I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility for potency to be higher now. Maybe not that much but when you have growers with technology that allows them to cultivate flower with as much THC as chemically viable, I don't think it's a stretch to say it's at least reasonably stronger. maybe not by magnitudes though.
eh, more so in the nutrients during the grow and how you handle the plants throughout the grow process. the seeds will def play a decent sized role but the nutrients and proteins along with the cure will be the largest factor towards potency.
There were no artificially selected plants 50,000 years ago, I think agriculture began about 10,000 years ago, and it began with much less calorically dense plants.
When I look up their history, it says they were first cultivated about 5,000 years ago. Wild chickpeas were found near human settlements as far back as 7,500 years ago.
Are you using some alternative archeological source?
"The Holocene (pronunciation: /ˈhɒləˌsiːn, ˈhoʊ-/)[1][2] is the geological epoch that began after the Pleistocene[3] at approximately 11,700 years before present.[4] "
I gave you the sources, the Holocene began just shy of 12k years ago and chick peas were being farmed then. I don't want to discuss it anymore, I don't care.
That's a straight lie. Your source does not say that. If you actually click on the link to chickpea history it says they weren't domesticated until much later.
I guess I'll tag you as "willfully ignorant and incapable of reading and understanding basic sources." Interacting with you had certainly been a negative experience.
How can you be a conspiracy theorist or an alternative history buff and crumble under such mild scrutiny? Open your mind up a bit more and don't go around classifying those who don't immediately agree with you as "negative experiences", you sound foolish.
You weren't able to read your own sources. You just read a Wikipedia page that said that a set of plant species were domesticated during the early Holocene and then used it to claim that chickpeas were domesticated 12,000 years ago.
I think garbanzo is a type of chick pea (the only type I've ever cooked with). There is another type of chickpea that has variable color from green to brown and is widely found in India and elsewhere.
Australian tribes grew all sorts of stuff in semi-wild gardens, as do natives of the Amazonian forest. It is not a hard stretch to think that agriculture started much, much earlier than thought, but only becomes noticeable in the archeological record once it becomes larger scale.
Domestication only becomes noticeable in the archeological record when the plants start showing phenotypic variation, often in the form of larger seed sizes. I also pointed out that the precursor plants were not as nutritious as their modern variants.
I wouldn't say "better" but for sure "differently" and your question is why I would imagine pot is more potent now. A person can very quickly learn how potent a strain is, but how nutritious our food is isn't as obvious.
I think if you look at the wine industry guys in California began to dominate the industry with backyard high tech distilleries. I think the spread of the internet over the exact period you're talking about is a big part of it. The exchange of information and techniques with the availability to get seeds shipped from other places is more the reason for it. I think the conspiracy will come in when Monsanto decides it wants to own all cannabis seeds....for safety's sake.
I'm with you. I really appreciate the energy you put into the post.
IMO, as a daily chronic smoker for 25+ years and former commercial grower, pot is, on average, "stronger" these days.
Not that killer bud wasn't available, but that the sheer magnitude of the selective breeding to increase desirable traits (potency, ratio/odor/taste/yield/flowering duration/length of daylight cycle for sexual expression/appearance/burning quality/disease-pest resistance/ etc etc...)
I have always smoked potent pot. Back in the 90's it was a little harder to find the good stuff sometimes, but it was always available. These days i'd have to go pretty far out of my way to find some shitty bud.
Potency is mostly a genetic trait. You can increase it slightly with good growing practices by ensuring the plant reaches it's full potential, but mostly it's yield and duration that are effected positively with max co2, nutrients and environment.
So what I'm saying is maybe you can increase your yield, but the only way to effect potency is through genetics and breeding. Giving the plant more light (assuming you had "enough" to start) won't make it more potent, just bigger.
I've smoked for more than 30 years. I'm curious if you, as a long-time smoker, find it difficult to get really high on even good stuff?
I still get high, it just seems that the high clears my body so much more quickly than it used to. I'm not putting this down to difference in weed, rather I imagine it's a difference in how my body is processing it. Do you notice anything like this?
Yeah, I can definitely observe my tolerance build if I'm smoking alot, usually I'll switch up the bud or I'll take a little break.
If I'm smoking anything other than 100% sativa, I find I build a tolerance pretty fast. Like Kush for example, love it, but can't smoke it for more than a few days.
But I haven't actually smoked a joint in months. I've discovered concentrates. Shatter, wax and rosin. The idea of drying some flowers and rolling it up in paper and burning it seems almost antiquated to me now.
To further support your point, with legalization both recreational and medical, companies are producing very specifically dosed edibles or pills so people can make careful and controlled decisions about taking in cannabinoids. At no other time in history have humans had more knowledge about cannabis. It is only getting safer.
Sure but why would someone knowingly, more than once, buy shitty and less potent weed? Natural selection at work. The people with better plants are more successful, grow better plants.
It's definitely stronger today, with THC levels measuring out at 25 to 30% fairly commonplace. While a wild grown strain would test at around 10% THC, however, with the lesser, you would simply ingest more for the same effect. Additionally, the weed that started the Reefer Madness craze was filled with seeds and stems and bugs and cat hair.
I remember skunk weed basically 'coming out' early nineties. Generally it was just normal sativa or indica or hash (all great and sometimes quite strong though).
This is true but most people will smoke so much every time that tolerance Increases 100x. Then a person is smoking a whole joint of great weed to get high. Tolerance, the great mediator.
Yep, its not exactly like alcohol where the difference between a pint of beer and a pint of liquor is your ability to resist the effects of gravity. Get high, then some some more weed...and you're still just plain ol high. Anyone I know that's gotten "too high," they fell asleep. People I know that have gotten too drunk have killed themselves and loved ones.
If not an everyday smoker this also turns a lot of people off to smoking weed. People see their friends taking big buffs off a bong and take a few themselves. To a non everyday smoker if they get too high it's becomes extremely uncomfortable. A small hit is enough to feel good. Too much weed is a bad idea for a newcomer and will almost always lead to anxiety and paranoia and turns that person off to weed. Then they turn back to the trusty alcohol.
Spot on. Tolerance has a big influence on what experience the user has.
As for the OP weed has gotten stronger because of advancements in the field and selective breeding. They aren't just breeding them for potency though but also flavor/aroma. The same thing has been done for hops, weeds cousin. Hop strains have been bred for higher alpha acid content and ironically the same flavor/aroma compounds found in cannabis.
Weed makes you think. It makes your brain work faster. It makes you question a motive behind an action. Yes, I'm saying it. Weed makes you smarter. Not book smarter, SMARTER in the entire sense. And you wonder why there's such a big propaganda against it?
That's the first time I've seen someone say that. To me, it's maligned because it makes you happy. Happiness should only be something you get from church or other wholesome activities-- many would have us believe.
It can go both ways. If your stoned all the time it absolutely doesn't make you smarter. If used responsibly then yes it can help you grow mentally. There's a term burnout for a reason.
Definitely. Everything should be done in moderation. Recent studies have shown that a moderate use of weed can help with memory loss when aging, as well as fights against cancer cells. Again, and then we wonder why it's illegal.
It's not just weed. Look at the Guardian study of lsd effects on the brain. Literally lights up your entire brain. Keep the sheep in line and sick. Bill insurance and let the money flow. Jail non violent drug offenders. Etc. All comes down to $
weed was complete garbage in the 1980's. As someone that was alive and may or may not of smoked any weed in the 1980's, I think this is a load of bullshit.
It depended on who you knew. There was good pot available in the 1980's in the PNW, but a lot on the market was also crap. I would have to guess that it probably didn't exceed 18% THC though, or did rarely. Strains have gotten better, practices have also. Saying it's 30-50x times stronger is absurd. There was weed coming from Mexico that was crap, but people would buy it anyway because it was often the only game in town.
In short-- I remember the sticky-icky in the 80's.... sometimes.
I've watched things change a lot, and live in a legal state. Last I heard, many strains are getting upward of 26% now. I think it's going to be a holy grail to reach 30% THC, or maybe someone claims to by now. The bar does seem to be rising.
After a quick Google search, a few already have ......
Manali West’s Nova OG may be the highest testing cannabis strain in history. Manali West, a cultivation company that specializes in rare and unique strains and concentrates, and they’ve certainly created a potent plant.
Featuring 35.6 percent THC, this strain is an extremely potent, top-shelf, designer bud. This strain is a hybrid of Top Dawg Seeds’ Stardawg Guava and an OG/Diesel cross. Back in 2012, Stardawg Guava won best sativa at the Denver Cannabis Cup.
The highest THC strains are beaten almost yearly. Pot is most definitely stronger than it was 20 years ago, but that doesn't mean "street pot" is much stronger than 80s "street pot."
Anecdotal evidence, but in my experience the potency is a good bit higher now than it was in the '80s. Most of what we could get on the market back then was red haired sinsemilla. Seedy, stemmy, and compressed. It did the job, but not like some of the stuff you can get today.
There were different grades of homegrown back then. Usually if you heard "homegrown" it was some kid fucking around in the woods that managed to get a plant to grow but couldn't tell males from females, didn't know when to harvest, let alone how to properly trim a fresh bud, and maybe they ended up with some grassy tasting straggly seedy buds.
Sometimes you'd run into someone who knew what they were doing, but the growing process has changed. People used to grow from seed usually outdoors, now they grow from clones often indoors. I know a guy who was turning $100,000 under the table (obvs) a year, growing outdoors from seed back in the '80s. Not a big-time grower, just a sideline stream of income. Pretty good side money.
You have so many more options nowadays for products too. In the '80s, you pretty much had bud and hash and that was about it. You had to make your own edibles. I can't wait to walk into a store one of these days. Hopefully my state goes full legal before I'm too old to enjoy it.
Most of what we could get on the market back then was red haired sinsemilla. Seedy, stemmy, and compressed.
Sinsemilla by definition is seedless. It is the name for culling all the male plants to make the females increase their THC production instead of growing seeds.
So it's a label for a method rather than a strain? Well, hunh.
Except that I'm certain that the stuff we were getting was seedy, yet called that anyway. Which, if they were growing it from seed and culling the males, would make sense because you still have the potential for pollination with that method (rogue males, wind-borne pollen). So, maybe they were shooting for "red-haired sinse" and ended up calling it that despite it not really being the good, quality seedless stuff. Or maybe it was just dirt brown brick shwag from Mexico that they were selling clueless teenagers...it did have red hairs, but it wasn't all that potent. And it was always compressed.
Most Mexican pot is like that, they grow it in fields and do not bother with culling the males, hence why Mexican weed is garbage and most of the high quality pot you see today is grown here in the states. I even remember reading somewhere recently that American grown weed is being smuggled to Mexico and sold for top dollar.
The weed in my day was much better than the crap you kids smoke. I actually got to smoke real Thai stick. The shit gave me a panic attack it was so good.
Just so you know, panic attacks are common when hitting sativas that are stronger than you're used to.
You're literally just an old fart who thinks weed was better in the old days because you have no concept of tolerance. When I first started it took about two bowls to get me so gone that I couldn't even get up to take more hits. Now I have to blow through 5 grams to get the same effect.
haha!! You kids are great. I would have loved getting high with you. In my day it was "Wow dude" this, and "Wow dude" that. haha. Do you think Indica would calm an old fucker like me down? I'm all "ears".
oh absolutely, a nice indica wont have any of that racy panicky feeling with it. that or a strain with CBD in it will help. CBD has helped me more with anxiety and panic attacks than benzos ever did. I didnt believe that stuff at first, but then tried it out after moving here and its amazing seeing the drugs being replaced with weed.
Met an older couple that use pot pills instead of a stream of xanax now, rheumatoid arthritis patients using lotions and topicals to get the dexterity back to their hands, old ladies buying concentrates to help with numerous issues.
Thank you so much. I mean it. I have a loved one who is schizo and when he goes off the "deep end" weed is the only thing that calms him down. He is autistic and he was molested by family members when he was a child. Two hits and he is calm. It's like a miracle.
Weren't those Thai sticks dipped in opium? My stepdad was talking about these the other day and he said the one he had was made with opium and use to give him panic attacks too.
I don't know if it is stronger overall, but it's certainly easier to get better stuff now. We used to smoke Mexican brick weed the sketchy kid sold when I was in high school, and now I can mail order White Widow or Gorilla Glue or whatever.
It's also easier to know you're getting an indica or sativa or just a CBD strand.
Here's my two cents. Just to jump to another drug for a second, Cocaine was bad, but used by the upper and middle classes so it was hard to demonise. Along comes the crack cocaine epidemic to show that crack makes people into monsters. Much easier to target crack and sell the story to the public. So back to weed, Cannabis was used by black and white people, but to make it into something monstrous we got Marijuana, the bad mexican variant.
Now that most people realise cannabis isn't the demon our parents talked about, along comes Skunk, the new demon.
Its all bullshit. Its marketing pure and simple. You need to create this demon and sell it to the sheep
That was my comment. And while I fully understand that high potency marijuana cultivation has been going on as long as there have been interested gardeners that like to smoke pot, high potency pot's relative availability has skyrocketed over the years.
I also grew up in the 80's. And I read High Times back then. Iirc, High Times started in the late 70's, and they were showcasing hand cultivated pot long before it was generally available. By the early 90's you could find high test if you knew where to look, but it wasn't until the 00's that it was literally everywhere.
I often wonder if the potency is too much, in favour of THC. One hit and I'm fucked, and on the brink of a panic attack. I like that, soon, I'll be able to select an exact strain that has a good amount of CBD, which to me seems like a more balanced plant, closer to its natural state. This is all speculation on my part though.
I have found that edibles are much better for someone like me, who can get paranoid quite easily from weed. The high doesn't hit quite as fast and hard, so I'm eased into it. Lastnight, I ate 1/4 of a cookie and felt great.
I used to work in the industry (3 years ago?), and I have to say that the top THC% strains are getting stronger constantly. Back then strains were starting to break 30%, and people thought the testing labs were broken. Well, they weren't, and more and more strains are getting to be >30%.
I think it is possible that modern strains have higher THC than in the past due to selective breeding (in the range of 10% more, roughly double maybe) but when it is presented as a problem that I disagree. E.g. "Weed today is much stronger than before, more psychological problems, therefore not a "natural plant" and must be controlled for safety reasons."
That is BS because weed has been concentrated into hash for many hundreds if not thousands of years, so the THC concentration in any particular strain is going to be significantly less than than the concentrated form, so there is no "new" problem with stronger strains. People have always smoked hash, especially in Europe and the Middle East.
IMO, any increase in pot related mental problems is due to an increase in meth usage. That stuff can do some damage, and I've heard, and find plausible, that combining weed and meth usage can trigger mental problems.
I agree with your first two paragraphs. I don't necessarily think that all mental health problems associated with people smoking weed can be attributed to meth usage. I know for a fact that my wife has never used meth, but a strong sativa will make her paranoid as hell. She is much better with indicas.
Weed, like anything else, is not for everyone. Some people are going to have bad reactions to it.
Hell, I got prescribed Paxil 20 years ago and it made me feel like absolute shit, mentally. Brain chemistry is highly individual.
Some people should just avoid weed, but about the only way they would know that is if they tried it and it didn't go well.
It's a fact that proper strains have been selectively bred for higher potency (and more recently, lots of other things) year after year after year. There's a reason why millions of privatized money is being dumped into cannabis genetics.
Of course, we've always had good strains, afterall, where do you think our modern day genotypes/phenotypes come from? They've just been few and far between and very regional - like I saw you mention Hawaii, for instance, and Afghani. Then on the other hand you have the complete schwag bail weed that was much more prevalent back then.
But, yeah, that 30-50x number is bullshit. The most potent cannabis I've seen these days is hovering just under 30%. So take that, and figure that back in the 60s and 70s potency, on the average was around 10-15%, we could probably safely say that potency had probably doubled, maybe tripled dealing with both extremes.
For the first time in half a century marijuana is being produced on a professional, industrial scale. At least in some states. I think it's reasonable to assume the potency of the product might increase with the rise in production if for no other reason than the fact that more people with the skills to grow high quality weed are able to and do so who otherwise wouldn't for fear of criminal consequences. I doubt the potency has increased 30 times what it was in the 70s but I'll tell you this, the first time I smoked medical grade bud from CO it was absolutely stronger than the shit I was used to.
The genetics have been changed to make the THC content much higher. That much is clear. However, there was a vid from the 50s or 60s that showed that THC made the user nervous/paranoid while CBC (?) made you mellow. Humboldt Gold used to be a much softer mellower high.
Hello!
Yes lets. I am an experienced grower who is fascinated with the history of cannabis. As I understand the ancient Indus civilizations were the first to cultivate marijuana specifically for trichomes, because more trichomes equals more hash product. This is where the Kush variety comes from, heavy buds nicely spaced on a strong stalk. Hash is a potent high THC product.
I think the only truth to this claim is that in the past decades many growers were selective breeding high THC yielding plants with no regard for CBD, CBN, etc. Fortunately that way of thinking has reversed and now people want a nice balanced medical effect.
Specifically, the ingredient "Kaneh bosem", which has been described as an "aromatic grass".
Most English translations sneakily choose to translate this as "Cinnamon" or "Calamus", other fragrant plants.
If you've experienced them yourself, and you think about that verse in the context of everything for more than 30 seconds, it seems ridiculous to think that a "holy anointing oil" that brings the priests "closer to God" doesn't contain an ingredient with psychoactive properties.
Now, take it a step further. Understand that "Christ" literally means "anointed one". Meaning he got his title that his religion is named after from being anointed with this oil, which most likely contained cannabis.
And it's not a far stretch from there when you realize that throughout the gospels Jesus is basically going around acting like a giant stoner, telling everyone to love everyone and quit being such dicks.
So, to make this comment relevant to your post, cannabis was at least strong enough on it's own several thousand years ago that it helped contribute to religions that are still followed to this day.
But lets go even further.
Ever wonder about the "burning bush"? Ever smoked DMT? Know where it comes from?
DMT is in everything, including our brains. It is more present in certain plants. One plant in particular that contains large amounts of it is Acacia, which is mentioned frequently in the old testament. Hell, it's what the Ark of the Covenant was built out of. The story of the burning bush is fairly literal. Moses caught enough of the smoke that he tripped BALLS and probably really had a conversation with "I Am"
Drugs play a major, positive role in our society, and they always have. I shed the D.A.R.E. programming and stopped giving a fuck about my parents judging my, and my life is going fantastically. I've worked out most of my childhood traumas through various LSD trips. I keep myself from blowing up at and alienating my friends and family by chilling out and smoking a bowl when I'm upset. I work hard every day to keep making salary so that I can afford to continue to smoke and take psychedelics.
I've avoided the dangerous stuff like heroin, and as a result, all of the problems I've experienced as a result of drugs have not been from the drugs themselves, but the drug war and the anti-drug sentiment.
Grower for 20+ years here. Cannabis is indeed more potent than it was. However, that's a good thing. Up until 20 or 30 years ago there were only wild-grown strains. I'll spare the details but in summary what's happened is a perfectly natural progression. We've hybridized. We've bred strain after strain, over and over, backcrossed again and again to create better, more potent, more resilient strains. This has been done by countless individuals in private settings over decades. The result is cannabis that's more flavorful and efficient. You smoke less and enjoy it for longer.
I started smoking in the 80's. There was high test strains then, near the same potency of strains now.
I live in BC Canada and by the late 80's there was "wheelchair weed" that "escaped" from the University. It was as strong as anything you can find today.
Mind you there was a lot of garbage too... we used to call is scambodian
you are a fool if you think weed grown indoors, in a controlled environment, is not MUCH more potent than the shit they were growing in fields in the 60-70's.
Now we have wax/oils that kick the shit out of flower.
I do believe it's more potent, as someone who has used then and now. However, today you have so many more hybrids than was available in the 70s and 80s. The science of pot growing has excelled by leaps and bounds. Frankly, 30 years from now the stuff will be even more potent as they learn new techniques and develop new strains.
I wouldn't say marijuana has gotten stronger across the board.. but if you compared today's best with the best from the 70's/80's then I'm sure you could tell the difference. Also there are things like wax and rosin that they produce that have increased concentrations of THC. Geography plays a role too, I'm sure someone living in Southern California has grater access to higher quality weed than someone who lives in Oklahoma or something like that, my friend from Michigan said he'd have to drive 3 hours if he wanted to go to a clinic so he was stuck with buying from a dealer who grew his own stuff and it wasn't that good.
I used to buy great indoor-grown weed in Oklahoma in the 1980s. There was also plenty of shit around. It all depends on what your connections are/were.
I think this is an extremely valid and well laid out post. Taking all those points into consideration? Do you not think that medical strains and such have gotten more potent recently? I get that from your timeframe and perspective, it's just a plant with varying potencies- but what about the old stoners that swear it was less powerful "in their day"? At standup bit by Louis CK comes to mind.
It's definitely more potent but that's due to science. A solid hydroponic setup can dwarf a soil grow. Then there's nutrients, light technology, fabric pots, air pots, aeroponics, autoflowers, decades of concurrent breeding, thousands of strains, endless possibilities, etc.
As far as potency goes, it would make sense from an evolutionary standpoint that humans at some point in time began harvesting marijuana and regrowing it based on the plants THC properties (Plant X gets you higher than Plant Y, so let's grow more Plant X). this causes the specie's genome to adapt over time through human artificial selection. This could explain why weed is considered stronger now than before
Also consider that extracts (dabs, wax, oil, 710) are all the rage these days. So many people I know don't even burn flower anymore. Extracts are a whole other level of high, some are over 90% THC. Imho there's nothing wrong with strong herb, bring it. It helps deprogram from conditioning on many levels and puts people back in touch with inwardness. A lot of the paranoia and anxiety people feel is just the underpinnings of their false mental constructs being shaken.
Cannabis wasnt native to America, it is believed to have originated in the kush valley region. It was brought here by colonists for sail making. So I dont see how native Americans could have used it for thousands of years.
So the issue with potency is genetic diversity of cannabinoids and terpenes that give cannabis its actual effects. THC is only one of many components within cannabis that has medicinal benefit.
There's a wide range of other cannabinoids and their precursors including CBD, CBG, CBDA, THCA, THCV, etc. All of which have different effects, and different levels of psycho-activity. In fact, some of them are really grounding, and counter the effects of THC and can totally cap or mellow out a THC high.
THCA which is the precursor to THC is NOT psycho-active, but has almost all the same medical benefits of anti-inflammation, neuro-protection, and anti-microbial effects. If you take THCA while you're already high on THC it will actually ground your high. The same is similarly true of CBD, CBD and THC have a synergistic effect and if you take more CBD then THC it also grounds the high from THC, as CBD is mostly non-psycho-active.
What happened during prohibition was we lost most of the genetic diversity of cannabis, as people were specifically breeding high THC strains as those are what got consumers high. So arguably, the blackmarket actually pushed THC higher, while not considering other cannabinoids. They did this because at the time people were mostly just smoking cannabis to get high, and not consuming it medicinally through edibles or tinctures. This is what the market demanded, so the growers simply followed the demand.
Previous to prohibition one of the primary forms of consuming cannabis was through tincture. Eli Lilly for example even use to sell cannabis tinctures back in the day.
Where we are at today with genetic testing, and more advanced growing technology including indoor growing we're able to pretty much grow for whatever characteristics and qualities we desire as long as we have the available seeds to grow from.
I can't say specifically what cannabis was like in the past, as I wasn't alive until the 80's personally, but I would assume plants were breed for THC content, and likely not very healthy or genetically diverse for other cannabinoids.
Previous to prohibition, naturally occurring cannabis was likely much more full spectrum with more equal ratios of most of the cannabinoids present and probably didn't even really get you high as we know it today with considerable variety between the several different genetic subtypes.
There was potent stuff around say in 1970, and thousands of years before that. Skunk #1 was a huge tech advancement for growers, as it combined Afghani and a couple Sativas- one of them being Acapulco Gold.
Now those pure landraces by themselves are extremely potent. Acapulco Gold is a great Sativa and very frosty. Afghani is a solid indica and very gooey. When they come together you have hybrid vigor and the result is even more potent.
The thing is that most smokers in the 60s and 70s- hell even in the 90s didn't have access to potent non-compressed strains. Vast majority of smokers were smoking Mexican brick weed, full of stems and seeds. Not even sinsemilla, so the potency was definitely lacking. Sometimes there were even male plants in there. They obviously didn't cull them- hence the seeds.
That shit was very low potency. Then came the big BC bud boom and people all over America started getting access to indoor grown hybdrid or indica strains- although by the time it got to market it had almost always been screened for kief, effectively "cutting" the pot.
The vast majority of casual consumers have seen the potency of their supply go up exponentially in the past 30 or 40 years.
The conspiracy was that the strain the fed was using for research was not potent at all, had ground up leaf and stem throughout, and generally produced poor results in studies because the government wanted to show it had no value.
So they deliberately only had one strain for many years for medical studies. That was the real conspiracy.
They've been doing shady stuff like that for a long time. Reminds me of how they weigh the pot, soil, leaves etc. when they do a drug bust so they can claim crazy numbers.
"We got 2 tons of marijuana off the streets!"
Great, you just made it more inconvenient for people to enjoy their lives, good job government.
Recommended read: Jack Herer - The Emperor Wears No Clothes. 12th edition @ 31 years of continuous print. Jack provides an insight into the Marijuana Law of 1937 & why Randolph Hearst, Andrew Mellon and DuPont all pushed their agenda against commercial hemp. Jack was one of the major supporters for legalization until his passing in 2010.
The best I can recollect it was 1973, the first time I smoked the evil weed. In this time frame, I have easily consumed more than my weight. Original strains were all old school: Colombian Red Bud, Panama Red, Acapulco Gold, Thai sticks, etc. THC levels were low in comparison to today strains, hovering around 8-10%. Thai sticks were a little different, most were dipped in opium. Most of today's strains are much higher octane ranging from 15-25% THC. Plants strains are now manipulated' to produce higher levels of THC & CDB's, along with higher yields and the flavor of the week. Original landrace strains are still available today and can obtained with a little effort. Landrace Thai, a100% sativa, is producing 23-24% THC.
1) The best evidence that human's have been injesting cannabis forever is that WE HAVE CANNABINOID RECEPTORS IN OUR BRAINS. Just like opium, we evolved alongside these plants and our bodies are optimized to make use of them.
2) The war on drugs was actually started in 1930 by Harry Angslinger; a prohibition agent looking for something else to justify his continued employment after alcohol prohibition was over-turned. Nixon ramped it up in the 70s, but the edifice had already been put in place way before then.
3) Weed is absolutely stronger these days due to the introduction of hydroponic technology. If you can control all the variables that go into plant growth, you can maximize your yields & potency. That combined with new genetics means you've got much stronger weed. Check out this High Times best strains of 1977: http://imgur.com/RuMdpC3
That shit was whoosky.
This is true but most people will smoke so much every time that tolerance Increases 100x. Then a person is smoking a whole joint of great weed to get high. Tolerance, the great mediator.
Domestication only becomes noticeable in the archeological record when the plants start showing phenotypic variation, often in the form of larger seed sizes. I also pointed out that the precursor plants were not as nutritious as their modern variants.
They've been doing shady stuff like that for a long time. Reminds me of how they weigh the pot, soil, leaves etc. when they do a drug bust so they can claim crazy numbers.
"We got 2 tons of marijuana off the streets!"
Great, you just made it more inconvenient for people to enjoy their lives, good job government.
117 comments
n/a TheCrawlerFL 2017-06-08
I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility for potency to be higher now. Maybe not that much but when you have growers with technology that allows them to cultivate flower with as much THC as chemically viable, I don't think it's a stretch to say it's at least reasonably stronger. maybe not by magnitudes though.
n/a could_of_could_of_ 2017-06-08
Well lets assume I'm wrong about all of this for a second.
Lots of folks are still doing low-tech home grows, outdoor ops etc. Not everyone is getting their hands on the lab strands.
n/a YoshiTakimatsui 2017-06-08
I'd even say my home grown stuff is stronger maybe it's all in the seed
n/a moparornocar 2017-06-08
eh, more so in the nutrients during the grow and how you handle the plants throughout the grow process. the seeds will def play a decent sized role but the nutrients and proteins along with the cure will be the largest factor towards potency.
n/a MollyNostrils23 2017-06-08
Sample or it didn't happen.
n/a pabbseven 2017-06-08
We grow food better so why not pot?
n/a could_of_could_of_ 2017-06-08
Big Mike wants a word with you on that
Things are changing all the time, sometimes for better, sometimes worse. Who knows what growing conditions were like 50,000 years ago?
n/a get_it_together1 2017-06-08
There were no artificially selected plants 50,000 years ago, I think agriculture began about 10,000 years ago, and it began with much less calorically dense plants.
n/a could_of_could_of_ 2017-06-08
chick peas were grown over 12,000 years ago in the Levant area and they're very high in caloric density, along with other ancient grains.
n/a get_it_together1 2017-06-08
When I look up their history, it says they were first cultivated about 5,000 years ago. Wild chickpeas were found near human settlements as far back as 7,500 years ago.
Are you using some alternative archeological source?
n/a could_of_could_of_ 2017-06-08
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic_founder_crops
n/a get_it_together1 2017-06-08
That doesn't support your claims, it supports mine.
n/a could_of_could_of_ 2017-06-08
"The Holocene (pronunciation: /ˈhɒləˌsiːn, ˈhoʊ-/)[1][2] is the geological epoch that began after the Pleistocene[3] at approximately 11,700 years before present.[4] "
11,700 =/= 5,000.
n/a get_it_together1 2017-06-08
Which of those crops were domesticated more than 10,000 years ago? Nowhere does it say they were all domesticated before the Holocene began.
n/a could_of_could_of_ 2017-06-08
I gave you the sources, the Holocene began just shy of 12k years ago and chick peas were being farmed then. I don't want to discuss it anymore, I don't care.
n/a get_it_together1 2017-06-08
That's a straight lie. Your source does not say that. If you actually click on the link to chickpea history it says they weren't domesticated until much later.
n/a could_of_could_of_ 2017-06-08
im putting you on my ignore list FYI.
n/a get_it_together1 2017-06-08
I guess I'll tag you as "willfully ignorant and incapable of reading and understanding basic sources." Interacting with you had certainly been a negative experience.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chickpea#History
n/a HelperBot_ 2017-06-08
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n/a big_chonka 2017-06-08
Wow how embarrassing is that, he just blocked you and ran away crying because you dare challenge him, snowflake.
n/a chikinbizkit 2017-06-08
How can you be a conspiracy theorist or an alternative history buff and crumble under such mild scrutiny? Open your mind up a bit more and don't go around classifying those who don't immediately agree with you as "negative experiences", you sound foolish.
n/a could_of_could_of_ 2017-06-08
because he wasn't able to read my sources. I do not wish to have a text based conversation with someone who lacks basic reading comprehension.
If you want to bring up points relevant to the original post I would be more than happy to discuss that with you.
If you want to argue about the chickpea dude, you can go on my list as well.
n/a get_it_together1 2017-06-08
You weren't able to read your own sources. You just read a Wikipedia page that said that a set of plant species were domesticated during the early Holocene and then used it to claim that chickpeas were domesticated 12,000 years ago.
n/a toomuchpork 2017-06-08
What's the difference between a garbanzo bean and a chick pea?
n/a get_it_together1 2017-06-08
I think garbanzo is a type of chick pea (the only type I've ever cooked with). There is another type of chickpea that has variable color from green to brown and is widely found in India and elsewhere.
n/a blazersativa 2017-06-08
But can you get high on chick peas?
n/a arbitrarysquid 2017-06-08
you can if you wrap them in marijuana and smoke them.
n/a toomuchpork 2017-06-08
Thanks for the staight answer but it is a set up for a joke.
"I've never paid for a garbanzo bean on me"
Is the crass answer
n/a HokusBas 2017-06-08
Australian tribes grew all sorts of stuff in semi-wild gardens, as do natives of the Amazonian forest. It is not a hard stretch to think that agriculture started much, much earlier than thought, but only becomes noticeable in the archeological record once it becomes larger scale.
n/a get_it_together1 2017-06-08
Domestication only becomes noticeable in the archeological record when the plants start showing phenotypic variation, often in the form of larger seed sizes. I also pointed out that the precursor plants were not as nutritious as their modern variants.
n/a donuthazard 2017-06-08
I wouldn't say "better" but for sure "differently" and your question is why I would imagine pot is more potent now. A person can very quickly learn how potent a strain is, but how nutritious our food is isn't as obvious.
n/a SmedleysButler 2017-06-08
I think if you look at the wine industry guys in California began to dominate the industry with backyard high tech distilleries. I think the spread of the internet over the exact period you're talking about is a big part of it. The exchange of information and techniques with the availability to get seeds shipped from other places is more the reason for it. I think the conspiracy will come in when Monsanto decides it wants to own all cannabis seeds....for safety's sake.
n/a arbitrarysquid 2017-06-08
Wine is not distilled. Spirits are distilled. Distilled wine is brandy.
n/a MollyNostrils23 2017-06-08
Brandy is distilled wine - TIL. Thanks.
n/a SigmundFloyd76 2017-06-08
I'm with you. I really appreciate the energy you put into the post.
IMO, as a daily chronic smoker for 25+ years and former commercial grower, pot is, on average, "stronger" these days.
Not that killer bud wasn't available, but that the sheer magnitude of the selective breeding to increase desirable traits (potency, ratio/odor/taste/yield/flowering duration/length of daylight cycle for sexual expression/appearance/burning quality/disease-pest resistance/ etc etc...)
I have always smoked potent pot. Back in the 90's it was a little harder to find the good stuff sometimes, but it was always available. These days i'd have to go pretty far out of my way to find some shitty bud.
Potency is mostly a genetic trait. You can increase it slightly with good growing practices by ensuring the plant reaches it's full potential, but mostly it's yield and duration that are effected positively with max co2, nutrients and environment.
So what I'm saying is maybe you can increase your yield, but the only way to effect potency is through genetics and breeding. Giving the plant more light (assuming you had "enough" to start) won't make it more potent, just bigger.
n/a arbitrarysquid 2017-06-08
I've smoked for more than 30 years. I'm curious if you, as a long-time smoker, find it difficult to get really high on even good stuff?
I still get high, it just seems that the high clears my body so much more quickly than it used to. I'm not putting this down to difference in weed, rather I imagine it's a difference in how my body is processing it. Do you notice anything like this?
n/a SigmundFloyd76 2017-06-08
Hey sorry, missed your reply.
Yeah, I can definitely observe my tolerance build if I'm smoking alot, usually I'll switch up the bud or I'll take a little break.
If I'm smoking anything other than 100% sativa, I find I build a tolerance pretty fast. Like Kush for example, love it, but can't smoke it for more than a few days.
But I haven't actually smoked a joint in months. I've discovered concentrates. Shatter, wax and rosin. The idea of drying some flowers and rolling it up in paper and burning it seems almost antiquated to me now.
I highly recommend the dabs.
Cheers bro!
n/a too_old_still_party 2017-06-08
...and lots of folks have really great genetics and high tech indoor grows.
n/a BakingTheCookiesRigh 2017-06-08
To further support your point, with legalization both recreational and medical, companies are producing very specifically dosed edibles or pills so people can make careful and controlled decisions about taking in cannabinoids. At no other time in history have humans had more knowledge about cannabis. It is only getting safer.
n/a donuthazard 2017-06-08
Sure but why would someone knowingly, more than once, buy shitty and less potent weed? Natural selection at work. The people with better plants are more successful, grow better plants.
n/a could_of_could_of_ 2017-06-08
Not everyone has more than one source they're aware of.
n/a blazersativa 2017-06-08
It's definitely stronger today, with THC levels measuring out at 25 to 30% fairly commonplace. While a wild grown strain would test at around 10% THC, however, with the lesser, you would simply ingest more for the same effect. Additionally, the weed that started the Reefer Madness craze was filled with seeds and stems and bugs and cat hair.
n/a MollyNostrils23 2017-06-08
I remember skunk weed basically 'coming out' early nineties. Generally it was just normal sativa or indica or hash (all great and sometimes quite strong though).
n/a trumps_amygdala 2017-06-08
even it was, just means you use less, not ban it.
n/a could_of_could_of_ 2017-06-08
That's the funny part about this.
If it is more potent, that's great! The more potent it is, the less it takes to get the desired effect.
If someone can take a single puff and feel how they'd like to feel, rather than a joint, that's a lot better for their lungs.
n/a Demty 2017-06-08
This is true but most people will smoke so much every time that tolerance Increases 100x. Then a person is smoking a whole joint of great weed to get high. Tolerance, the great mediator.
n/a could_of_could_of_ 2017-06-08
Yep, its not exactly like alcohol where the difference between a pint of beer and a pint of liquor is your ability to resist the effects of gravity. Get high, then some some more weed...and you're still just plain ol high. Anyone I know that's gotten "too high," they fell asleep. People I know that have gotten too drunk have killed themselves and loved ones.
n/a Demty 2017-06-08
If not an everyday smoker this also turns a lot of people off to smoking weed. People see their friends taking big buffs off a bong and take a few themselves. To a non everyday smoker if they get too high it's becomes extremely uncomfortable. A small hit is enough to feel good. Too much weed is a bad idea for a newcomer and will almost always lead to anxiety and paranoia and turns that person off to weed. Then they turn back to the trusty alcohol.
n/a dfu3568ete6 2017-06-08
Spot on. Tolerance has a big influence on what experience the user has.
As for the OP weed has gotten stronger because of advancements in the field and selective breeding. They aren't just breeding them for potency though but also flavor/aroma. The same thing has been done for hops, weeds cousin. Hop strains have been bred for higher alpha acid content and ironically the same flavor/aroma compounds found in cannabis.
n/a Birdinhandandbush 2017-06-08
Stop being logical!
n/a LOST1992 2017-06-08
Weed makes you think. It makes your brain work faster. It makes you question a motive behind an action. Yes, I'm saying it. Weed makes you smarter. Not book smarter, SMARTER in the entire sense. And you wonder why there's such a big propaganda against it?
n/a basketodeplorables 2017-06-08
That's the first time I've seen someone say that. To me, it's maligned because it makes you happy. Happiness should only be something you get from church or other wholesome activities-- many would have us believe.
n/a Demty 2017-06-08
It can go both ways. If your stoned all the time it absolutely doesn't make you smarter. If used responsibly then yes it can help you grow mentally. There's a term burnout for a reason.
n/a LOST1992 2017-06-08
Definitely. Everything should be done in moderation. Recent studies have shown that a moderate use of weed can help with memory loss when aging, as well as fights against cancer cells. Again, and then we wonder why it's illegal.
n/a Demty 2017-06-08
It's not just weed. Look at the Guardian study of lsd effects on the brain. Literally lights up your entire brain. Keep the sheep in line and sick. Bill insurance and let the money flow. Jail non violent drug offenders. Etc. All comes down to $
n/a cjluthy 2017-06-08
Which, in effect is really only about one thing, and that is CONTROL.
n/a LOST1992 2017-06-08
EXACTLY.
n/a BakingTheCookiesRigh 2017-06-08
Same with stimulants and steroids; there are limits to physiology and diminishing returns eventually.
n/a basketodeplorables 2017-06-08
It depended on who you knew. There was good pot available in the 1980's in the PNW, but a lot on the market was also crap. I would have to guess that it probably didn't exceed 18% THC though, or did rarely. Strains have gotten better, practices have also. Saying it's 30-50x times stronger is absurd. There was weed coming from Mexico that was crap, but people would buy it anyway because it was often the only game in town.
In short-- I remember the sticky-icky in the 80's.... sometimes.
n/a could_of_could_of_ 2017-06-08
Anyone that vacationed to Hawaii inthe 80's knows what's up.
Can't comment on the PNW personally, but that's interesting to hear about.
Mexican stuff has always been shit IME.
n/a basketodeplorables 2017-06-08
I've watched things change a lot, and live in a legal state. Last I heard, many strains are getting upward of 26% now. I think it's going to be a holy grail to reach 30% THC, or maybe someone claims to by now. The bar does seem to be rising.
n/a justaddbooze 2017-06-08
After a quick Google search, a few already have ......
Manali West’s Nova OG may be the highest testing cannabis strain in history. Manali West, a cultivation company that specializes in rare and unique strains and concentrates, and they’ve certainly created a potent plant.
Featuring 35.6 percent THC, this strain is an extremely potent, top-shelf, designer bud. This strain is a hybrid of Top Dawg Seeds’ Stardawg Guava and an OG/Diesel cross. Back in 2012, Stardawg Guava won best sativa at the Denver Cannabis Cup.
n/a basketodeplorables 2017-06-08
Wow, I had not heard this. Thanks!
n/a justaddbooze 2017-06-08
No problem, I was curious myself.
The highest THC strains are beaten almost yearly. Pot is most definitely stronger than it was 20 years ago, but that doesn't mean "street pot" is much stronger than 80s "street pot."
n/a Katayani108 2017-06-08
Someone just brought me a star dawg sample that tested out at 37.5% It put me to sleep and did not like it, lol.
n/a MollyNostrils23 2017-06-08
Maui Wowie :) Lovely.
n/a throwawaytreez 2017-06-08
the 30-50x times stronger bit could be because they also accounted for the seeds and stems that were commonly found in a sack back then
n/a Dippy_Egg 2017-06-08
Anecdotal evidence, but in my experience the potency is a good bit higher now than it was in the '80s. Most of what we could get on the market back then was red haired sinsemilla. Seedy, stemmy, and compressed. It did the job, but not like some of the stuff you can get today.
There were different grades of homegrown back then. Usually if you heard "homegrown" it was some kid fucking around in the woods that managed to get a plant to grow but couldn't tell males from females, didn't know when to harvest, let alone how to properly trim a fresh bud, and maybe they ended up with some grassy tasting straggly seedy buds.
Sometimes you'd run into someone who knew what they were doing, but the growing process has changed. People used to grow from seed usually outdoors, now they grow from clones often indoors. I know a guy who was turning $100,000 under the table (obvs) a year, growing outdoors from seed back in the '80s. Not a big-time grower, just a sideline stream of income. Pretty good side money.
You have so many more options nowadays for products too. In the '80s, you pretty much had bud and hash and that was about it. You had to make your own edibles. I can't wait to walk into a store one of these days. Hopefully my state goes full legal before I'm too old to enjoy it.
n/a necropancer 2017-06-08
Sinsemilla by definition is seedless. It is the name for culling all the male plants to make the females increase their THC production instead of growing seeds.
n/a Dippy_Egg 2017-06-08
So it's a label for a method rather than a strain? Well, hunh.
Except that I'm certain that the stuff we were getting was seedy, yet called that anyway. Which, if they were growing it from seed and culling the males, would make sense because you still have the potential for pollination with that method (rogue males, wind-borne pollen). So, maybe they were shooting for "red-haired sinse" and ended up calling it that despite it not really being the good, quality seedless stuff. Or maybe it was just dirt brown brick shwag from Mexico that they were selling clueless teenagers...it did have red hairs, but it wasn't all that potent. And it was always compressed.
Just happy the quality has improved over time.
n/a necropancer 2017-06-08
Most Mexican pot is like that, they grow it in fields and do not bother with culling the males, hence why Mexican weed is garbage and most of the high quality pot you see today is grown here in the states. I even remember reading somewhere recently that American grown weed is being smuggled to Mexico and sold for top dollar.
n/a Dotlinefever2 2017-06-08
Your anecdotal evidence pretty much matches up with my anecdotal evidence.
n/a Katayani108 2017-06-08
Mine too!
n/a outtanutmeds 2017-06-08
The weed in my day was much better than the crap you kids smoke. I actually got to smoke real Thai stick. The shit gave me a panic attack it was so good.
n/a basketodeplorables 2017-06-08
The stuff available in a legal state is top notch. Thai stick iirc is hash, isn't it?
n/a WeAreTheSheeple 2017-06-08
Thai stick is 'afghan ditch weed' I think I. E. Wild weed growing (males and females) and just ripped up and bagged.
n/a outtanutmeds 2017-06-08
Fuck that. Thai sick is the closet I have ever have ever come to knowing G-d.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkHTsc9PU2A
n/a Wrobrox 2017-06-08
Just so you know, panic attacks are common when hitting sativas that are stronger than you're used to.
You're literally just an old fart who thinks weed was better in the old days because you have no concept of tolerance. When I first started it took about two bowls to get me so gone that I couldn't even get up to take more hits. Now I have to blow through 5 grams to get the same effect.
Common. Stoner. Knowledge.
n/a outtanutmeds 2017-06-08
Well, thank you. What is a good strain of weed that relaxes you? Something that has the opposite effect of panic attacks?
n/a Wrobrox 2017-06-08
Anything Indica. I prefer hybrids that lean Sativa on days I need to get work done, but Indica on days I need to keep my anxiety down.
I've had crippling anxiety my whole life and Indicas make it easier to deal with.
n/a outtanutmeds 2017-06-08
Thank you. I mean it. Thank you, very much. :)
n/a justaddbooze 2017-06-08
Nah you were just a lightweight back then.
THC content in the top strains has been steadily increasing every year.
n/a throwawaytreez 2017-06-08
To be fair, Thai stick was incredibly potent. They had been cultivating it for hundreds of years.
n/a blazersativa 2017-06-08
Thai stick was infused with oil.
n/a moparornocar 2017-06-08
come to CO and grab some nice sativa and have a panic attack again.
n/a outtanutmeds 2017-06-08
To Hell with that. I thought I was having a heart attack.
n/a moparornocar 2017-06-08
lmao, yeah that stuff is horrible. although its nice being in a legal state to be able o avoid that shit too.
n/a outtanutmeds 2017-06-08
haha!! You kids are great. I would have loved getting high with you. In my day it was "Wow dude" this, and "Wow dude" that. haha. Do you think Indica would calm an old fucker like me down? I'm all "ears".
n/a moparornocar 2017-06-08
oh absolutely, a nice indica wont have any of that racy panicky feeling with it. that or a strain with CBD in it will help. CBD has helped me more with anxiety and panic attacks than benzos ever did. I didnt believe that stuff at first, but then tried it out after moving here and its amazing seeing the drugs being replaced with weed.
Met an older couple that use pot pills instead of a stream of xanax now, rheumatoid arthritis patients using lotions and topicals to get the dexterity back to their hands, old ladies buying concentrates to help with numerous issues.
n/a outtanutmeds 2017-06-08
Thank you so much. I mean it. I have a loved one who is schizo and when he goes off the "deep end" weed is the only thing that calms him down. He is autistic and he was molested by family members when he was a child. Two hits and he is calm. It's like a miracle.
n/a moparornocar 2017-06-08
it really is, happy to see the tides slowly turning between states. best of luck.
n/a outtanutmeds 2017-06-08
Thank you!
n/a too_old_still_party 2017-06-08
you have no clue what you're talking about
n/a outtanutmeds 2017-06-08
You have no clue what you are talking about. The weed in my day let you connect with your Higher Power.
n/a too_old_still_party 2017-06-08
lol
n/a moco94 2017-06-08
Weren't those Thai sticks dipped in opium? My stepdad was talking about these the other day and he said the one he had was made with opium and use to give him panic attacks too.
n/a arbitrarysquid 2017-06-08
I don't think there was opium in Thai sticks.
There were tons of rumors going around in pre-internet days about what might be what.
If anything, I think it may have had cannabis oil added, but a lot of what was sold as "Thai stick" back in the day was simply marketing.
Hash was always a damned good thing, though.
n/a outtanutmeds 2017-06-08
I had Thai sticks that were pure red thistles. Lebanese Blond was the best body high ever.
n/a tedsmitts 2017-06-08
I don't know if it is stronger overall, but it's certainly easier to get better stuff now. We used to smoke Mexican brick weed the sketchy kid sold when I was in high school, and now I can mail order White Widow or Gorilla Glue or whatever.
It's also easier to know you're getting an indica or sativa or just a CBD strand.
n/a Mescalean 2017-06-08
Weeds always been strong and weak just like any other plant used for medicine.
n/a Birdinhandandbush 2017-06-08
Here's my two cents. Just to jump to another drug for a second, Cocaine was bad, but used by the upper and middle classes so it was hard to demonise. Along comes the crack cocaine epidemic to show that crack makes people into monsters. Much easier to target crack and sell the story to the public. So back to weed, Cannabis was used by black and white people, but to make it into something monstrous we got Marijuana, the bad mexican variant. Now that most people realise cannabis isn't the demon our parents talked about, along comes Skunk, the new demon. Its all bullshit. Its marketing pure and simple. You need to create this demon and sell it to the sheep
n/a mastigia 2017-06-08
That was my comment. And while I fully understand that high potency marijuana cultivation has been going on as long as there have been interested gardeners that like to smoke pot, high potency pot's relative availability has skyrocketed over the years.
I also grew up in the 80's. And I read High Times back then. Iirc, High Times started in the late 70's, and they were showcasing hand cultivated pot long before it was generally available. By the early 90's you could find high test if you knew where to look, but it wasn't until the 00's that it was literally everywhere.
n/a Ferfrendongles 2017-06-08
THANK YOU. I don't even bother with correcting people anymore.
n/a Chokaholic 2017-06-08
I often wonder if the potency is too much, in favour of THC. One hit and I'm fucked, and on the brink of a panic attack. I like that, soon, I'll be able to select an exact strain that has a good amount of CBD, which to me seems like a more balanced plant, closer to its natural state. This is all speculation on my part though.
I have found that edibles are much better for someone like me, who can get paranoid quite easily from weed. The high doesn't hit quite as fast and hard, so I'm eased into it. Lastnight, I ate 1/4 of a cookie and felt great.
n/a KnightBeforeTomorrow 2017-06-08
Colombian and Jamaican pot, easily available in the 1960's was much stronger than commercial mids today. Period.
n/a throwawaytreez 2017-06-08
I used to work in the industry (3 years ago?), and I have to say that the top THC% strains are getting stronger constantly. Back then strains were starting to break 30%, and people thought the testing labs were broken. Well, they weren't, and more and more strains are getting to be >30%.
n/a smrborn2sweetdelight 2017-06-08
I think it is possible that modern strains have higher THC than in the past due to selective breeding (in the range of 10% more, roughly double maybe) but when it is presented as a problem that I disagree. E.g. "Weed today is much stronger than before, more psychological problems, therefore not a "natural plant" and must be controlled for safety reasons."
That is BS because weed has been concentrated into hash for many hundreds if not thousands of years, so the THC concentration in any particular strain is going to be significantly less than than the concentrated form, so there is no "new" problem with stronger strains. People have always smoked hash, especially in Europe and the Middle East.
IMO, any increase in pot related mental problems is due to an increase in meth usage. That stuff can do some damage, and I've heard, and find plausible, that combining weed and meth usage can trigger mental problems.
n/a arbitrarysquid 2017-06-08
I agree with your first two paragraphs. I don't necessarily think that all mental health problems associated with people smoking weed can be attributed to meth usage. I know for a fact that my wife has never used meth, but a strong sativa will make her paranoid as hell. She is much better with indicas.
Weed, like anything else, is not for everyone. Some people are going to have bad reactions to it.
Hell, I got prescribed Paxil 20 years ago and it made me feel like absolute shit, mentally. Brain chemistry is highly individual.
Some people should just avoid weed, but about the only way they would know that is if they tried it and it didn't go well.
n/a BakingTheCookiesRigh 2017-06-08
Good point re: hash
n/a theorist_complex 2017-06-08
It's a fact that proper strains have been selectively bred for higher potency (and more recently, lots of other things) year after year after year. There's a reason why millions of privatized money is being dumped into cannabis genetics.
Of course, we've always had good strains, afterall, where do you think our modern day genotypes/phenotypes come from? They've just been few and far between and very regional - like I saw you mention Hawaii, for instance, and Afghani. Then on the other hand you have the complete schwag bail weed that was much more prevalent back then.
But, yeah, that 30-50x number is bullshit. The most potent cannabis I've seen these days is hovering just under 30%. So take that, and figure that back in the 60s and 70s potency, on the average was around 10-15%, we could probably safely say that potency had probably doubled, maybe tripled dealing with both extremes.
n/a toxic_banana 2017-06-08
For the first time in half a century marijuana is being produced on a professional, industrial scale. At least in some states. I think it's reasonable to assume the potency of the product might increase with the rise in production if for no other reason than the fact that more people with the skills to grow high quality weed are able to and do so who otherwise wouldn't for fear of criminal consequences. I doubt the potency has increased 30 times what it was in the 70s but I'll tell you this, the first time I smoked medical grade bud from CO it was absolutely stronger than the shit I was used to.
n/a WisperingPenis 2017-06-08
The genetics have been changed to make the THC content much higher. That much is clear. However, there was a vid from the 50s or 60s that showed that THC made the user nervous/paranoid while CBC (?) made you mellow. Humboldt Gold used to be a much softer mellower high.
n/a Katayani108 2017-06-08
Hello! Yes lets. I am an experienced grower who is fascinated with the history of cannabis. As I understand the ancient Indus civilizations were the first to cultivate marijuana specifically for trichomes, because more trichomes equals more hash product. This is where the Kush variety comes from, heavy buds nicely spaced on a strong stalk. Hash is a potent high THC product. I think the only truth to this claim is that in the past decades many growers were selective breeding high THC yielding plants with no regard for CBD, CBN, etc. Fortunately that way of thinking has reversed and now people want a nice balanced medical effect.
n/a edgarallenbro 2017-06-08
To really understand how far back the Cannabis conspiracy goes, check out https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus+30&version=KJ21
It's not clear what I'm even getting at at first, so check out the wikipedia article about the anointing oil being discussed
Specifically, the ingredient "Kaneh bosem", which has been described as an "aromatic grass".
Most English translations sneakily choose to translate this as "Cinnamon" or "Calamus", other fragrant plants.
If you've experienced them yourself, and you think about that verse in the context of everything for more than 30 seconds, it seems ridiculous to think that a "holy anointing oil" that brings the priests "closer to God" doesn't contain an ingredient with psychoactive properties.
Now, take it a step further. Understand that "Christ" literally means "anointed one". Meaning he got his title that his religion is named after from being anointed with this oil, which most likely contained cannabis.
And it's not a far stretch from there when you realize that throughout the gospels Jesus is basically going around acting like a giant stoner, telling everyone to love everyone and quit being such dicks.
So, to make this comment relevant to your post, cannabis was at least strong enough on it's own several thousand years ago that it helped contribute to religions that are still followed to this day.
But lets go even further.
Ever wonder about the "burning bush"? Ever smoked DMT? Know where it comes from?
DMT is in everything, including our brains. It is more present in certain plants. One plant in particular that contains large amounts of it is Acacia, which is mentioned frequently in the old testament. Hell, it's what the Ark of the Covenant was built out of. The story of the burning bush is fairly literal. Moses caught enough of the smoke that he tripped BALLS and probably really had a conversation with "I Am"
Drugs play a major, positive role in our society, and they always have. I shed the D.A.R.E. programming and stopped giving a fuck about my parents judging my, and my life is going fantastically. I've worked out most of my childhood traumas through various LSD trips. I keep myself from blowing up at and alienating my friends and family by chilling out and smoking a bowl when I'm upset. I work hard every day to keep making salary so that I can afford to continue to smoke and take psychedelics.
I've avoided the dangerous stuff like heroin, and as a result, all of the problems I've experienced as a result of drugs have not been from the drugs themselves, but the drug war and the anti-drug sentiment.
n/a could_of_could_of_ 2017-06-08
This is my favorite response so far. I like your ideas.
n/a edgarallenbro 2017-06-08
Was gonna upvote, but I didn't want to ruin that, I'll come back and upvote later ; )
n/a could_of_could_of_ 2017-06-08
i lold
n/a themanchestermoors 2017-06-08
There's very little evidence that cannabis was widespread or existed at all in North or South America prior to to the 1500's.
n/a could_of_could_of_ 2017-06-08
you're mistaken.
http://www.narconon.org/drug-information/marijuana-timeline.html
We have multiple sources of evidence it's been smoked since BC.
n/a docmongre 2017-06-08
Grower for 20+ years here. Cannabis is indeed more potent than it was. However, that's a good thing. Up until 20 or 30 years ago there were only wild-grown strains. I'll spare the details but in summary what's happened is a perfectly natural progression. We've hybridized. We've bred strain after strain, over and over, backcrossed again and again to create better, more potent, more resilient strains. This has been done by countless individuals in private settings over decades. The result is cannabis that's more flavorful and efficient. You smoke less and enjoy it for longer.
n/a toomuchpork 2017-06-08
I started smoking in the 80's. There was high test strains then, near the same potency of strains now.
I live in BC Canada and by the late 80's there was "wheelchair weed" that "escaped" from the University. It was as strong as anything you can find today.
Mind you there was a lot of garbage too... we used to call is scambodian
n/a arbitrarysquid 2017-06-08
man, I miss that wheelchair.
n/a toomuchpork 2017-06-08
Souped up skunk number 1
n/a arbitrarysquid 2017-06-08
Nothing like a good case of where the hell hell did my knees go
n/a too_old_still_party 2017-06-08
you are a fool if you think weed grown indoors, in a controlled environment, is not MUCH more potent than the shit they were growing in fields in the 60-70's.
Now we have wax/oils that kick the shit out of flower.
n/a could_of_could_of_ 2017-06-08
There were tinctures, extracts, waxes etc. in the 1800's too. You could buy them without a prescription.
n/a DoEyeNoU 2017-06-08
I do believe it's more potent, as someone who has used then and now. However, today you have so many more hybrids than was available in the 70s and 80s. The science of pot growing has excelled by leaps and bounds. Frankly, 30 years from now the stuff will be even more potent as they learn new techniques and develop new strains.
n/a moco94 2017-06-08
I wouldn't say marijuana has gotten stronger across the board.. but if you compared today's best with the best from the 70's/80's then I'm sure you could tell the difference. Also there are things like wax and rosin that they produce that have increased concentrations of THC. Geography plays a role too, I'm sure someone living in Southern California has grater access to higher quality weed than someone who lives in Oklahoma or something like that, my friend from Michigan said he'd have to drive 3 hours if he wanted to go to a clinic so he was stuck with buying from a dealer who grew his own stuff and it wasn't that good.
n/a arbitrarysquid 2017-06-08
I used to buy great indoor-grown weed in Oklahoma in the 1980s. There was also plenty of shit around. It all depends on what your connections are/were.
n/a L00kInside 2017-06-08
I think this is an extremely valid and well laid out post. Taking all those points into consideration? Do you not think that medical strains and such have gotten more potent recently? I get that from your timeframe and perspective, it's just a plant with varying potencies- but what about the old stoners that swear it was less powerful "in their day"? At standup bit by Louis CK comes to mind.
n/a sickofallofyou 2017-06-08
It's too strong.
10 years ago I could smoke a 1/4oz a day. Now a 1/4oz lasts me almost a week. I'm stoned all the time.
Don't even get me started about moonrock. Fed two bong hits to a buddy, he was still high the next day at the end of his shift. 2 hits.
n/a News_Bot 2017-06-08
It's definitely more potent but that's due to science. A solid hydroponic setup can dwarf a soil grow. Then there's nutrients, light technology, fabric pots, air pots, aeroponics, autoflowers, decades of concurrent breeding, thousands of strains, endless possibilities, etc.
n/a MLGSwaggerDagger 2017-06-08
As far as potency goes, it would make sense from an evolutionary standpoint that humans at some point in time began harvesting marijuana and regrowing it based on the plants THC properties (Plant X gets you higher than Plant Y, so let's grow more Plant X). this causes the specie's genome to adapt over time through human artificial selection. This could explain why weed is considered stronger now than before
n/a exasperated_facepalm 2017-06-08
Also consider that extracts (dabs, wax, oil, 710) are all the rage these days. So many people I know don't even burn flower anymore. Extracts are a whole other level of high, some are over 90% THC. Imho there's nothing wrong with strong herb, bring it. It helps deprogram from conditioning on many levels and puts people back in touch with inwardness. A lot of the paranoia and anxiety people feel is just the underpinnings of their false mental constructs being shaken.
n/a sidebycide 2017-06-08
Are we just talking about potency here?
n/a mbrwn79 2017-06-08
Cannabis wasnt native to America, it is believed to have originated in the kush valley region. It was brought here by colonists for sail making. So I dont see how native Americans could have used it for thousands of years.
n/a arbitrarysquid 2017-06-08
I've also been smoking pretty regularly since the 1980s.
I had weed back then that was every bit as strong as what I can get now, but it was much more rare and expensive.
The quality of mids is about now what it was then.
What has drastically increased is the difference in varieties available, the difference in things like extracts, and the overall availability.
I do believe the "it's so much more potent now that it's dangerous" bullshit is just that, bullshit.
n/a applextrent 2017-06-08
So the issue with potency is genetic diversity of cannabinoids and terpenes that give cannabis its actual effects. THC is only one of many components within cannabis that has medicinal benefit.
There's a wide range of other cannabinoids and their precursors including CBD, CBG, CBDA, THCA, THCV, etc. All of which have different effects, and different levels of psycho-activity. In fact, some of them are really grounding, and counter the effects of THC and can totally cap or mellow out a THC high.
THCA which is the precursor to THC is NOT psycho-active, but has almost all the same medical benefits of anti-inflammation, neuro-protection, and anti-microbial effects. If you take THCA while you're already high on THC it will actually ground your high. The same is similarly true of CBD, CBD and THC have a synergistic effect and if you take more CBD then THC it also grounds the high from THC, as CBD is mostly non-psycho-active.
What happened during prohibition was we lost most of the genetic diversity of cannabis, as people were specifically breeding high THC strains as those are what got consumers high. So arguably, the blackmarket actually pushed THC higher, while not considering other cannabinoids. They did this because at the time people were mostly just smoking cannabis to get high, and not consuming it medicinally through edibles or tinctures. This is what the market demanded, so the growers simply followed the demand.
Previous to prohibition one of the primary forms of consuming cannabis was through tincture. Eli Lilly for example even use to sell cannabis tinctures back in the day.
Where we are at today with genetic testing, and more advanced growing technology including indoor growing we're able to pretty much grow for whatever characteristics and qualities we desire as long as we have the available seeds to grow from.
I can't say specifically what cannabis was like in the past, as I wasn't alive until the 80's personally, but I would assume plants were breed for THC content, and likely not very healthy or genetically diverse for other cannabinoids.
Previous to prohibition, naturally occurring cannabis was likely much more full spectrum with more equal ratios of most of the cannabinoids present and probably didn't even really get you high as we know it today with considerable variety between the several different genetic subtypes.
n/a curiosity36 2017-06-08
There was potent stuff around say in 1970, and thousands of years before that. Skunk #1 was a huge tech advancement for growers, as it combined Afghani and a couple Sativas- one of them being Acapulco Gold.
Now those pure landraces by themselves are extremely potent. Acapulco Gold is a great Sativa and very frosty. Afghani is a solid indica and very gooey. When they come together you have hybrid vigor and the result is even more potent.
The thing is that most smokers in the 60s and 70s- hell even in the 90s didn't have access to potent non-compressed strains. Vast majority of smokers were smoking Mexican brick weed, full of stems and seeds. Not even sinsemilla, so the potency was definitely lacking. Sometimes there were even male plants in there. They obviously didn't cull them- hence the seeds.
That shit was very low potency. Then came the big BC bud boom and people all over America started getting access to indoor grown hybdrid or indica strains- although by the time it got to market it had almost always been screened for kief, effectively "cutting" the pot.
The vast majority of casual consumers have seen the potency of their supply go up exponentially in the past 30 or 40 years.
n/a Mahat 2017-06-08
The conspiracy was that the strain the fed was using for research was not potent at all, had ground up leaf and stem throughout, and generally produced poor results in studies because the government wanted to show it had no value.
So they deliberately only had one strain for many years for medical studies. That was the real conspiracy.
n/a could_of_could_of_ 2017-06-08
They've been doing shady stuff like that for a long time. Reminds me of how they weigh the pot, soil, leaves etc. when they do a drug bust so they can claim crazy numbers.
"We got 2 tons of marijuana off the streets!"
Great, you just made it more inconvenient for people to enjoy their lives, good job government.
n/a UsernameBR549 2017-06-08
Recommended read: Jack Herer - The Emperor Wears No Clothes. 12th edition @ 31 years of continuous print. Jack provides an insight into the Marijuana Law of 1937 & why Randolph Hearst, Andrew Mellon and DuPont all pushed their agenda against commercial hemp. Jack was one of the major supporters for legalization until his passing in 2010.
The best I can recollect it was 1973, the first time I smoked the evil weed. In this time frame, I have easily consumed more than my weight. Original strains were all old school: Colombian Red Bud, Panama Red, Acapulco Gold, Thai sticks, etc. THC levels were low in comparison to today strains, hovering around 8-10%. Thai sticks were a little different, most were dipped in opium. Most of today's strains are much higher octane ranging from 15-25% THC. Plants strains are now manipulated' to produce higher levels of THC & CDB's, along with higher yields and the flavor of the week. Original landrace strains are still available today and can obtained with a little effort. Landrace Thai, a100% sativa, is producing 23-24% THC.
n/a bombsaway1979 2017-06-08
Couple things:
1) The best evidence that human's have been injesting cannabis forever is that WE HAVE CANNABINOID RECEPTORS IN OUR BRAINS. Just like opium, we evolved alongside these plants and our bodies are optimized to make use of them.
2) The war on drugs was actually started in 1930 by Harry Angslinger; a prohibition agent looking for something else to justify his continued employment after alcohol prohibition was over-turned. Nixon ramped it up in the 70s, but the edifice had already been put in place way before then.
3) Weed is absolutely stronger these days due to the introduction of hydroponic technology. If you can control all the variables that go into plant growth, you can maximize your yields & potency. That combined with new genetics means you've got much stronger weed. Check out this High Times best strains of 1977: http://imgur.com/RuMdpC3 That shit was whoosky.
n/a could_of_could_of_ 2017-06-08
That's the funny part about this.
If it is more potent, that's great! The more potent it is, the less it takes to get the desired effect.
If someone can take a single puff and feel how they'd like to feel, rather than a joint, that's a lot better for their lungs.
n/a Demty 2017-06-08
This is true but most people will smoke so much every time that tolerance Increases 100x. Then a person is smoking a whole joint of great weed to get high. Tolerance, the great mediator.
n/a Birdinhandandbush 2017-06-08
Stop being logical!
n/a get_it_together1 2017-06-08
Domestication only becomes noticeable in the archeological record when the plants start showing phenotypic variation, often in the form of larger seed sizes. I also pointed out that the precursor plants were not as nutritious as their modern variants.
n/a arbitrarysquid 2017-06-08
Nothing like a good case of where the hell hell did my knees go
n/a could_of_could_of_ 2017-06-08
They've been doing shady stuff like that for a long time. Reminds me of how they weigh the pot, soil, leaves etc. when they do a drug bust so they can claim crazy numbers.
"We got 2 tons of marijuana off the streets!"
Great, you just made it more inconvenient for people to enjoy their lives, good job government.