There is no LD50 from marijuana. It has also never killed a human in the natural form, only the marinol form.
You might consider chatting with Granny [StormCrow] over onGrasscity - she has put in serious time researching online literature for scientific info rather than apocrypical stories.
I’ve been smoking pot since the '60’s. It sure is more potent today. Personally, it just means smoking less for the same result. I am amazed though at the various strains these days that produce different types of “highs”. They seem to range from potent, “sleepy time” indica strains, to mentally stimulating, energetic highs from sativa strains, and everything in between.
I guess when you have, (a couple generations now), educated, trained, talented botanists, horticulturalists, and other dedicated professionals who have used their skills for growing and breeding marijuana, what other result could you expect?
On a personal note. While I have never overdosed on Marijuana, I once made the mistake of eating WAY too much, (I was really hungry), mac and cheese made with some very potent, “punna butter”, (butter that has been used to extract THC from plant material). I went to sleep, and when I woke up the next morning, my head felt like a 5 pound bag stuffed with 20 pounds of cotton. It was very unpleasant, but didn’t seem to leave any lasting side effects.
Hopefully we’ll soon have enough sense to legalize the stuff. Here in Colorado, it’s already legal for medical use, and hopefully this November it will be legal for recreational use as well.
I haven’t a clue and I concede the point. (Although you’ll note that I was in general agreement with modern hash being stronger. I still don’t think that precludes the possibility that there was the occasional strain back in the 60s that would blow your head off and your socks too.)
That’s where Pearly Sweetcake is from you know. They probably knew her well.
Smoked dope off & on since the early 70’s and while various strengths have always been around, I’d say that pot is generally stronger now than then. Not 30 times stronger, no. But I know that back then “one hit shit” was rare; now it’s fairly common. It’s also a lot more expensive now. I remember paying 30 bucks an ounce for excellent weed. These days it’s hard to get a quarter ounce for that price.
Have always known it to reference kids firing up at 4:20 before their parents get home at 5 pm.
In fact, it’s almost a “Beavis and Butthead” type joke: What time is it?
4:20.
Heh heh. Heh heh.
$30 an ounce? Are you serious? And “it’s hard to get a quarter ounce for that price”? Uh…yeah, it’s more like
“That is not even close to the price of a quarter ounce.” I haven’t smoked for ten years, but when I did, an eighth cost $50 or $60. Where do you live? Are these real prices or are you just high? 
An alternative explanation is that THC isn’t the only active chemical in the plant. Although there are many cannabinoids, the main ingredient other than THC is cannabidiol (CBD). Although IIRC the species Cannabis indica as distinct from C. sativa is not accepted by all botanists, the MMJ community makes the distinction based on CBD content, with indica containing more CBD than sativa. In my layman’s opinion, I’m not entirely convinced that splitting the single species is justified, but from here on I’ll assume that it is, for ease of discussion.
Indica strains tend to have a more sedating effect, and I doubt that a very strong indica strain would bring on anxiety. Sativa strains, by contrast, tend to be higher in THC and lower in their CBD content. Anecdotally, besides being perceived as more stimulating, a THC-centered high tends to be “spacier”. Yet just about any MJ will eventually bring on drowsiness.
As for the general issue of how much stronger today’s pot is, I mentioned in a similar thread that the standard of quality has changed a great deal. As someone else in that other thread said, smokers just bought whatever the dealer had. You brought it back to your dorm room, where that little ridge in the center drawer, originally intended for keeping all your pens and pencils together, was admirably suited to cleaning out the many seeds and stems. Sinsemilla was a rare novelty.
I mean, some people brought it back to their dorm rooms…Not me. I knew some people, who knew some people…
But I digress. Anyway, today the growers have become so good at separating the ladies, most MJ intended for sale never gets pollinated and sensimilla is now the norm. What’s sold today is arguably stronger than the pot of the 1970s, but the difference narrows when you look at what that 1970s college student had after he’d cleaned out the inert matter.
Interesting, since apparently CBD in the plant appears to block or counteract some of the less desirable effects of THC. At least, if I’m remembering correctly that Marinol is pharmaceutical grade THC.
That $30 is probably in line with my recollections. From an English perspective, when I was regularly traveling up to London once a week around 1967 I was paying £8 an ounce (unless I bought weight, ie large quantities). That works out, if my memory of the exchange rate then is accurate, at around $15. Given that prices would have moved upwards by the 70s I don’t think that $30 would be far from the mark.
That sounds about right, maybe even a little high. In 1971 the first time I bought weed a friend and I got together $15 to buy an ounce of low grade weed. We divided it up into 4 nickel bags and sold 3 of them to get our money back. Then of course, we smoked the rest. The price steadily rose into the 80s, as did the quality.
In mid-1968, the (old) penny was worth about 1¢ (very convenient for a Yank on his first visit), so the pound was worth about $2.40, and £8 would have been about $19.20.
The LD50 for humans is not known, but given that there is one for rats, mice, dogs, and monkeys, it is reasonable that there is an LD50 dose. Although there is this sentence:
But a lack of knowing the value does not mean there is not a value.
I assume the lab tests were conducted with refined THC. If so, even if there is an LD50 value, is it even relevant with regard to marijuana with regard to how the vast majority of it is consumed? You can off yourself with No-Doz tablets if you take enough of them.
Are you back east? Out in Oregon, Washington, and California, there are lots of small-scale growers up in the hills who produce some really wonderful product, and if you’re close enough socially to avoid too many middlemen, $30 for a quarter ounce is a great deal but not unthinkable. $30 to $40 for an eighth is the usual street price, I believe.
[QUOTE=Jasper Kent]
Smoked dope off & on since the early 70’s and while various strengths have always been around, I’d say that pot is generally stronger now than then.
[/QUOTE]
The problem with testimonials like this, if you’ll forgive me, dear Dopers, is that you are not the person you were in the '60’s. You don’t metabolize alcohol the same way you did in the '60’s, you can’t eat what you did in the '60’s and not put on weight, you probably can’t lift what you did in the '60’s, or run as far as you did in the '60’s.
In other words, all y’all who were smoking weed in the '60’s were a mite younger then. Your age alone is a huge confounding variable that you can’t control for, and with age come a whole host of physiological changes that you can’t control for. And we have no way of knowing if those things alter the way marijuana affects your subjective high.
I smoked enough weed, also, to know that situation and who I was with also made a huge difference in my perceived intoxication. Smoke alone, and there might be a weak little buzz. Smoke the same stuff with my friends and a funny movie, and I’m laughing my butt off with a moderate buzz. Suddenly my mother calls and I’m now somehow stoned off my ass and can barely put three words in a row and is it hot in here and did someone call the fucking cops?! This is why I’m hesitant to label the “strength” of weed solely on the THC content.
So since you’ll never be 18 again, smoking weed sitting on the lawn at a Dead concert with that cute girl from next door dancing topless under a misty rainbow…you’ll never have exactly that high again, whatever the “strength” of your weed.
What I smoked in the early 70s was often mixed with hash … that was really nice.
I bet you don’t see a lot of that anywhere. I can’t imagine what hash goes for these days.
Imagine no more. Amsterdam, what a magical wonderful place. 
My testimonial is that the main difference between then and now is the tremendus variety available now. Back then, we couldn’t always get sinse or Hawaiian - which tended to be the best we got - but when we did, a hit or 2 was great.
Now, I can always get my choice of a number of different strains, each of which will give me as good a buzz with a hit or 2. And we never are reduced to scrounging up some ditchweed shake in times of drought.
I realize my memory is faulty and my experience entirely subjective, but I sure would think if today’s pot were tremendously stronger than what we got back then, I’d be able to feel some difference.
But I guess the years might be taking their toll. For example, it seems like I pose this question years ago… 