Potency of marijuana

The potency of cannabis varies widely. Most of the marijuana grown in the United States has a lower THC content than that imported from overseas. The THC potency of marijuana smoked in the United States typically is 5%-6% (10%-15% for sinsemilla, a seedless variety of marijuana). Values for hashish and hash oil are higher, with hash oil containing up to 60% THC. 

Purity Per Gram of Illicit Drugs and Potency of Marijuana... 

This target has not been achieved. From Table 2.12, it can be seen that the only illicit substance with a significant decrease in purity was heroin and that decrease occurred from 2002 to the second quarter of 2003. The purity of methamphetamine and the potency of marijuana have increased. 

For definitive references on the cultivation and chemistry of marijuana, see MARIJUANA GROWERS GUIDE, And/Or Press (1978) and MARIJUANA POTENCY, And/Or Press (1977). 

Wu TC, Tashkin DP, Rose JE, Djahed B. (1988). Influence of marijuana potency and amount of cigarette consumed on marijuana smoking pattern. J Psychoactive Drugs. 20(1) 43-46. 

From a potency standpoint, the results were less than exciting. At low doses, performance scores did decline slightly and some subjects reported mild symptoms suggestive of marijuana effects. However, a substantial alteration in both cognitive performance and mood occurred only in one of the two individuals who received the highest dose (60 mcg/kg). This volunteer clearly showed a drop in performance scores, and developed clear-cut signs and symptoms of a marijuana high. 

Aside from this controversy, recent research shows that the THC content of marijuana ranges from 0.5 to 5.0 percent, and the THC in hashish ranges from 2 to 20 percent. Hashish oil may contain between 15 to 50 percent THC, and sinsemilla varieties may have a THC content of up to 20 percent. Many studies indicate that marijuana of less than 0.5 percent potency has basically no psycho activity. However, every individual s reaction to the psychoactive effects of THC is different. Some reports indicate that what marijuana users may term bad trips have been recorded with marijuana that ranges from quite low (0.7 percent THC content) to quite high (7.5 percent THC content). 

Before discussing the short-term and long-term physical effects of marijuana, we need to say a word about dose. Any substance, whether a drug or even water, can benefit or harm a person, depending on its quantity and potency. High doses of a substance can produce very different effects from those of low doses. Water is necessary for human life, but drink extreme... 

Marijuana was first mentioned as a medicine in an American medical text in 1843 and in 1854 was listed in the U.S. Dispensatory. The latter year also marked the first written description by Bayard Taylor in The Atlantic Monthly of cannabis intoxication. In the 1850s, recommended medical uses for marijuana included the treatment of gout, rheumatism, tetanus, opiate and alcohol withdrawal, loss of appetite, dysmenorrhea, convulsions, depression, insanity, and asthma. Although its suggested uses were widespread, marijuana never actually achieved popular use in the medical community. The reasons for this include variations in potency of commercial preparations, variability in patients responses, slow onset of oral action, and lack of solubility preventing administration by injection. However, the drug was included in many patent medicine preparations and was officially recognized as a medicine in the U.S. Pharmacopoeia until 1937. In 1937 there were 28 pharmaceuticals that contained cannabis. 

Meanwhile, the potency of home-grown Cannabis products quickly increased. Word spread rapidly that some of the marijuana from Hawaii and California was superb. By 1977, many people were paying up to 250 an ounce for "Hawaiian, which was about as expensive as Cannabis ever got. 

With the "Isomerizer, the process is much easier. More than 200,000 Isomerizers are said to have been sold with the expectation that the device will increase potency of weak marijuana up to six times. After five or sue years on the market, however, the isomerizing process hasn t really become popular. The main reasons appear to be because it s still too much trouble and most people don t enjoy the taste of the "Iso-hash or oil which result since there is generally a lingering odor from bicarbonate of soda that is used to neutralize the sulfuric acid. Some complain that Iso-hash doesn t get them all that high. Robert Connell Clarke s Marijuana Botany provides a fuller discussion. 

Perez-Reyes M, Di Guiseppi S, Davis KH, Schindler VH, Cook CE (1982) Comparison of effects of marijuana cigarettes of three different potencies. Clin Pharmacol Ther 31 617-624... 

The principal psychoactive component of marijuana is THC. Hashish, the dried resin of the top of the plant, is much more potent than the plant itself. Increasingly sophisticated growing techniques have resulted in plants of greater potency. In a recent study, the amount of A -THC found in the samples ranged from 1.41% to 12.62% by dry weight. The average A -THC content was 6.20%, which is almost identical to the 2002 value reported by The University of Mississippi s Potency Monitoring Project. ... 

The blanket suppression of LSD and other psychedelics has been a complete disaster in that (1) it has seriously hindered proper research on these drugs (2) it has created a profitable black market as it has raised the price (3) it has embarrassed the police with an impossible assignment (4) it has created the false fascination with fruit that is forbidden (5) it has seriously impeded the normal work of courts of justice, and herded thousands of noncriminal types of people into already overcrowded prisons, which, as everyone knows, are schools of sodomy and for crime as a profession (6) it has made users of psychedelics more susceptible to paranoia more than ever (For purposes of this summary I am including marijuana and hashish as psychedelics, though they do not have the potency of LSD)... The Joyous Cosmology, by Watts, A. 1970... 

In summary, there seems to be little relationship between potency and color, since each variety of marijuana contains plants with high, medium and low content of both THC and CBD. 

The first observations about the differences in potency of the male and female marijuana plants were probably made thousands of years ago. The ancient Indian practice of separating males... 

Research into medical applications of marijuana is made all the more difficult by the fact that all forms of cannabis remain in the schedule 1 category, which makes it almost impossible for scientists to obtain marijuana of consistent potency needed for studies. Often current marijuana laws make it very difficult for scientists at universities and pharmaceutical companies to get permission to do cannabis research at all. And if they succeed in getting permission to do cannabis research, it is very difficult for them to obtain the drug legally. Furthermore, confiscated marijuana that researchers obtain from law enforcement sources (a common source of marijuana used in cannabis research programs) varies gready in potency and is sometimes tainted by other drugs, pesticides, and other impurities. Nevertheless, scientists have continued to do what research they can. 

Michael Starks, Marijuana Chemistry, Geneties, Proeessing, and Potency. New York Ronin, 1990. This book presents the heavy science of marijuana. 

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