With marijuana legislation slowly and effectively moving the dial from medical marijuana to legal recreational use, many baby boomers who smoked pot in their younger years are shrugging their shoulders and saying “Why not?”. The presumption is “I smoked it and turned out ok. What’s the big deal to legalization?” At face value, it sounds reasonable. Unfortunate  people fail to realize today’s pot has benefitted from technology so that today’s pot is now 3 times more potent (with one researcher telling me “It’s up to 10 times more potent.”). It’s the difference between being hit by a bicycle or a trunk.

Here is today’s (3/24/15) posting from the AMA Morning Rounds reporting on various articles on this topic from around the country.

Testing finds marijuana far more potent than a generation ago.

The CBS News (3/23) website reported that today’s marijuana is “more potent by far than the weed sold a generation ago, according to new data being presented Monday at the national meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS).” Charas Scientific researcher Andy LaFrate, PhD, said, “I would say the average potency of marijuana has probably increased by a factor of at least three. We’re looking at average potencies right now of around 20 percent THC.” The National Institute on Drug Abuse “says the potency of marijuana has been steadily increasing over the past few decades, but a level of 20 or 30 percent THC is even greater than the institute has reported in the past.”

The NBC News (3/23, Briggs) website reports that LaFrate was “surprised” at what is in the marijuana for sale legally in Colorado. “After analyzing more than 600 samples of bud provided by certified growers and sellers, LaFrate said he detected little medical value and lots of contamination,” such as fungal spores. In some marijuana concentrates, he discovered “solvents like butane.” What’s more, “the 600-plus weed samples generally carried little or no cannabidiol, or CBD – the compound that makes medical marijuana ‘medical.’” In fact, the average amount of CBD was just “0.1 percent, his study reports.”

Forbes (3/23) contributor Alice G. Walton writes that NIDA director Nora Volkow “adds that the decline in CBD is concerning for medical reasons, since people who legitimately need its therapeutic effects may not be receiving them at all.” She also points out that “the higher THC content” is “driving the increase in marijuana-related emergency room visits in the country over the last several years.” She said, “The higher the THC content, the stronger the effects on the brain.”

Medical research can not rely on marijuana findings from 20 years ago as potency has dramatically increase. We need medical research to inform us how current marijuana alters brain chemistry and heightens health risks previous undocumented. As the expression goes “Smokers beware” (a take-off on “Buyers beware”).  In the future, you don’t want to be saying “If I had only known…”