Post by NickPost by Graham TAccording to the article Cannabis strength has gone up from 1.2 in Ye
Olden days to 22% now. Is it possible or scare tactics? The stuff I
toke doesn't give me any different buzz from that which I used in the
1960s.
If strength is really a problem then legalising Cannabis would be ideal
as it could be sold in goverment approved strengths
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38994637
If it is now 20 times as strong why don't people use take 1/20 the
amount. i.e. the right amount for the buzz they want.
I mean whisky is 10 times as strong as beer but we just drink it in
shots rather than pints.
I don't really understand this psychosis argument but I think they are
referring to people repeatedly taking large doses as opposed to someone
taking a large dose by mistake, aren't they?
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn26988-skunks-psychosis-link-is-only-half-the-cannabis-story/
16 February 2015
Skunk’s psychosis link is only half the cannabis story
... Researchers explored factors affecting psychosis in 410 people
diagnosed with the condition for the first time, comparing their
lifestyles with those of 370 controls who’d never had psychosis.
They found that psychosis was three times more likely in those who
smoked high-potency skunk cannabis, compared with non-users.
“In daily users of skunk the risk rose fivefold,” says Robin Murray of
King’s College London, who co-led the team. People who smoked
low-potency hash, by contrast, were no more likely to experience
psychosis than non-users, suggesting skunk was the culprit.
What is it that makes skunk disproportionately harmful?
Basically, it is far richer than hash in delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol,
or THC, the ingredient that creates the drug’s high but which also
triggers psychosis. Even more important, skunk contains hardly any
of a substance called cannabidiol, or CBD, which has been shown
to counteract the psychotic effects of THC. “In traditional hash, the
proportions of THC and CBD are about equal, at 4 per cent each,”
explains Amir Englund of King’s College London, who was not
involved in the study. “In skunk, THC reaches around 14 to 15 per cent,
while CBC tumbles to barely a trace,” he says.
How come there’s so much THC in skunk?
Both substances are made in the marijuana plant from the same
starting material, called cannabigerol, so if the content of one goes
up, the other goes down. In hash, typically grown under natural
conditions in north Africa, the cannabigerol is converted equally into
both.
But producers in the UK have bred strains in which the enzyme for
making THC is more dominant, generating cannabis with much higher
THC content and much lower CBD content as a result. ...