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Prior to legalization, marijuana plants were bred to produce higher and higher concentrations of THC, a naturally occuring chemical compound in the plant that induces euphoria and alters users’ perceptions of reality. In the 1960s, the stuff the hippies were smoking was less than 2% THC. By the ’90s, it was closer to 5%. By 2015, it was over 20%. “It’s a freak plant that resembles nothing of what has existed in nature,” said Laura Stack, a public speaker who has advocated against the industry since her son, Johnny, killed himself three years ago at 19 years old after years of cannabis abuse drove him into psychosis.

In the era of legalized weed, the drug you think of as “cannabis” can hardly be called marijuana at all. The kinds of cannabis products that are sold online and at dispensaries contain no actual plant matter. They’re made by putting pulverized marijuana into a tube and running butane, propane, ethanol, or carbon dioxide through it, which separates the THC from the rest of the plant. The end product is a wax that can be 70% to 80% THC. That wax can then be put in a vacuum oven and further concentrated into oils that are as much as 95% or even 99% THC. Known as “dabs,” this is what people put in their vape pens, and in states like California and Colorado it’s totally legal and easily available to children. “There are no caps on potency,” said Stack.

If you’re over 30 years old and you used to smoke weed when you were a teenager, the strongest you were smoking was probably 20% THC. Today, teenagers are “dabbing” a product that’s three, four, or five times stronger, and are often doing so multiple times a day. At that level of potency, the impact of the drug on a user’s brain belongs to an entirely different category of risk than smoking a joint or taking a bong rip of even an intensively bred marijuana flower. It’s highly addictive, and over time, there’s a significant chance it can drive you insane.

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:


I'm still an advocate for weed, but when Big Pharma is warping it into something that doesn't actually resemble weed for profit, I just might have to jump on the other side of the line for a while until this gets straightened out.

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
How Weed Became the New OxyContin

Big Pharma and Big Tobacco are helping market high-potency, psychosis-inducing THC products as your mother’s ‘medical marijuana’

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/how-weed-became-new-o
xycontin-marijuana-psychosis-addiction

Since I haven't smoked in around 8 years or more, and I also live in a state where it's still illegal even for medical purposes, I don't have much exposure to the new stuff that people are buying in pot shops.

But the pictures of weed that I've been seeing now... Let's just say that there were only very few times in my life that I was ever exposed to weed anything similar to it and even though it was back in the time where I smoked frequently and in high quantity, taking rips from a bong with this stuff had me in an almost catatonic state for what seemed like hours. It was the opposite of a good time... at least for me.

Quote:

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Prior to legalization, marijuana plants were bred to produce higher and higher concentrations of THC, a naturally occuring chemical compound in the plant that induces euphoria and alters users’ perceptions of reality. In the 1960s, the stuff the hippies were smoking was less than 2% THC. By the ’90s, it was closer to 5%. By 2015, it was over 20%. “It’s a freak plant that resembles nothing of what has existed in nature,” said Laura Stack, a public speaker who has advocated against the industry since her son, Johnny, killed himself three years ago at 19 years old after years of cannabis abuse drove him into psychosis.

In the era of legalized weed, the drug you think of as “cannabis” can hardly be called marijuana at all. The kinds of cannabis products that are sold online and at dispensaries contain no actual plant matter. They’re made by putting pulverized marijuana into a tube and running butane, propane, ethanol, or carbon dioxide through it, which separates the THC from the rest of the plant. The end product is a wax that can be 70% to 80% THC. That wax can then be put in a vacuum oven and further concentrated into oils that are as much as 95% or even 99% THC. Known as “dabs,” this is what people put in their vape pens, and in states like California and Colorado it’s totally legal and easily available to children. “There are no caps on potency,” said Stack.

If you’re over 30 years old and you used to smoke weed when you were a teenager, the strongest you were smoking was probably 20% THC. Today, teenagers are “dabbing” a product that’s three, four, or five times stronger, and are often doing so multiple times a day. At that level of potency, the impact of the drug on a user’s brain belongs to an entirely different category of risk than smoking a joint or taking a bong rip of even an intensively bred marijuana flower. It’s highly addictive, and over time, there’s a significant chance it can drive you insane.

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I doubt very much that except for those few rare occasions that I smoked anything resembling what you can find in a pot shop that any of the weed I smoked was anywhere near 20% THC. Maybe in other parts of the nation closer to where it could be grown they had more of this stuff, but in the middle of the flyover states you were pretty much relegated to whatever BS quick to harvest strain made its way in town. Probably the most dangerous thing about the weed was whatever fertilizers and pesticides were used when growing it.


Now... I know some people smoking this new stuff today. Outwardly, I haven't seen a change in their behavior, even when they smoke it around me.... but...

I do have a friend who was recently laid off from a job. Someone I never thought I'd see out of work in my life. I'm not going to say I have alarm bells ringing about that just yet, but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't at least on my mind right now.

And I know another person who shouldn't be having any trouble saving money who hasn't actually saved any in months. Now the price of everything sucks right now and it would be easy to just blame it on that, but just in the last week they said to me that they should stop buying weed for a while again because they were saving so much money before they went back to it. (Illinois prices, particularly the TAXES are insane).


Now I've always been against children with undeveloped brains smoking it. But that was the old stuff that had low THC percentages. I can't even imagine what this new stuff, especially the vape cartridges, are doing to the undeveloped brains of children who can get their hands on it.



I'm still an advocate for weed, but when Big Pharma is warping it into something that doesn't actually resemble weed for profit, I just might have to jump on the other side of the line for a while until this gets straightened out.

It's a real shame. Legalization should have been something to celebrate, but it appears that Pfizer just Frankenstein Monstered this to set itself up as the next Phillip Morris.


I guess the good news for me is that if I ever do go back to it and use it the way I did after I was a dumb late-teen/early-twenty-something, just a small amount would last me months. But how would you even smoke something smaller than a single hit bat? Crack off the antenna on a radio and smoke it like the crack heads smoke their rocks?

I wouldn't even know how to smoke a dose that small required to match the small hits I would do several times after work in my adult pot-smoking years with the mid-2000's street stuff.

And honestly, I don't even really want to ever try it. This stuff isn't weed. I know my own limitations and I'd be afraid that it would be addictive to me. Both times I quit smoking it WAS difficult the first few days, but after I got out of the habit it wasn't a problem to even be around other people who did. There's a damn good chance that whatever they're packing in those pot shops aren't going to be something I could just walk away from whenever I chose to.

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Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
I thought you said weed cannot kill anybody.

Yet another time you were wrong.

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