens of thousands of doctors have recommended medical marijuana for their HIV/AIDS patients with their severely compromised immune systems

It is physically and psychologically addictive. Addiction requires withdrawal.

Because marijuana is fat-soluble, marijuana leaves the system gradually. It does not “feel” like withdrawal. It feels like the flu.Marijuana withdrawal symptoms (withdrawal of a drug means physical addiction):  Irritability, Anxiety, Physical tension, Heavy perspiration, Confusion, Auditory hallucinations, Depression, Fatigue, Decrease in appetite and mood, Headaches, Double vision, and Apathy.

So marijuana is a terribly physically addictive drug, but when you stop using it, it doesn’t feel like withdrawal.  Not like, say, heroin, where withdrawal feels like you’re going to die, or alcohol, where you very possibly could die from the withdrawal alone.  Plus about half the symptoms Chet lists can’t be found in any serious literature on the matter of marijuana withdrawal and even the ones he’s right on (sleeping problems, sweating, decreased appetite, restlessness, nervousness, and sadness) are only found in less than half of those cannabis users deemed “addicted”.

Issues related to marijuana:  Serious prenatal damage. (Marijuana has caused deformity in different areas of babies.)

Shockingly untrue.  Pre-natal exposure to marijuana does not cause deformities, low birth weight, or cognitive damages.

Impotency after prolonged use.  Inability to perform after prolonged use (marijuana is in the testicles).

Which, of course, explains why the Rastafarians died out and you never see any tie-dye-wearing hippie kids any more.

Short-term memory damage first, then transfers to long-term brain damage.

Complete lie.  During marijuana impairment, there is a problem with short-term memory.  When you’re not high, that problem goes away.  There is no long-term brain damage associated even with chronic daily marijuana smoking.

Ex-WWE Diva & Medical Marijuana patient Shelly Martinez... no droop there!

Drooping breasts for the female (a percentage of females depending upon amount and time of use).

Yes, ladies, if you smoke pot until you are eighty years old, your breasts will droop.  Of course, if you don’t smoke pot, your breasts will still probably droop at age eighty.  This is the first time I’ve ever heard of pot affecting lady boobs, and judging by the many ladies I know who smoke a lot of pot, I will unscientifically declare this to be bullshit (I’d link to a debunking article, but not surprisingly, scientists haven’t done a lot of research into cannabinoid mammary droopage syndrome.  However, if there is to be a study, I hereby volunteer for data collection and analysis.)

Floppy breasts for males (a percentage depending upon amount and time of use).

There we go, my old favorite gynecomastia, or the old man boobs from marijuana lie.  The theory here is that marijuana use lowers testosterone, therefore the estrogen/testosterone balance is tipped toward the female hormone, and thus toward growing man boobs.

The truth, however, is that gynecomastia is very rare and the more likely cause of man boobs among male stoners is eating junk food and not exercising.

Removes pubic hair, male and female.  Removes male chest and facial hair.

Well, that proves it: every porn star and male model is a pothead!  Not only is there no research to confirm this wacky notion, but I’m struggling to understand how these effects even fit in a laundry list of reasons not to use marijuana.

Marijuana may involve your death, but you’ll feel better. Deaths have occurred from driving under the influence, aggressive behavior after prolonged use, walking in front of traffic, home incidents, fires, gas leaks, etc.

Who are these violent stoner arsonists who are walking in front of traffic?  Every time I compose one of these reefer madness articles, I’m more convinced that marijuana is a terrible drug that will freakishly alter the mind… of the people intent on prohibiting it.

Make it more potent for the taste of it! Yeah, that's it!

When it comes to the popular recreational relaxant that is non-toxic and cannot kill you, its increasing potency is a cause for alarm:

(TIME Magazine) 25% of BC Bud is made of the psychoactive drug tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). In contrast, the pot that the hippie generation smoked in the 1970s had only 2% THC content, and most pot consumed in the U.S. today averages about 7% THC.

(Chicago Tribune) One thing has changed: Pot packs a bigger wallop now than it did in the ’70s. Today’s leaves are up to five times as potent. So, says Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, still-developing brains, which are “more plastic, more sensitive to being modified,” are exposed to higher doses of THC, the psychoactive ingredient in cannabis.

(ABC News) With stronger pot, emergency rooms have reported more associated accidents. Just this week, seven people were killed when the driver — drove the wrong way on a New York highway and collided head on with a pickup truck. Although the drivers family has disputed the results, toxicology tests showed high levels of alcohol and marijuana.

(New York Times) “It’s like drinking beer versus drinking whiskey,” said Dr. Nora D. Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, a government agency and a strong opponent of legalizing marijuana. “If you only have access to whiskey, your risk is going to be higher for addiction. Now that people have access to very high potency marijuana, the game is different.”

(Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics) The new marijuana in the market place is not the 1 percent to 2 percent THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), which is the psychoactive ingredient that produces the “high”. Today’s new cultivation methods are producing a drug with up to 30 percent THC, or 3,000 percent higher than the old 1960’s-1980’s available marijuana.

But if it is a popular recreational intoxicant that is toxic and can kill you, it’s increasing potency is a victory for connoisseurs and retailers:

(USA Today) A growing number of states are moving to allow higher alcohol content in beer, despite concerns from some substance-abuse experts.

Alabama and West Virginia have passed laws increasing the legal alcohol-by-volume cap for beer from 6% to as high as 13.9% this year. Similar efforts are underway in Iowa and Mississippi, two states with very restrictive limits on the sale of high-alcohol beer, said Sean Wilson, former president of Pop the Cap, North Carolina’s successful grass-roots effort that raised the state’s limit in 2005.

Vermont raised the cap to 16% and Montana to 14% last year.

The average alcohol content in beer is 4.65%, and in wine 11.45%, according to a 2002 study by the Alcohol Research Group in Emeryville, Calif.

Twenty states still place some kind of limit on the amount of alcohol in beer, Wilson said.

Paul Gatza, director of the national Brewers Association based in Boulder, Colo., said limiting alcohol content restricts flavors and styles because “you can’t put as much malt or other sugars in your beer as you may want to.”

Gatza said consumers of specialty or microbrewed beers, also known as craft beers, “don’t drink to get drunk. They drink to appreciate the flavors.”

Right… and I smoke pot because I appreciate the scents.  This is a theme that goes back to the days of Nixon: the idea that people don’t drink to get drunk, they do it to socialize, but pot smokers are only smoking weed to get high.  Tell you what, next time there’s a cocktail party, swap out all the beer for O’Doul’s, all the wine with grape juice, and all the cocktails with soft drinks, and let’s see how much the alcohol drinkers can socialize without getting a buzz on.

The reason alcohol drinkers can make this absurd statement is because they differentiate between the “socializing” (getting a buzz on) and the “getting drunk” (alcohol poisoning).  They don’t conceive of a similar state for marijuana consumption.  In their mind there’s “not smoking pot” and there’s “stoned out of your mind”, with no intermediate step.  This is often because marijuana is illegal, so people who may have experimented a time or two did so under conditions that required smoking it all and smoking it quickly.  They’ve never experienced an Amsterdam-like nice mellow joint followed by a productive day.  So an increase in cannabis potency, to them, means the pot that used to get them “stoned out of your mind” will now get their kids “way stoned out of your mind”.

Meanwhile, having worked for fifteen years in bars every weekend, bars with parking lots full of cars that I can guarantee weren’t all driven by designated drivers, I can tell you that consumers of microbrews are doing it to get drunk.  The guy who was pounding 4% beers at $2 a glass will be more than happy to pound 16% beers at $5 a glass, knowing that his $20 in beer money may only get him four microbrews compared to ten tap beers, but he can get drunker quicker and take fewer pee breaks for the effort, and the beer tastes better.

Isn’t it amazing?  Here we have a drug we know kills 35,000 people a year directly from ingestion and another 40,000 due to its effects, a drug that is proven to cause serious harm to every organ in the body, a drug at the heart of a vast majority of domestic abuse cases, crimes, and assaults, and not only are states deciding to allow it to be up to four times more potent, but the marketers of the drug are boasting that it also tastes better and the increased potency doesn’t matter.  But marijuana that kills no one, is non-toxic to cells and organs, and brings people together in peace and communion, when that becomes up to four times more potent it is serious cause for alarm.

I guess we better not tell them that the marijuana tastes better these days.

Via Twitter I received the plea from a reader named “LindseyDiane” that pointed to this newly released article in the Chicago Tribune entitled “What Parents Need to Know About Pot”.  She wrote “This article is full of blatant lies. Please email to set them straight!”

Will do.

What Parents Need to Know About Pot

Marijuana packs a bigger wallop now than it did in the ’70s.

Parents may just want to listen up: The most recent National Survey on Drug Use and Health found that among marijuana users over age 12, almost 35 percent used marijuana 20 or more days in the past month.

Ah, statistics.  What stood out to you in that sentence?  Did you get “age 12″, “35%”, and “20 days a month”?  Preceded by a call to parents, right?  Oh my god, one third of our kids are getting stoned two-thirds of the time!

But here’s the thing – that’s all marijuana users over age 12, even the ones age 18 to 100 who are long past needing their parents’ guidance on adult decisions.

Now, indeed, the statistic is true.  Nice thing about the intertubes is you can check their math.  Visit the Substance Abuse Mental Health Data Archive (SAMHDA) and you can run something called Quick Tables.  You can choose four different “Measures of Marijuana Use”, like “Number of Days Used Marijuana in the Past Twelve Months”.  You can choose eight different “Respondent Characteristics”, like “Age Group”.  Then it will build you the table and even a bar graph if you like.

There are about 248 million Americans aged 12 and older.  For the 25 million people age 12 and older who will smoke marijuana this year, it is true that 35.6% will smoke 100 days or more in the past year (so, not exactly “20 or more days a month”, more like “8 or more days a month”).  But for the 12-17 age group, the number is actually 28%.

Now, that still sounds scary, huh?  But this is just the numbers of the kids who do smoke pot.  There are 25 million kids aged 12-17 and 880,000 of them are smoking pot “8 or more times a month”.  That’s 3.5% of all kids.  Think of it as 7 out of 200 getting stoned one-fourth of the time; not 1 out of three getting stoned two-thirds of the time.

I still think that’s not a great number, but then I’d point out that these are the results that have been achieved through forty years of “drug war”.  These are the results achieved when the government spends $1 billion on teen anti-drug ads that actually encouraged marijuana use.  In the same period of time, we have reduced cigarette smoking among 12th graders from three out of four having tried a cigarette in 1977 to  now where less than half have done so.

One thing has changed: Pot packs a bigger wallop now than it did in the ’70s. Today’s leaves are up to five times as potent. So, says Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, still-developing brains, which are “more plastic, more sensitive to being modified,” are exposed to higher doses of THC, the psychoactive ingredient in cannabis.

Uh, who out there is smoking pot leaves anymore?

This old “Pot 2.0 – Not Your Father’s Woodstock Weed!™” just won’t die, will it?  At least Nora only claims it’s 5x more potent, and not the 25x or even 400x I’ve reported on in the past.

But the data just don’t back it up.  Last year I collected data from numerous studies that showed, at best, you could say marijuana’s average potency has doubled.  Other researchers have shown that cannabis potency varies widely from region to region and season to season; the average doesn’t mean much if it’s a dry season in Dubuque and you can’t even get low-grade Mexican schwag.  Plus those potency numbers often include hash and hash oil, which few people ever experience, and much fewer teens.

The lungs can suffer, too, from both pesticides used in the growing process and carcinogens, which some research suggests may be more concentrated in marijuana than in cigarettes. [Igor Grant, director of the Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research at the University of California] points out that “tobacco smoke is used in much higher doses–you couldn’t smoke 20 marijuana cigarettes a day and stay vertical.” While smoking pot isn’t perfectly safe, he maintains, it isn’t as toxic as many other drugs. Still, some research suggests that regular use is associated with chronic cough, bronchitis, and emphysema, and a greater risk of cancer of the head and neck.

If nasty pesticides are being used to grow marijuana, that’s only because there is no agency that regulates the safety and purity of marijuana production in America.  Prohibition creates the need for dealers to produce a profit regardless of the means necessary to do it.  They will add lead shavings or miniscule glass beads to weed, too, in order to make a profit.  When is the last time you heard of lead, glass, or toxic pesticides in cigarettes?

As for the cancer research, must we once again point to the Washington Post headline on Dr. Donald Tashkin’s 30 years of research?  The one where the lede reads “The largest study of its kind has unexpectedly concluded that smoking marijuana, even regularly and heavily, does not lead to lung cancer.”  Or the recent study showing no difference between chronic cannabis smokers’ lungs and non-smokers?  Or the study that pot smokers actually have a reduced risk of head and neck cancer?  Or the one that showed no link between pot smoking and emphysema?  Don’t these count as “some research”, too?

Heart risks may increase with pot, too. A recent study showed higher levels of a protein that raises triglyceride levels, which are linked to cardiovascular disease, in the blood of chronic smokers. Pot also increases blood pressure and heart rate and causes a reduction in the blood’s ability to carry oxygen. One study found that risk of heart attack increased fourfold in the hour after toking up.

Yes, this would be the study that never bothered to look at whether cannabis smokers actually did have an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, and based its findings on people who smoke between a half pound to two-and-a-half pounds per month.  Marijuana smoking will increase your blood pressure and heart rate and risk of heart attack… about the same as walking up a flight of stairs will do to you.

From a Letter to the Editor at the Aspen Times:

As the medical marijuana articles continue to appear in newsprint, I think two points need to be made:

One, a warning to all recreational and medical marijuana smokers: Eagle County Sheriff’s office and State Highway Patrol have trained officers to look for not only DWI alcohol drivers but also DUI marijuana users. The THC chemical making up 60% of each marijuana plant (recreational or medical marijuana) is 10 times stronger since the 1970s per the June 2009 United Nations World Health Report.

Where do I get me some of that 60% THC pot?  Most good bud is around 7%-10% THC with exceptions found as high as 35%.  Even seized hash has been averaging only around 20% THC.  Plus, high-quality pot has always been available, even in the 1970s.  I mean, look at the hairstyles and the clothes; do you think those people were smoking weak marijuana?

THC can stay in your blood for up to 56 days. Guess what that means?

No, THC metabolites can stay in your urine up to 56 (more or less) days.  Guess what that means?

If a cop thinks you’re drug impaired or asks you to take a drug test and you test positive for marijuana, the current state and federal laws say that is a crime.

Yes, they do.  What they don’t say is that you’re impaired.  They say you’re guilty of the crime of driving while impaired, but they do not actually serve to prove any impairment.

Remember if you have an accident and your brain has slowed down due to marijuana use — you are on the way to court and possibly jail.

Brain is slowed down?  Name the game, mister, Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune, Boggle, Scrabble, logic problems, New York Times crossword, and I’ll give you a good run for your money even while pulling bong rips off a Roor.

Two, recreational or medical marijuana is grown by unregulated medical warehouses in America or in Mexico that have no oversight, quality control, testing, or inspection by the FDA or any other state or U.S. government agency. So to anyone smoking, inhaling, eating brownies, etc., the THC goes to your blood and directly to your brain.

Yes, the THC goes to the blood and the brain; as our president once remarked, that’s the point.

Why would our citizens use a product that has no testing or quality control and could be poisoned?

Well, many of our citizens are growing it themselves or know their grower and know it isn’t being poisoned.  Last time I recall anyone being poisoned by weed, it was the US government spraying Mexican marijuana fields with toxic paraquat in the 1970s.

But there is a point that unregulated marijuana can have molds, fungi, or pesticides, which is exactly why we’re lobbying for legalization.

There are 400 different chemicals in each marijuana plant. Marijuana smokers are actually “rolling the dice” each time they use it. I wonder where the new store owners buy their marijuana and who guarantees its purity for you to use safely.

Eek!  Chemicals!  Over 400 of them!  Uh, just like nearly every plant on earth.

(TIME Magazine) California may be the center of the marijuana trade and the controversies over its legalization. But Florida has surpassed it in one important category: the Sunshine State is now the country’s leader in indoor marijuana cultivation. It is a potent distinction because most of the marijuana grown this way is cultured hydroponically — that is, mostly without soil and with a carefully calibrated cocktail of chemicals and lighting — to create some of the highest level of highs on the market.

In 2006, Florida law enforcement here discovered 480 homes growing marijuana indoors. Last year, 1,022 grow houses were busted. “This isn’t your grandma’s marijuana,” quipped a Miami-Dade narcotics officer at one bust as he tossed garbage bags stuffed with confiscated marijuana into an unmarked police truck. Levels of THC — the agent in marijuana that produces feelings of euphoria, and in some users mild hallucinations and paranoia — have risen dramatically because of indoor techniques. Thirty years ago, most marijuana contained about 7% THC. Today, indoor growers boast THC levels of 25% or higher thanks to the additional care that indoor plants receive.

Ah, yes, “Pot 2.0: Not Your Father’s Woodstock Weed!” raises its ugly head.  Except the weed from 30 years ago was supposed to be only 2% THC… at least according to the TIME Magazine story in 2004 about the previous super-pot hot-spot, Vancouver, British Columbia:

(TIME Magazine 2004) Although the actual potency of BC Bud varies from batch to batch, depending on how it’s grown, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration says that as much as 25% of BC Bud is made of the psychoactive drug tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). In contrast, the pot that the hippie generation smoked in the 1970s had only 2% THC content, and most pot consumed in the U.S. today averages about 7% THC.

So five years ago TIME warned the smokers of 7% weed about the 25% BC Bud that wasn’t like the 2% weed of the 1970s, and today TIME warns the smokers about Florida’s 25% hydro-bud that’s not like the 7% weed of the 1970s that we were apparently smoking all the way up to 2004.  Let’s look back farther, to a 2000 TIME story on Marc Emery:

(TIME Magazine 2000) Known as “B.C. Bud,” this pot is finding a lucrative market among U.S. users of recreational drugs. A pound of dried B.C. Bud–whose active ingredient, tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, accounts for up to 30% of its weight–sells for about $8,000 in New York City. The more common marijuana from Mexico, with a THC content of about 5%, sells for as little as $300 per lb.

Ah, so nine years ago, the BC Bud was 30% THC and most folks were smoking the regular 5% THC Mexican varieties.  So, then, did the 7% weed of the ’70s drop 2 points, or did the 2% weed of the ’70s raise 3 points?  I’m confused and I’m not even high.  Let’s look back to the actual time period in question, the 1970s:

(TIME Magazine 1978) Equally adept at agronomy and foiling the police, Oregon’s pot farmers turned home-grown weed into a profitable racket by developing their unique sinsemillas hybrid. The robust, waste-free strain attracts buyers willing to pay $1,600 a pound, the yield from just one well-cultivated plant. Studies show that sinsemillas weed contains five times more tetrahydrocannabinol (pot’s narcotic ingredient) than the common Mexican variety. Even federal drug experts are impressed. “A good deal of expertise goes into producing that kind of plant,” notes Dr. Carlton Turner, director of marijuana research for the National Institute of Drug Abuse at the University of Mississippi.

So if 1978 sinemilla was 5x more potent than the average weed, and that was at 2% (TIME 2004) or 5% (TIME 2000) or 7% (TIME 2009), then fine Oregon bud was already at 10% to 35% thirty-one years ago!  Except back then, the pound of “super-pot” went for $1,600 and today it fetches $8,000.

The 2009 TIME article goes on to scare us about the hydroponic growers illegally tapping into the electrical grid, maintaining high-voltage lighting systems and chemical irrigation systems, sometimes protecting themselves with weapons, and sometimes living in the homes with (gasp!) children!  It highlights how the rest of the Florida economy is suffering so much the housing market is full of foreclosures, which the sellers of $8,000/lb. super-pot are buying up left and right.  So be afraid, be very afraid, of the new Florida Super-Pot!  It’s just as strong as the 2004 BC Bud and the 1978 Oregon Sinsemilla!

For the record:

• Marijuana potency, on average has increased over the past forty years, from about 4% to about 8% on average.
• High potency strains have always been available.
• The government approves Marinol, a 100% potent THC pill, as a Schedule III medicine.
• Increased potency is a direct result of prohibition, as buyers paying cognac-prices for plant matter tend to want the most bang for their $300-$420 bucks per ounce.
• Smugglers and sellers of marijuana in a black market are under pressure to maintain secrecy so they’d rather use their valuable storage/smuggling space for the best-earning product, just as bootleggers during prohibition favored smaller crates of whiskey bottles over larger barrels of beer and wine.
• In surveys of cannabis users in pseudo-legal Amsterdam, they prefer the milder varieties of pot, just as alcohol drinkers after prohibition preferred beer and wine to hard liquor.
• Finally, THC is non-toxic, so potency does not matter.  People using marijuana use enough to get high.  If it’s Mexican schwag, they smoke a joint and get high.  If it’s Florida/BC/Oregon bud, they smoke a puff and get high.  It’s not like if you smoke a 7% joint you get high, but if you smoke a 25% joint you murder your sister with an axe.

Now as for the grow houses, the illegal electricity taps, the armed growhouse owners, the housing market manipulation, the chemically fertilized high-voltage light hydroponic operations, and so forth, I’d ask just one question: how many Florida homes have been converted to clandestine indoor tobacco farms or large-scale home breweries lately?

A newly released report about marijuana potency undermines previous claims by the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) that the drug’s potency has hit record highs.

“According to the latest data on marijuana samples analyzed to date, the average amount of THC in seized samples has reached a new high of 10.1 percent,” reads the announcement by Gil Kerlikowske, the Drug Czar.

But the full report is now available and it shows that the 10-percent bar is only crossed by throwing hash into the equation. Without hash, the average potency was 8.52 percent. The average potency of hash was 20.76 percent.

I’m not personally suprised to hear that Gil was given some bad information by the ONDCP. They give out bad information all the time to keep their funding and the war on pot going. But I am always suprised when they manufacture half truths from a study that will eventually find the light of day and expose them for being the deceitful liars they are. ONDCP works on a shock therapy meme that will only work as long as the media and the public swallows the disinformation first and forgets the whole thing before the facts come out.

I fully encourage you to read the full report (a scant 21 pages) and draw your own conclusions. I was personally thrilled to see that “Ditch Weed” is an official term, and that hash oil is pretty potent stuff at an average 87% THC. Enjoy!

OXFORD, Mississippi (CNN) — The average potency of marijuana, which has risen steadily for three decades, has exceeded 10 percent for the first time, the U.S. government will report on Thursday.

At the University of Mississippi’s Potency Monitoring Project, where thousands of samples of seized marijuana are tested every year, project director Mahmoud ElSohly said some samples have THC levels exceeding 30 percent.

Average THC concentrations will continue to climb before leveling off at 15 percent or 16 percent in five to 10 years, ElSohly predicted.

The stronger marijuana is of particular concern because high concentrations of THC have the opposite effect of low concentrations, officials say.

Uh… what?  The “opposite” effect?  You mean if you smoked the old pot you got “high” and if you smoke the new pot you get… what, “low”?  If you smoke pot that’s somewhere in-between does anything happen at all?  Do you just stay “middle”?

The only “opposite” effect between low-quality and high-quality weed is the reaction you gave your dealer when you’ve spent $300 on an ounce of it.

In addition, while experienced marijuana users may limit their intake of potent marijuana, young and inexperienced users may not moderate their intake and possibly suffer from dysphoria, paranoia, irritability and other negative effects.

If these young and inexperienced users are smoking or vaporizing it, the time between intake and effect is only a few seconds.  It’s not like doing shots of whiskey, where forty minutes later while you’re on your sixth shot you realize you’re way drunk and should’ve stopped four shots ago.  With marijuana, you smoke it, you feel it.  If it’s not enough, you smoke more.  If it’s enough, you stop.

Potent marijuana also poses significant risk to the developing adolescent brain, said Edward Jurith, acting director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

Absolutely.  That’s why we always say adolescents shouldn’t smoke pot.  Potent alcohol also poses significant risks to the developing adolescent brain, and its average potency ranges from 1.5% to 75.5%, and yet every year I see a new marketing campaign for some fruity, wine-coolery alcoholic beverage few people over age 21 would be caught dead drinking.

Increasing potency is leading to higher admissions to emergency rooms and drug treatment programs, officials say.

I don’t know if that’s an intended pun, but I doubt it.  I think they meant “more admissions” or “greater numbers of admissions”.  Either way, it is a lie.  The emergency room figure comes from DAWN, the Drug Abuse Warning Network, which tracks when anyone admitted to an ER tests positive for or admits use of marijuana.  Since marijuana is the most used substance and since it stays in your system for days or weeks, it’s no surprise it turns up in the people who go to the ER.  However, the DAWN stats do not measure the cause of the ER visit.  So, it is possible that you play softball, pull a hamstring, go to the ER, and they detect the joint you smoked at the picnic last weekend — ding, that’s a “marijuana-related emergency room visit”.  You might smoke some pot and shoot some heroin, overdose on the heroin and go to the ER, telling them what you’ve done — ding, that’s a “marijuana-related emergency room visit”.  You might be a medical marijuana patient, driving to work after medicating last night ten hours ago, and get T-boned by a drunk driver — ding, that’s a “marijuana-related emergency room visit”.

The drug treatment admissions are an even worse statistic.  When those ER folks let the police know you tested positive for pot — and remember, that only means you’ve used it, not that you’re currently high — the nice judge gives you the choice of going to jail of going into a drug treatment program (sometimes it’s not a choice).  So they arrest you for pot, sentence you to treatment, and then point to increased treatment numbers and say “see how dangerous it is; this is why we need to arrest people for pot!”

The average THC for tested marijuana during 2008 was 10.1 percent, according to the government, compared to 1983 when it was reportedly under 4 percent.

Even drugs seized at the United States’ southwest border are showing increasing potency, the Office of National Drug Control Policy says. The median potency increased from 4.8 percent in 2003 to 7.3 percent in 2007. Marijuana from Mexico and other southern sources traditionally had lower THC content then other sources’.

So then, what you’re telling us is that under your prohibition of marijuana, it has become more than twice as potent.  By your standards, during the time you’ve been arresting and incarcerating people for marijuana, it has become stronger, more people are in the ER because of it, and more people are addicted to it.

High Times in Ag Science: Marijuana More Potent Than Ever | Wired Science from Wired.com
Modern agriculture hasn’t just made beef cows beefier and corn cornier, it’s also made pot more potty.

The potency of marijuana, measured by the presence of its (psycho)active ingredient, THC, has tripled since 1987, according to the latest figures from the Department of Justice’s National Drug Intelligence Center.

The new data from the University of Mississippi Potency Monitoring Project — which is not just a group of your college buddies talking about the differences between now and the old days — was released in the 2009 National Drug Threat Assessment.

The Department of Justice attributed the steadily rising numbers to “increased demand for higher-potency marijuana and improvements in cultivation techniques.”

The new pot is certainly a superior product to the shake of the old days, but it’s nowhere near as strong as some war-on-drug advocates have contended. The old White House drug czar, John Walters, has said publicly that marijuana’s THC content has “increased as much as 30 times,” which researchers say is not supported by the available evidence.

On the other hand, Bruce Mirken of the Marijuana Policy Project, an organization lobbying to change the drug’s regulation, said that the average American pot doesn’t stack up with the tightly-controlled cannabis in Amsterdam.

“In the Netherlands, where marijuana for medical use is sold in pharmacies and grown to government standards of purity and potency, the minimal allowable potency is 15 percent THC,” Mirken wrote in an email to Wired.com.

Uh-huh.  It’s not your father’s Woodstock Weed!  It’s the deadly Pot 2.0 that’s 2x, 7x, 25x, 400x as strong as what the hippies smoked in the 1960s!

Give me a break.  First of all, if the median weed potency in 1987 was 3% THC, then half of all 80s tokers were smoking industrial hemp, incapable of giving you much more than a headache.

Second, the fluctuation in THC potency among different strains in different areas of the country during different months of the year varies more than the difference between these three “averages”.  Also, what you seize doesn’t really reflect what is available to most consumers.  Sure, you may have seized a nice cache of 20% THC bud, but how many among the average consumers can actually find that or afford it?

Third, the federal government approves of a drug called dronabinol (Marinol) that is synthesized 100% THC in a sesame oil base.  How is it that 100% pure THC in a pill is a prescribe-able Schedule III drug, yet we’re supposed to fear a 9.6% THC flower?

Fourth, delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) has no realistic LD-50, a measurement of the lethal dose of that drug that would kill half those who use it.  One scientist estimated if a 150lb man ate 1,500 lbs of cannabis in 15 minutes, that might be enough THC to be toxic.  So even if you smoke more of a more potent bud, you cannot die.  You’ll just fall asleep faster.

Fifth, cannabis consumers, when presented a higher potency product, inhale less of it to achieve the high.  Less smoke is a good thing.  The Netherlands requires a minimum THC potency of 15% in their medical marijuana for this very reason.

Sixth, cannabis consumers, when given a legal choice, actually prefer lower potency strains of cannabis.  A study comparing consumers in San Francisco and Amsterdam found that the buyers in the legal coffeeshops in Holland preferred “mild” or “moderate” varieties, while the black market buyers in Frisco always wanted the most potent varieties, because prohibition means they can’t really know what they’re getting.

Seventh, if you’re really concerned about the potency of marijuana on the streets, why do you let criminals control the market?  Nobody’s gotten hold of much blindness-inducing triple-digit-proof moonshine on the streets lately, have they?  Anybody unknowingly smoked any cigarettes laced with PCP?  No, because we tightly regulate that market for adults and have strict quality controls over the product.