News post hails “Pot 2.0”
April 26, 2007A 25 April CNN story hailed the new wave of “Pot 2.0”, saying:
The marijuana being sold across the United States is stronger than ever, which could explain a growing number of medical emergencies that involve the drug, government drug experts on Wednesday.
Analysis of seized samples of marijuana and hashish showed that more of the cannabis on the market is of the strongest grade, the White House and National Institute for Drug Abuse said.
They cited data from the University of Mississippi’s Marijuana Potency Project showing the average levels of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, in the products rose from 7 percent in 2003 to 8.5 percent in 2006.
The level had risen steadily from 3.5 percent in 1988.
Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, fears the problem is not being taken seriously because many adults remember the marijuana of their youth as harmless.
“It’s really not the same type of marijuana,” Volkow said in a telephone interview.
“This could explain why there has been an increase in the number of medical emergencies involving marijuana.”
The pharmacy department at Mississippi has compiled data on 59,369 samples of cannabis, 1,225 hashish samples, and 443 hash oil samples confiscated since 1975. “The highest concentration of (THC) found in a cannabis (marijuana) sample is 33.12 percent from Oregon State Police,” the report reads.
I had earlier, foolishly, posted on a marijuana forum, trying to get some data about how people feel about marijuana – and how they feel informational sites like the new Drug Free World website would assist to sway people against taking drugs.
What I got back was a wave of protest, all about how marijuana was outstanding, how there were no good reasons why such a site should make such claims about Marijuana, etc. Just about everyone could agree that kids shouldn’t be taking drugs, no matter what their justification for it was. However, in light of the above from this marijuana potency project, plus the studies done by the Church of Scientology, showing marijuana clearly as a gateway drug to bigger and much more destructive drugs, I think it makes the point that legalization and open support of marijuana is a destructive course of action.
Now, just the simple idea that marijuana is ‘a gateway drug’ generated about 300 posts on the grasscity marijuana forum. People seem to think it’s not, that they’re big and strong, and won’t get into heavier drugs. But what about all of the people who do?
A search around Digg for stories on such gives you items from ‘freetheplant.com’ and so forth, stating authoritatively that marijuana is no gateway drug, and that it’s but a myth. Not sure how unbiased of an opinion any site called ‘freetheplant.com’ could be, however. From Narconon California, a report on marijuana as a gateway drug cited the Journal of the American Medical association, stating a study that was done involving 311 sets of identical twins – one smoking pot, and the other not — just to eliminate any odd social effects one could throw in, saying why it wasn’t a factor. Per this study, almost half of the young people who started smoking marijuana before the age of 17 went on to use harder drugs later in life.
In any case, I would recommend, before arguing about it, to first get fully briefed on the effects of all major drugs, and how people get involved with them, and then take a fresh look at the situation. As Pot 2.0 is definitely a situation.
References:
There has been stong marijuana (i.e. “skunk”) since the early 1980s. If I compare a bicicle from 1980 to a motorbike from today – how many times faster would it be? The same, you can compare the bad weed from today to the skunk from 27 years ago and it would result the potency is much lower now.
So please, apples and apples. This type of journalism is misleading.
Second: when smoking, one tends to use much less now, because they know how much they need and can adjust with great precision to that amount. So even if the weed is on average stronger, that is by no means a bad thing – it just means less smoke needs to be inhaled -> less risk.
What you want to say is something else: that the weed high from today is much more intense. That is just bull. They high is the same no matter what you smoke, if you have enough.
critic:
If there is “less risk” as you are saying, then why is there an increased number of “medical emergencies”? According to the study, the number of people using marijuana is down, but medical problems related to it are up. Less risk indeed…
Your idea that one would responsibly only use as much as they “need” when they’re irresponsibly getting high in the first place is a joke, right?
My experience with people who are pot users is that they make a lot of mistakes and don’t realize it. They’re slow, have poor concentration, cause accidents, are irresponsible, don’t understand what gets said to them and then sit there blandly while people have to scramble to clean up the catastrophes they cause. You can’t hire someone when their loaded condition makes them incompetent and a liability to have around.
I’ve known several potheads who were stuck on welfare because they couldn’t hold down a job and cared more about their pot than their living conditions or anyone they were supposed to be taking care of (like their children).
ALL the teens I know whove smoked pot, went on to do X, LSD, Speed, heroine and crack. So, I’m pretty convinced it’s a gateway drug.
People, when of adult age, do not need to be protected from themselves. A so called “pothead” was destined to be a failure before the introduction of such a drug because of his/her own choices. If it wasn’t that then it would be something else, such as Alcohol, Cigarettes, or prescription meds.
Those of age who ruin their lives from dependency are not “victims”… they are not “misinformed”… they make bad choices and would’ve regardless without recreational drugs.
designer baby, look for earth like new planet and artificial rain and snowfall are the only scape route to combat against fatal disease, growing population and global warming.
It’s not a gateway drug because people who are interested in drugs to begin with will end up experimenting with them, and marijuana just so happens to be one of the more benign drugs out there, so they’ll often start with that. What if there was no marijuana? Would overall drug rates be lower? Of course not, that’s retarded, because it doesn’t affect the number of people who want to experiment with drugs. And what about alcohol, why isn’t that a gateway drug?
God, you’re an idiot
I agree with Fungahhh. Stop believing whatever a biased dot com has for you to read… seriously. Think for youself, holy shit.
As someone who has had a drug problem I can say that Alcohol is a big gateway drug and so is marijauna. Alcohol, becuase it makes you lose inhibition and do stupid things; Marijuana is on the other hand a gateway drug, becuase when people try it, and find out it’s not that bad, why not break the law again and see what else they were lying to you about….
Marijuana is considered a gateway drug because those that use it tend to move on to harder things. So I’ve heard, anyway. But I maintain that the reason for this is not because marijuana is a gateway drug, but because the government places marijuana on the same schedule as drugs like cocaine and heroin. If marijuana were legal, I doubt it would be considered a gateway drug. Criminals wouldn’t be selling it and other drugs at the same time anymore. Duh.
If the gateway theory was true, there would be a lot more heroin users than there are. There are millions upon millions of stoners all across the world. Most are satisfied with the feeling cannabis gives them. Yes, cannabis is stronger which means it better. Less carcinogens because you wont need to smoke as much. It is possible to act normal while stoned. Most stoners are even smarter than most sober people, but judging todays society, that isnt saying much.
[…] is not the issue. I posted here on the gateway drug aspect of marijuana a few months ago, but after watching this joints PSA, I realized I might be arguing the wrong […]
I just think cannabis is a gift from God and we should use it but not abuse it.
And I do not believe cannabis is a gateway drug.
The way the system is right now it filters out many except the more daring and curious generally.
Also, how can you judge cannabis is a gateway drug when most people who try cannabis never go on to harder drugs?
Cannabis to get it you have to go out to the the black market/underground/mafia and go through sometimes people who deal in other things too.But it’s really more of a cultural issue that could be solved by legalization.
It’s hard to believe that people are still pushing the gateway theory. It’s been disproven over and over again by reputable non-biased sources – not just “stoners”.
http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/study-say-marijuana-no-gateway-drug-12116.html
http://www.rand.org/pubs/library_reprints/LRP20021208/
http://www.druglibrary.org/SCHAFFER/Library/mjgate.htm
And for every anecdote one can muster about their own personal problems with drugs (including alcohol) or observations about “stoners” who couldn’t hold jobs, there are dozens of cases of people who used marijuana and didn’t have any problems with it. They don’t stand out to those who buy into the whole Reefer Madness propaganda as stoners because those people expect a stereotype which is false.
Politicians are 10 years behind the times when it comes to hemp use. People have been fighting for a long time against marijuana and pot prohibition with some movement going on now. Still too slow for those caught up in the jail system for possessing a little weed. Our freedoms have been trampled on by folks who know nothing about how beautiful cannabis can be for someones life, if one learns how to grow cannabis. Keep up the good work.