Posted on 07/25/2004 1:12:55 AM PDT by MadIvan
New super-strength marijuana readily available on US streets is prompting the White House to change direction in its war against drugs.
Research from the government-sponsored Marijuana Potency Project claims today's cannabis is more than twice as strong as in the mid-Eighties, leading to greater health risks for those smoking it at increasingly younger ages.
Now President George Bush, who had already promised a more aggressive campaign against substance abuse, has ordered that resources be allocated to fighting so-called 'soft' drugs instead of concentrating on harder forms, such as heroin and cocaine.
'We are working hard on education, but unfortunately a lot of today's parents are under the impression marijuana is harmless and that their kids trying it is some kind of rite of passage,' said Jennifer de Vallance, of the Office of National Drug Control Policy.
'They might have had experience in their own teenage years with no problems, but this is not the same marijuana as in the Sixties, Seventies and Eighties. Today's forms are much stronger and potentially more harmful, especially to young people whose brains are not fully developed and are therefore more susceptible to adverse reactions.'
The Marijuana Potency Project, at the University of Mississippi, analysed more than 30,000 samples seized over the past 18 years by the authorities. It found that the average level of the active ingredient in marijuana, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), jumped from 3.5 per cent in 1985 to more than 7 per cent in 2003.
Of more concern to the analysts is that the upward trend appears to be continuing. The average potency of 20 marijuana samples seized and tested so far this year exceeds 9 per cent, with a peak of 27 per cent in one batch from a state in the North West.
'Today's marijuana is a much more serious problem than the vast majority of Americans understands,' said John Walters, the government's director of drug control policy who has promised a clampdown on producers.
Those who support the legalisation of cannabis are not convinced. 'Whenever government officials speak about drugs issues, a more detailed examination of the facts is a good idea,' said David Borden, executive director of the Washington-based Drug Reform Coordination Network.
'These projects are always government-funded and, without criticising the researchers, officials take what they want from it and send out their press releases. There has always been a wide range of potencies. It doesn't mean people are getting more intoxicated, because the higher the potency, the less they smoke.'
Figures suggest overall drug use in America's high schools has fallen by 11 per cent in two years but the National Centre on Addiction and Substance Abuse reports the number of children and teenagers receiving treatment for marijuana abuse jumped 142 per cent over the last decade, and that emergency hospital admissions of 12 to 17-year-olds in which marijuana was implicated rose 48 per cent in four years.
Borden acknowledges children must be steered away from drugs, but says: 'Their anti-drugs efforts have had a paradoxical effect in promoting the underground cultivation of marijuana. The number of users makes it an appealing target and there is no limit to the number of arrests that can be made, and the government uses those numbers to scare the public into thinking there is some big problem.
'All the government has been able to do is encourage people to experiment with stronger drugs than they would have before.'
I think you are relying on your memory, which was recently proven to be defective.
There's another thread going that says wild marijuana grows everywhere, but will not get you high...it is only cultivation that has acheived that characteristic.
Still care to go with your Biblical argument?
Thing out loud; thing out strong..."
With apologies to Elmer Fudd.
Legalized Cocaine
Do you really think that Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan - The Father of the WOD's
and JimRob
I have never seen him to speak if favor of drug legalization
would have such kind words about libertarianism if the LP was representative of the philosiphy?
That's my point!
Those were and some still are dangerous to consume and
naturally were therefore prohibited under dietary law.
Herbs are not proscribed.
Rather, they were gifted.
In fact, I do not eat bottom dwellers.
Pork, if it is well done, is O.K. in my book.
Especially in the rib form slathered with sauce,
the spicy kind that burns so good.
Jimrob's posting guidelines request that we not engage in profanity, even when using substituted characters.
But clearly, unclean and not to be eaten, according to your quotes.
"There's another thread going that says wild marijuana grows everywhere, but will not get you high...it is only cultivation that has acheived that characteristic.
Still care to go with your Biblical argument?"
The plant is most useful and proportionately potent by its own nature. Studies showed that maximum fiber strength correlated with higher THC content due to maximization of growth factors. Naturally, this plant growing wild for generations in poor and uneven conditions will not produce much THC on a relative scale. At the same time, take a clone of the highest potency plant and put it outside and you get the same ditchweed you present as some kind of evidence.
Yes, unclean, as in, it is dangerous.
Less so today, and not if you cook it at a high enough temperature for long enough in any case. We all know this now. Nothing you have said makes it any less true. Do you think the Bible should have spelled that all out or just left it up to "unclean?" Is knowledge revealed?
Thong
The Bible spells it out. Thou shalt not eat the pig.
The LORD said to Moses and Aaron, 2 "Say to the Israelites: 'Of all the animals that live on land, these are the ones you may eat: 3 You may eat any animal that has a split hoof completely divided and that chews the cud. 4 " 'There are some that only chew the cud or only have a split hoof, but you must not eat them.
This thread is about pot. I didn't see crack mentioned anywhere. If you'd like to discuss crack however, why don't you start a thread. I have some interesting opinions about that too.
Boy, you guys can't stand it when your ultimate pro-drug legalization agenda is skewered.
Now, I don't know about everyone else, but a 3.5 per cent increase over 18 years
Going from 3.5% to 7% us a 100% increase. Please with your distortions ...
It's Monday morning, and he figures your probably at work.
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YEAH DAMNIT! We cannot walk & chew gum at the same friggin time! Geez.
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Um, you forget that you're talking to potheads. They can barely get enough mental power together to grab a bag of Doritos afterward. The idea of being able to do two things at the same time, let alone form complete sentences, is way beyond the computing power of their THC-muddled brains.
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God forbid some evil bastard should get away with sparkin' up a spliff and polishing off a bag of Doritos in his own home.
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You mean while he collects the welfare check because he's too wasted to hold down a job? Or because he no longer cares to get off his fat behind to get a job? Or while his two-year old cries in a soiled diaper on a filthy bed because he and his skank girlfriend traded her WIC vouchers to buy some more joints?
Spend a day with a drug enforcement team, ass, and come talk to me about how dopeheads only do it to themselves.
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What am I missing?
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You mean other than the obvious fact that no dopehead thinks that way? That all dopeheads are saying: awesome, twice the high per joint. Roll me a bigger one, dude.
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