(The American anti-cannabis campaign in Australia continues)

Pot 15 times stronger now

From the NT News, Sunday Territorian, December 1, 2002.

Marijuana should be classified as a hard and dangerous drug because of the increasing grave health dangers it posed, a senior Federal Government MP says.

Senator Jeannie Ferris, the Government Senate Whip, said new research showed the type of marijuana available now was 15 times more powerful than that of the 1960s.

Senator Ferris said the Government should alert the public to a recent report which found marijuana was four times more likely to cause cancer that tobacco.

"The marijuana cigarettes that were smoked in the sixties are no longer the marijuana cigarettes that are being smoked in the new century," she said.

"Back in the 60s, cannabis was cinsidered almost part of the youth culture, but the scientific and medical community are increasingly challenging the soft status of marijuana in Australia.

A picture of cannabis is now clearly emerging that is far more disturbing."

The British Lung Foundation study found the average content of the psychoactive agent THC in a 1969s marijuana cigarette was just 10 milligrams.

That compared with 150 milligrams today.

"Sophisticated cultivation has increased the potency of cannabis products over the last 20 years," the report said.

"This means that the modern cannabis smoker may be exposed to greater doses of THC than in the 1960s and 1970s, which in turn means that studies investigating the long-term effects of smoking cannabis have to be interpreted cautiously."

Senator Ferris said parents and children must be informed of the study results because of the drug's widespread use.

"There is increasing evidence marijuana contributes to depression and motivational problems," she said.

"Mental health and drug and alcohol workers are reporting an alarming increase in the amount of cannabis induced psychosis and schizophrenia, particularly in young adults."

She said the question must be asked whether marijuana still warranted being classed as a "soft" drug.

England and Canada are relaxing their cannabis laws

The facts

From: The Myth of Potent Pot

The drug czar's latest reefer madness: He claims that marijuana is 30 times more powerful than it used to be.

By Daniel Forbes Posted Tuesday, November 19, 2002

Extracts - Full article

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."

ONDCP (Office of National Drug Control Policy) 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.)

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 (Head of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) 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."