Is marijuana stronger now?

[Wendell Wagner]

For those people trying to compare the cost of marijuana today with the cost forty years ago, remember that the cost of everything has done up by a factor of about five and a half. So if marijuana costs less than five and a half times what it cost forty years ago, its price has gone up less than the average inflation rate. In particular, if a quarter-ounce now costs what an ounce cost forty years ago, the price has gone down relative to inflation.

[Try2B Comprehensive]

I saw an advertisement for keef (the crystalline residue sticking to high-grade weed) which claimed it was 43% THC. That's the highest I've seen outside of a synthetic product.

[dankplantgrower]

Copy-pasted from near identical thread today.

Cannabis sativa as a species is no stronger than it was 50 years ago. For example, native cannabis from Thailand ("Thai weed") is among the most revered by cannabis connoiseurs. Thai pot is not bred for potency, it just grows naturally with an extremely solid sativa effect.

Pot is not stronger than it was in the past, though you are more likely to find potent cannabis nowadays then you would back then. Make no mistake about it, weed with low amounts of THC (stereotypically associated with the 60s-70s) is still around, tons and tons of it, and people are consuming it with just as much zeal as the new pot. The people smoking more potent cannabis just make up more of the population nowadays, because more is available. This fact makes the typical generalization ("Todays pot is XXX stronger than yesteryear"...) fairly foolish. Pot with low amounts of THC is still prevalent absolutely everywhere. High potency hybrids are everywhere too now though, and that wasn't so 50 years ago.

Answering your 2nd question: For clarity, potency isnt affected by whether the plant was hybridized. The Thai pot I mention earlier didn't earn its revered potent due to selective human breeding; it's grown unchanged for thousands of years. You can selectively breed 2 "brand name" strains from todays era (Skunk and Kush, terms you may have heard for example) for years and never end up with results quite like Thai potency. Selective breeding in and of itself does not create stronger pot, though it is a technique one can use to strengthen plants over generations.

And growing technique advancements are a factor, but they certainly wont make or break the strain. If you start out with an excellent variety like Thai, and grow it with dated horticultural techniques from the 60s, you're still going to end up with excellent pot. You started out with Thai genetics after all. Conversely, you could apply todays cutting edge hydroponic advances, lighting techniques, etc, to a subpar variety and still end up with disappointing results. All of todays technology, worthless, if you don't apply it to the right varieties.

[dankplantgrower]

Originally Posted by Try2B Comprehensive

I saw an advertisement for keef (the crystalline residue sticking to high-grade weed) which claimed it was 43% THC. That's the highest I've seen outside of a synthetic product.

Hash has been around as long as the 60-70s certainly, right? Hash is made by compressing and heating the kief you speak of. Afghani, Moroccan, Charas, revered hash among connoiseurs. Those roots dig way back to the 70s at least. I guarantee you at least the Charas of yore was comprised of kief more potent than the run of the mill kief youll see advertised nowadays.

Also, would you be surprised to learn that pure THC alone, without the presence of the cannabinoids and cannabidiols in the plant, only gets one "high" for about 15 minutes? Your average pothead is expecting to get stoned for an hour or more when smoked. Don't let a high percentage figure impress you, even 100% THC only lasts 15 minutes. Look for CBD and CBN as well, these constituents are just as important as cannabis. They are just now starting testing and labeling some of the medical stuff nowadays with these designations.

You could get just as "stoned" 40-50 years ago as you can nowadays. They had hash back then too. The exception, oil and wax concentrated products exist today that would be impossible to produce with 70s technology. But wax and oil certainly aren't cannabis, and couldnt be applied to a "pot stronger nowadays" argument.

[dankplantgrower]

This post from someone earlier is very important here. Everyone please re-read this post, the truth here mist be stressed. If you dont smoke pot, you must understand this tidbit.

"The fact of the matter is: You can only get so high from smoking pot. I imagine Cecil didn't address this because there's no way to quantify it scientifically, but it is true. Stronger pot just means you get high faster and longer."


All these elaborate arguments aside, in the end, it's just a pot high. YOU CAN ONLY GET SO HIGH FROM POT. This is quite disappointing to the youngsters trying to get blasted when they smoke the most expensive "superweed" trying to attain the strongest pot high possible. It's good, but even the best of the best is just pot. Congrats kid, you smoked the strongest pot in existence; you're still just high on pot. Even the strongest weed is just weed. Youll have to get your hands on some hallucinogens or opium if you want anything more than that.

[Dinsdale]

Originally Posted by dankplantgrower

Pot is not stronger than it was in the past, though you are more likely to find potent cannabis nowadays then you would back then.

Over the weekend I was at a gathering and asked this question of with 2 guys with considerable experience. Tho their responses/opinions not scientific, one of these guys was a major dealer at a Big 10 campus in the late-70s mid-80s, and another is a longtime grower for the medical (and recreational) industries.

Both of them immediately said, pot today is no stronger. They said you could always get the good stuff if you went to the effort and paid the price, but commented that the Jamaican and Acapaulco Gold that was readily available and cheap back then was pretty good in itself.

[Malthus]

Originally Posted by dankplantgrower

Copy-pasted from near identical thread today.

Cannabis sativa as a species is no stronger than it was 50 years ago. For example, native cannabis from Thailand ("Thai weed") is among the most revered by cannabis connoiseurs. Thai pot is not bred for potency, it just grows naturally with an extremely solid sativa effect.

Pot is not stronger than it was in the past, though you are more likely to find potent cannabis nowadays then you would back then. Make no mistake about it, weed with low amounts of THC (stereotypically associated with the 60s-70s) is still around, tons and tons of it, and people are consuming it with just as much zeal as the new pot. The people smoking more potent cannabis just make up more of the population nowadays, because more is available. This fact makes the typical generalization ("Todays pot is XXX stronger than yesteryear"...) fairly foolish. Pot with low amounts of THC is still prevalent absolutely everywhere. High potency hybrids are everywhere too now though, and that wasn't so 50 years ago.

Answering your 2nd question: For clarity, potency isnt affected by whether the plant was hybridized. The Thai pot I mention earlier didn't earn its revered potent due to selective human breeding; it's grown unchanged for thousands of years. You can selectively breed 2 "brand name" strains from todays era (Skunk and Kush, terms you may have heard for example) for years and never end up with results quite like Thai potency. Selective breeding in and of itself does not create stronger pot, though it is a technique one can use to strengthen plants over generations.

And growing technique advancements are a factor, but they certainly wont make or break the strain. If you start out with an excellent variety like Thai, and grow it with dated horticultural techniques from the 60s, you're still going to end up with excellent pot. You started out with Thai genetics after all. Conversely, you could apply todays cutting edge hydroponic advances, lighting techniques, etc, to a subpar variety and still end up with disappointing results. All of todays technology, worthless, if you don't apply it to the right varieties.

The issue is not whether it was possible to get pot as potent today as in yesteryear, but whether the average potency overall has increased. The generalization isn't foolish because it is in fact true - if you are going out to smoke you are more likely, on average, to smoke high potency stuff today than in yesteryear.

What has happened is that the breeds of plant producing higher potency have spread throughout North American grow-ops. This has lead to the average person buying average pot experiencing an increase in potency.

There is no reason to suspect that pot is immune to the selection pressure that all other agricultural products are subject to - the "unnatural selection" that has lead to cows producing large quantities of milk and corn cobs increasing fron an inch to over a foot. In modern times, the pace of such selection has increased - with modern techniques, and lots of money at stake, selection pressure moves much faster, no longer taking thousands of years to make significant changes. Naturally, being illegal, this is going to be hard to document when it comes to pot.

Modern growers are more likely to have access to seeds from very productive varieties, and cross-breed them for desirable characteristics - production and potency. Over time, you'd expect the average potency to increase. And lo and behold, both anecdote (and what limited scientific surveys exist) supports that it has.

[Dinsdale]

Originally Posted by Malthus

The issue is not whether it was possible to get pot as potent today as in yesteryear, but whether the average potency overall has increased. The generalization isn't foolish because it is in fact true - if you are going out to smoke you are more likely, on average, to smoke high potency stuff today than in yesteryear.

I'm not so sure that is the issue - at least as far as I am concerned. Because, as others have noted, even the best pot is still pot. And a pot high is still just a pot high.

As someone who always made an effort to obtain decent smoke, I was dubious of claims that smoke today was way stronger or different than what I had smoked then. So a bunch of folk who smoked ditchweed in the past are now able to smoke some decent weed? Good for them!

BTW - it was amusing and refreshing how matter-of-factly these 2 guys I spoke with stated that legalization, regulation, and taxation is a no-brainer. They make tons of money as is, with next to no risk. But it seems absolutely crazy, in today's economic climate, that more folk are not demanding legalization as both a way to reduce expenditures as well as increase revenues, and spur development andf investment.

[Malthus]

Originally Posted by Dinsdale

I'm not so sure that is the issue - at least as far as I am concerned. Because, as others have noted, even the best pot is still pot. And a pot high is still just a pot high.

As someone who always made an effort to obtain decent smoke, I was dubious of claims that smoke today was way stronger or different than what I had smoked then. So a bunch of folk who smoked ditchweed in the past are now able to smoke some decent weed? Good for them!

I agree that those who are arguing that the increase in potency means more danger have no case, if that is what the concern is.

Personally, I prefer the mellower stuff. The primo stuff I find sometimes has a different effect - it makes me anxious rather than mellow.

BTW - it was amusing and refreshing how matter-of-factly these 2 guys I spoke with stated that legalization, regulation, and taxation is a no-brainer. They make tons of money as is, with next to no risk. But it seems absolutely crazy, in today's economic climate, that more folk are not demanding legalization as both a way to reduce expenditures as well as increase revenues, and spur development andf investment.

Well, yes. Obviously legalization is the way to go.