Not Your Father's Marijuana and other myths

More than 95% of the THC in female cannabis plants is in resin trichomes on the buds with next to none by weight in the stems, fan leaves and seeds. This is why even female plants while immature have almost no THC. Smoking fan leaves from immature plants is thus a waste of time.

Interestingly, this uneven concentration of THC across the parts of the plant has given rise to one of the greatest drug-war myths about the strength of "modern super cannabis," also known as the "Not Your Father's Marijuana Myth."

In the 1960s and 70s, when you got a bag of weed, it contained all the stems, seeds and leaves the grower produced. The 'shake' contains almost no THC but still contributes weight to a bag of weed. If you remove all the shake, the THC measured by total weight goes WAY up. You didn't increase the potency at all- you just took some useless, inactive dead weight out of the sample.

Well, if you take most of the water out of beer, you get whiskey.

In the mid-late 1980s and forward, users expressed a preference to buy only buds and no shake. Growers started leaving out the shake.

Unsurprisingly, the US DEA seizes a lot of weed. They test the THC content as a part of general police work. The DEA HAS recorded an increase in THC by weight over the years, but it's not due to any magical new strains of cannabis nor hydroponic growing- it's because growers only sell buds these days. The other stuff is composted.

So, when some moron in the press says there's some "new DANGEROUS super cannabis!!!" out there and they cite the DEA's seized dope data as their evidence, you know what's going on. DEA didn't find any 'super weed'- but they did successfully track a user preference trend!

Funnier yet is the drug-warriors' claim of "10-20-(insert hype figure here) times" stronger cannabis. If 1970s cannabis was about 7% THC by weight and it were magically made 20x stronger by subversive underground growers (dat's us), it'd contain 140% THC by weight. Huh? WTF? How could you have more than 100% of anything in this equation?

If you were able to retroactively test 1960s-70s samples and remove all the shake weight, you would find that it is almost exactly the same THC by weight as present day outdoor buds.

On a related topic, hydroponic growing is often thought to increase potency. Total myth. The THC content will be determined by the plant DNA. Indoor hydro and outdoor grown plants will come up nearly identical in THC % if the outdoor plants get ideal weather and guaranteed sufficient water and nutes. There's never a cloudy day in a grow room- that's the main difference. A plant will do its very best in perfect conditions; start taking away the optimal conditions one by one and you reduce the yield and potency accordingly. It's just a lot harder to present perfect conditions outdoors.

interesting thx

Al B. Fuct said:

If you were able to retroactively test 1960s-70s samples and remove all the shake weight, you would find that it is almost exactly the same THC by weight as present day outdoor buds.

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Good stuff Al B, pretty much agree with all of that.

If anything the bud grown in the 1970's was more 'psychoactive' that the stuff generally grown today under indoor lights. A lot of the bud being grown outdoors in the 70's was landrace Thai's, Indian, Nepalese, Pakistani, Columbian and Mexican true breeding lines and many were pure Sativas. Much of the weed smoked at that time was imported into the country from the natural habitat of the plants and particularly Columbian and Mexican strains were very prevalent at that time. There's nothing more 'psychoactive' than pure bred landrace Sativas flowered outside in hot climates where the resin spheres are fully 'realised' by the large quantities of UVB photons that exist out in nature in thosr parts of the world.

Some of the shit smoked back then is some of the best shit the worlds ever seen.

Compare that with todays homegrown offerings, grown under lights in artificial environments with no UVB exposure for full THC realisation, being force fed large quantities nasty chemical nutrients often at toxic levels. We use heavily inbred hybridised seed strains from Holland often bred only using 3 well tried and tested strain variations that have been raised and bred inside under artificial lights.

Is it any wonder that these 'homogenised' plants, often bred for high THC levels are a poor imitation of the shit being smoked in the 70's?

Modern breeding is breeding out evolutionary traits such as full THC realisation from strains and varieties that are bred and developed almost soley under artificial lights - the genes and chromosomes responsible for the "full THC realisation" probably a plant defence mechanism to protect the seed bract, are simply not required by the plant any more because of the lack of UVB to protect itself against.

How people can claim that todays THC and "Super Skunk" strains that supposedly contain these high levels of THC are more potent that stuff being smoked in the 70's I really have no idea.

In that same train of thought, I've often wondered what the anti-drug wowsers figure about hydroponically grown lettuce and tomatoes.

Hydro/hothouse lettuce is often better than soil/field grown because pests are easily controlled in the indoor environs. Hydro/hothouse tomatoes on the other hand have a bad reputation for tasting flat.

I wonder if I will develop an addiction to some dangerous new super hydro lettuce.

BAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHH

"Marijuana today is probably 1,000 times more potent than it was in the 1970s," Wellbank said. "People used to smoke the leaves. Now they use the buds on the plants to make a stronger form. And marijuana is more expensive than it used to be. And when it becomes more expensive people tend to try to protect it more."

Another reason marijuana is stronger now than it used to be is that it is homegrown -- people who make marijuana are more careful to cultivate it and protect it to get a stronger product to sell.

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source : Illinois research marijuana issues

"1000x" would have to be a new record for a ridiculous hype factor. I can honestly say I've never seen a higher hype figure.... now lemme see, what's 1000 x 7% THC...? 7000%, right?

When someone finds this 1000x shit, I wanna know about it ASAP.

However, it probably won't come in bags... if you have 7000% THC, the stuff will be dripping off the plants like dew. Better bring buckets.

me too, get fuckin littt ahahaha

Has anyone checked out Raising awareness of the consequences of drug prohibition | Stop the Drug War (DRCNet) ?

that site is the bible.

Another reason marijuana is stronger now than it used to be is that it is homegrown -- people who make marijuana are more careful to cultivate it and protect it to get a stronger product to sell.

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hang on... isn't the usual reputation of 'homegrown' supposed to be 'weak,' 'unprofessional' or otherwise amateurish?

They just make this shit up as they go along, they really do. Then they're full of pride that they duped another media outlet into printing their belief-based garbage.

If drug laws were rewritten today on what medical evidence we now have, alcohol and tobacco would be banned, classed with heroin and cocaine.

Cannabis would be sold in the regulated recreational drug stores that would replace the banned liquor stores.

Getting the government off the liquor tax nipple will be hard to do if they are not convinced they can reap millions in pot taxes. I think that's actually do-able, though.

im really convinced that our government is run by a bunch of imbred retards, goddamn it

Comparing inbred retards to politicians might cause great offence to inbred retards. err... I mean, closely-related mentally handicapped.

Seriously- mentally ill people can't help their behaviour, but governments CAN change their behaviour to benefit the people who elect them.

Jail doesn't cure addiction, never has, never will.

all i no is back in the 80's there was some serious hydro kick ass bud, still get good bud but not as good as then, for some reason most growers switched back to dirt i think it was not looked not so bad in the laws eyes so dirt it was.
i'm growing hydro now so i'll letcha's no what i think when its done

Hydroponics is only an alternate method of getting nutrients to the roots. The nutes are provided in a readily assimilatable form, as opposed to soil, where the roots have to extract the nutes from more complex organic matter.

The nutes the plants can use directly are the elemental nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium components. These are bound up in organic matter in regular soil grows.

There's absolutely no difference at all between what roots take out of organics and the "chemical" nutes supplied in regular hydroponic nutrient products. However, the elements are much more available to the plant in 'chemical' nutes than in organics.

Soil can't keep up with common hydroponics on plant development and thus productivity because of the ease of availability of the nutes to the plant in hydro. However, there's no magic in hydroponics which specifically increases potency- that part is pure urban myth.

Oh hell med we doing it write now,one ounce at a time...Personally I dont think an ounce is enough ,but I'm too broke to expand...

medicineman said:

Hey AB, tell us how to change the government when the majority of the people are brainwashed.

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Late to bed, early to rise, work like hell and advertise.

Seriously, write letters to politicians - lots of them - advocating legalisation.

Drop supportive, sensibly worded leaflets (no FUCK THE FASCISTS!! stuff) in mailboxes in areas where there's an election coming and the candidate has expressed harm-minimsation or legalisation positions.

Complain about govt wasting billions on a war-on-drugs that doesn't stop people using drugs- because prohibition doesn't work.

Encourage harm-minimisation and legalisation positions with candidates. If a candidate THINKS his/her electorate won't support drug legalisation or HM, the position won't be supported. Let the candidates know that this is what you want!

Write letters to the editor of your local paper/s supporting legalisation and HM.

In short- be an activist. Get the message out. Tell the story.

FYI, it's great fun to confront politicians with their own self-interested crap.

I had the great pleasure at a 'town meeting' of calling a candidate on the carpet about his ridiculous 'throw all the druggies in jail!!' position- when public records indicated this joker owned 3 bars, each with a record of causing problems for the local constabulary. Alcohol IS A DRUG and the one which does THE most damage to our communities. I postulated in this meeting that this guy didn't care about people doing drugs- as long as they bought their drugs from HIM.

KNOW your politician. If s/he's a hypocrite, spread the word every way you can.

First bag I bought in 1969 actually had some dirt in the bottom, and almost all bags then comtained some soil or mud. You got more seed and stem than leaf, and the leaf was what we desired. bud? what was that? i am sure it was in there but it was so "bricked" you could not distinguish the bud from
the leaf.
Then Red bud came alone, then gold bud, then Jamacan, Michmican, and then Columbian, each improving in strenght, but actually only improving in quality of harvest and curing and getting "buds" instead of a mixed bag of anything you could call pot. Then thai sticks ! And Afgani ! Oh wow!
and Home Grown was for poor people and tasted like green grass.....until someone grew some INDICA ...we called it cat shit and some ws called SKUNK weed...Indica certainly changed my pot world!

But you are right!, there certainly wasn't any buds in our nichol bags.!

Al B. Fuct said:

In short- be an activist. Get the message out. Tell the story.

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Al B, I know where you're coming from with this and I tend to agree with it.

However, those of us growing illegally in wardrobes are hardly likely to want to bring attention to ourselves (or what we might be doing illegally) by becoming Cannabis Activists. A lot of people are simply not in the position to be able to draw attention to themselves in this way.

This bascially means the Medical users, growing legally must carry the 'activist' torch for the rest of us, because they can grow legally and within the law, and thus have nothing to lose by drawing attention to themselves.