Paul Armentano: Does it matter if pot is stronger these days?

Flowering cannabis (marijuana) plant

Via OtherWords.org

I’ve worked in marijuana policy reform for nearly 30 years. Throughout my career, opponents of legalization have alleged that “today’s” pot is far more potent — and therefore more dangerous — than the cannabis of prior generations.

For instance, former Drug Czar William Bennett claimed in 1990 that if people from the late 1960s “suck on one of today’s marijuana cigarettes, they’d fall down backwards.”

His successor, Lee Brown, claimed in 1995 that “marijuana is 40 times more potent today” than it was decades ago. Not to be outdone, then-Delaware Sen. Joe Biden opined in 1996: “It’s like comparing buckshot in a shotgun shell to a laser-guided missile.”

Taking their hyperbole at face value, the message is clear: Modern marijuana is exponentially stronger and more harmful than the weak, nearly impotent weed of yesteryear.

But that’s not what the drug warriors of yesteryear warned.

During the 1930s, Henry Anslinger, Commissioner of the Bureau of Narcotics, testified to Congress that cannabis is ”entirely the monster Hyde, the harmful effect of which cannot be measured.”

Decades later, in the 1960s and ‘70s, public officials argued that the pot of their era was even stronger. They claimed that smoking “Woodstock weed” would permanently damage brain cells — and that, therefore, possession needed to be heavily criminalized to protect public health.

By the late 1980s, former Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates opined that advanced growing techniques had increased THC potency to the point that “those who blast some pot on a casual basis… should be taken out and shot.”

Now a new generation of prohibitionists are recycling the same old claims and scare tactics in a misguided effort to re-criminalize more potent cannabis products in states where their production and sale is legal.

Most recently, these calls have even come from the Senate, including from Senators Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) and John Cornyn (R-Texas).

So, is there any truth to the claim that today’s weed is so much stronger?

According to marijuana potency data compiled annually by the University of Mississippi at Oxford since the 1970s, one thing is true: The average amount of THC in domestically produced marijuana has increased over time.

But does this elevated potency equate to an increased safety risk? Not necessarily.

Higher-potency cannabis products, such as hashish, have always existed. Marijuana is still the same plant it has always been — with most of the increase in strength akin to the difference between beer and wine, or between a cup of tea and an espresso.

Consuming too much THC at one time can be temporarily unpleasant. But studies have as of yet failed to identify any independent relationship between cannabis use and mental, physical, or psychiatric illnesses.

Furthermore, THC — regardless of potency or quantity — cannot cause death by lethal overdose. Alcohol, by contrast, is routinely sold in lethal dose quantities. Drinking a handle of vodka could easily kill a person, yet vodka is available in liquor stores throughout the country.

Just as alcohol is available in a variety of potencies, from light beer to hard liquor, so is cannabis. So most users regulate their intake accordingly.

Also like with alcohol, cannabis products of the highest potency comprise a far smaller share of the legal marketplace than do more moderately potent products, like flower. According to data published last year in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence, nearly eight in ten cannabis consumers prefer herbal cannabis over higher-potency infused concentrates.

Virtually no one thinks alcohol over a certain potency should be re-criminalized. The same should be true of cannabis.

Instead, we should simply make sure consumers know how much THC is in the products they consume and what the effects may be. And we need more diligence from regulators to ensure that legal products for adults don’t get diverted to the youth market.

In other words, let’s address public health concerns with facts, not hyperbole.

Paul Armentano is the deputy director of NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. He’s the co-author, with Steve Fox and Mason Tvert, of Marijuana Is Safer: So Why Are We Driving People to Drink?

Anti-marijuana ad from 1935

Paul Armentano: Beware unregulated CBD

An example of beverages said to contain CBD in a Los Angeles grocery store

Via OtherWords.org

One in seven Americans say they use CBD products, according to Gallup.

The rising popularity of these products — which range from oils and gummies to topical salves and most everything in between — is staggering, especially when one considers that much of the public had never even heard of CBD two or three years ago.

CBD stands for cannabidiol, one of over 100 distinct compounds found in the marijuana plant. Unlike THC, it is not significantly mood-altering. Instead, many consumers believe the compound helps treat pain, anxiousness, and other ailments.

But Americans’ exuberance for CBD could well be short-lived. That’s because many products currently marketed under the CBD banner are of low or variable quality.

Back in 2017, the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that only 31 percent of commercially available CBD products contained percentages of cannabidiol that accurately reflected the products’ labeling. Since then, little has changed.

An October 2019 analysis of 30 leading CBD products by the watchdog group LegitScript.com reported that two-thirds possessed significant deviations in CBD content from what was advertised. Typically, these products contained far lower percentages of CBD than the manufacturer promised — a finding that is woefully consistent with prior analyses.

Investigators also reported that some of the products evaluated in the LegitScript analysis tested positive for either solvent residue or elevated levels of heavy metals — findings that are also similar to those of prior reports.

Other analyses have identified even more problematic issues. Some CBD products, for instance, have tested positive for the presence of THC, the primary psychoactive constituent in cannabis, despite being advertised as “THC-free” — an oversight that could cost customers their jobs if they fail a drug test they expected to pass.

Most concerning, some CBD products have tested positive for added psychotropic adulterants — such as dextromethorphan or synthetic cannabinoid agonists. Exposure to these latter agents, typically found in illicit so-called “synthetic marijuana” products like Spice, can lead to serious health consequences.

All this is rapidly creating a “buyer beware” environment for consumers — and potentially placing them at risk.

This situation persists because the federal government — and the Food and Drug Administration in particular — doesn’t regulate either the manufacturing or testing of these products. Despite the presumption of most Americans, the commercial CBD market is entirely unregulated by the FDA.

This is because, until recently, federal law defined all cannabis-derived products as illicit. Now, the FDA and other agencies are playing catch up, with the federal regulators estimating it could take years before the FDA finalizes rules governing the commercial CBD market.

This intransigence is no longer acceptable.

Currently, the heavy burden of overseeing the CBD marketplace falls solely on state regulators in jurisdictions that have legalized cannabis use. But these regulations are not consistent from state to state, and are often far from comprehensive.

Further, state-specific regulations typically only govern CBD products that are sold in licensed dispensaries or retail outlets that exclusively sell cannabis products. They may not cover products sold online or at gas stations, which are subject to virtually no oversight.

Congress facilitated the growth of the commercial CBD market by passing legislation in 2018 that, for the first time, recognizes the production and distribution of certain hemp-derived CBD products. But without federal rules, standards, and oversight, this new market is a wild west — rife with questionable players hawking low-quality or even fraudulent products upon a largely unsuspecting public.

The tens of millions of Americans soliciting this market deserve better. It’s time for federal officials to set appropriate standards to govern this industry — so consumers can be assured, once and for all, they are getting what they pay for

Paul Armentano is the deputy director of NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. He’s the co-author of Marijuana Is Safer: So Why Are We Driving People to Drink? and author of The Citizen’s Guide to State-By-State Marijuana Laws.

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