Potent Pot—So What?
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So the government is claiming that today’s marijuana is much more potent than yesterday’s—that it’s highly addictive—that it could (gulp!) kill you.
The evidence doesn’t seem to bear that out.
Let’s look at what’s really happening here, according to author Paul Armentano (Marijuana Is Safer: So Why Are We Driving People to Drink?), writing for The Huffington Post. The DEA announces pot is more potent. Great, thinks Mr./Mrs. American Potsmoker. Time to stock up! Illegal marijuana sales go up, and more of your tax dollars must be diverted for the ramping up of the War on Drugs.
Further, potent pot may not be all that bad for you.
From The Huffington Post:
“This ain’t your grandfather’s or your father’s marijuana. This will hurt you. This will addict you. This will kill you.”- Mark R. Trouville, DEA Miami, speaking to the Associated Press (June 22, 2007)
Government claims that today’s pot is more potent, and thus more dangerous to health, than ever before must be taken with a grain of salt.
Federal officials have made similarly dire assertions before. In a 2004 Reuters News Wire story, government officials alleged, “Pot is no longer the gentle weed of the 1960s and may pose a greater threat than cocaine or even heroin.” (Anti-drug officials failed to explain why, if previous decades’ pot was so “gentle” and innocuous, police still arrested you for it.)
In 2007, Reuters again highlighted the alleged record rise in cannabis potency, proclaiming, “U.S. marijuana grows stronger than before: report.” Quoted in the news story was ex-Drug Czar John Walters, who warned, “This report underscores that we are no longer talking about the drug of the 1960s and 1970s — this is Pot 2.0.”
Predictably, in 2008 the mainstream news media ran with yet another set of ‘news’ stories alleging that the pot plant’s strength had reached all-time highs. According to a June 12, 2008 Associated Press story:
“The latest analysis from the University of Mississippi’s Potency Monitoring Project tracked the average amount of THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, in samples seized by law enforcement agencies from 1975 through 2007. It found that the average amount of THC reached 9.6 percent in 2007, compared with 8.75 percent the previous year.”
Or not. An actual review of the 2008 U-Miss data revealed this nugget of information: The average THC in domestically grown marijuana — which comprises the bulk of the US market — is less than five percent, a figure that’s remained unchanged for nearly a decade. (See: http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/pdf/FullPotencyReports.pdf, page 12)
Which brings us to this year. Naturally, the Feds are once again sounding the alarm, as reported today by CNN: “Marijuana potency surpasses 10 percent, U.S. says.”
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