Caution about cannabis

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My mentee told me that about 20% of her high school class smoked pot before coming to school. This proportion has been verified by questionnaires. Anything that affects 1/5 of the potential workforce’s fitness to learn has Macroeconomic impact.

One of my first cousins is a lawyer who was active for decades in the political/ social struggle to legalize cannabis. I noticed that the information/ propaganda focused on the potential benefits but ignored the potential harms. Although cannabis is still illegal on the federal level, 20 states (including Washington) have legalized cannabis for medical and recreational use in adults.

But cannabis has changed.

The Race for All-Powerful Pot

Inside the $32 billion industry transforming marijuana, its consumption and beliefs about its ability to heal.
By Katie J.M. BakerMegan TwoheyDanielle Ivory and Jeremy Singer-Vine, The New York Times, Jan. 25, 2025

…
More than a decade after states began legalizing recreational marijuana, businesses are enticing customers with unproven health claims, while largely escaping rigorous oversight. A New York Times review of 20 of the largest brands found that most were selling products with such claims, potentially violating federal and state regulations. And as companies compete, potency has gone up — with some products advertised as having as much as 99 percent THC — and prices have gone down…

Nearly 18 million Americans now report using marijuana daily or near daily — more than the number drinking alcohol that often — according to a national survey on drug use. A growing number are enduring addiction, psychosis and other harms, a Times investigation last year found…

More growers embraced breeding techniques to increase the potency of the marijuana smoked in joints, blunts and bongs, pushing the THC levels to as much as 30 percent. (The typical level a generation ago was less than 5 percent.) Cannabis vapes, infused pre-rolled joints and high-intensity THC beverages now line dispensary shelves. And many businesses sell concentrates, some promoting nearly 100 percent THC, in the form of waxes, liquids and crystalline “diamonds” — products that have gone from niche to mainstream…

Jetty’s marketing director, Kate Ransom, defended potent products and said people should be able to make their own choices. “The dispensaries are catering to high-dose consumers, because that’s who is spending the most money, and so that’s actually the free market at work.”… More than half of monthly sales at retailers come from just 20 percent of customers, who favor higher-potency products… [end quote]

The earlier linked article describes how cannabis can be as addictive as opioids to about 1/3 of the population due to a genetic variation. Users often lose motivation to succeed – this has been known since the 1960s.

It’s up to the states to regulate cannabis since it’s illegal on the national scale. The FDA (a federal agency) doesn’t have the power to penalize cannabis false claims to cure illness that would be illegal to claim for any other product.

Cannabis is a product in a gray area. Like alcohol, many people can use it safely but it can cause significant harms to others. Unlike alcohol, the harms aren’t well-known.

Wendy

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Thanks for posting! Maybe a more reputable poster won’t have it yoinked down by big sister.

Cannabis can be used safely, but the poor regulation has led to crazy high concentration THC. Dabs are all the rage with underage users, some as high as 99% THC. For the old hippies on the board who used to toke 10% tops swag…that’s crazy.

Apart from what you can smoke, more and more edibles and drinks are on the market. Dosage is in mgs, but many people don’t realize that a 100 mg drink can have serious effects on an occasional user.

At least in CO, it feels like the wild west. Many people who pushed for legalization didn’t realize the consequences of poorly regulated cannabis. Again, it can be a safer alternative to drinking, but there are tremendous education and regulation gaps that are causing serious problems.

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Same with gambling. Michigan has had a lottery since the early 70s, casinos since the 90s, and, now, on line casino games and sports books, along with legal recreational pot.

It’s all about taking more money off of the Proles.

Steve

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Heck, it’s free money! and immoral to NOT take it, cuz if you don’t some evil DEI hippy cabal will.

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but ignored the potential harms.

Can say the same for any diet and exercise regimen they like to hustle. “Latest studies show.” Sunshine. It took a law to get druggies to actually tell people the side effects of their otherwise very helpful chemicals in the event they don’t harm or kill you. If someone is advocating for something, in this case weed, no, you won’t hear of any downside.

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I don’t believe that cannabis is nearly as harmful when compared to alcohol. The U.S. alcohol industry generates $280bil annually. Beer and alcohol sales at sporting events bring in almost as much as ticket sales.
Over 10,000 fatalities in 2023 from DUI, and over 40,000 fatalities due to alcohol mediated liver disease in 2023. The dysfunctional families attributed to alcohol use disorder is hard to count but it is in the millions.
So when I read a thread that says “Caution about cannabis”, I think someone is looking a needles in the forest and is oblivious to the trees.

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Funny, for so many years, many decades really, all I heard was the opposite: how harmful it was, how it was a gateway drug, that it caused people to do crazy & bad things.

Maybe the pendulum has swung too much in the other direction over the past 10-15 years, maybe, but much of it was caused by the overblown hype, the propaganda, of “the evil ganja” and the racist way it was often used in the legal system.

Pete

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Two wrongs don’t make a right.

Alcohol obviously can cause great harm. That doesn’t mean that cannabis is harmless. Just as some people are more vulnerable to the harms of alcohol than others, some people are more vulnerable to the harms of cannabis than others. Those potential harms need to be publicized.
Wendy

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I’m just pointing out from your cautionary tale: Although cannabis is still illegal on the federal level
Cannabis is a Schedule One CSA. Do you know the definition of a Schedule One?
Schedule I drugs, substances, or chemicals are defined as drugs with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.
That’s not cannabis, that’s alcohol.

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Alcohol’s not a controlled substance.

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It’s all about taking people’s money, the only morality in Shiny-land.

Most college age people in Michigan are not old enough to drink, but the big feature in college athletics in 24?

Steve

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Then I guessed you missed the point

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Well said. Interestingly, Washington State collects by far more taxes on cannabis than it does on alcohol, and Washington State has the highest alcohol taxes in the nation.

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It was 100 years ago. Prohibition enabled and funded organized crime.

That being said, seems that the impacts of drinking did decline during prohibition, except for deaths, with may have been a function of the quality of the alcohol being consumed.

EtOH prohibition1
EtOH prohibition1960×720 56.8 KB

Steve

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Well, I think a heck of a lot of what was responsible for the acute poisoning and deaths during prohibition was that folk were resorting to methanol rather than ethanol consumption. Whether in ignorance or desperation.y

Interestingly enough, and historically speaking, ethanol has been used as a temporary/emergency “antidote” for methanol/wood alcohol poisoning…yes, it’s there on Google!! (I checked) Which kind of refutes the notion that it has…or technically had…no medical use (I’m sure there are other competitors for the alcohol dehydrogenase enzymes in use in the ER these days) I didn’t know this until a few years back when I was proof reading husband’s textbook on alcohol and the liver. “Oh”, sez I, " another medical use for alcohol". ( when I first heard of “non-alcoholic fatty liver disease” in my youth, I suggested more gin and tonic as a treatment … I guess you had to be there.)

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Harmful being the operative word neither make any sense.

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The first time I voted as a US citizen, decriminalizing possession of cannabis (in MA) was on the ballot. I voted yes. I thought the reasoning to be solid…if “legal” there’d be no reason for the folk who fancied a toke to go underground to get it, etc (not I FWIW…never smoked a regular cigarette, let alone a “funny” one)

A few years hence…and in CO…I agree that it’s a whole wild west feel. At a local rotary meeting some time ago, one of the other Rotarians (a guy who was soon to be running for the spot of district attorney here in Jefferson County, so predisposed to a certain way of thinking, I guess) gave a lecture with very convincing stats for the increase in various crimes since CO became such a permissive state WRT cannabis. I asked the question, “Is it the drug or the person?” (like I do with opioids, say) he sort of dodged it a bit, but what I was asking was based on the numbers of people I’d stumbled across/heard of who came to Colorado just because the drug was legal and readily available. That struck me as weird behaviour.

Mind you, I was surely tempted this time last year…over 3 weeks since my lapiplasty and down to my last few Oxycodone and no way would a non opioid control the pain. A couple of lovely looking places very close by that held the promise of pain relief (allegedly) but my neighbour, with more practical experience in such matters than I, suggested that I possibly shouldn’t go that route as a never-before user. Fortunately, my orthopedist didn’t share the opioid phobia either so I got another week of oxy.

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@TucsonBones as you surely know, Prohibition of alcohol was a failure because of illegal supply to eager customers. Legal cannabis (for medical and recreational use) still has the same problem because high taxes drive users to illegal suppliers.

The harmful but legal drugs, alcohol and nicotine, are so entrenched in society that it would be impossible to classify them as Schedule I drugs even though they deserve the classification.

Cannabis does have some approved medical uses and some non-approved but generally agreed medical uses. The harm from cannabis comes from use by young people with developing brains, by overuse and by addiction from a genetic variation that enables “crossover” between the brain’s cannabinoid receptors and opioid receptors.

Perhaps it’s too late to re-classify cannabis as a psychoactive drug that should be prescribed by doctors (e.g. benzodiazepines, which are used by a large fraction of the population under a doctor’s supervision). The genie is out of the bottle.

That’s why it’s important to publicize the potential harms, so people can titrate their usage to be safe.

By the way, the same should be said of the benzos. The standard dosage is highly addictive. A wise person will treat them like fire.

Wendy

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@MataroPete let’s bring the pendulum to a central resting place by investigating and publicizing the medical effects of cannabis use in a scientific, non-propaganda way so people can titrate their own usage without harm if they choose to use (I don’t).
Wendy

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An elderly friend of mine shared his experience in a similar situation. Tried a cannabis gummy for pain control. Very negative reaction since it sent him on a trip but didn’t control the pain.
Wendy

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