It’s common to hear in the cannabis community that “today’s weed isn’t the weed your mom smoked.” How true is that actually? As grow methods and equipment become more sophisticated, backed by a tsunami of legal money, it’s probably true.
Right now, there is a lot of noise in research and the media about the dose-response relationship between THC content being associated with cannabis related mental illness. A dose-response relationship is medical jargon for how a specific amount of a substance changes the effects of the substance.
The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) tested 38,000 cannabis samples in 2014 and found that average THC content has risen around 8 percent over the last two decades while CBD percentages have fallen, Live Science reports. Mahmoud A. ElSohly, a professor of pharmaceutics at the University of Mississippi believes these factors put young people at higher risk of “psychosis and panic attacks,” per Live Science.
“I’m a freak, Jon.” Ian Hamilton told me. “I only see people that have real problems and I always have to remind myself that,” Hamilton continued, “that gives me a very distorted view of the results of cannabis use.”
Ian Hamilton started out as a psychiatric nurse in the England, which gave him access to people suffering from mental health problems associated with drug and alcohol addictions. This field fascinated Hamilton and launched him into a career of addiction research, with a specific interest in cannabis and the varying effect it has on people. Officially, Hamilton is a lecturer of mental health in the Department of Health Sciences at the University of York in England.
There is no doubt that cannabis is extremely harmful to a minority of individuals. Eight to 24 percent of cases involving psychosis are estimated to be brought on by cannabis, The Guardian reports.
The questions that arise from these findings are if higher potency cannabis will increase the rate of harm and why select people are more vulnerable to cannabis than others.
“The narrative has gotten stronger, and the tales better for the telling that cannabis has become more potent,” Hamilton said.
The problem with that narrative, there isn’t enough hard evidence to support it. Cannabis seizures in the U.S. and U.K. amount to “proxy measures, at best,” Hamilton said. Meaning, just because the DEA tested more potent cannabis, doesn’t mean the average potency of cannabis has increased.
Another problem is the testing itself.
“When this narrative started 15, 20 years ago, the testing was dreadful then and even now it’s not brilliant, but it’s better than it was,” Hamilton explained.
Growers are most likely capable of growing more potent cannabis than ever before, but that doesn’t mean everyone is smoking the strongest stuff they can find, or smoking the most potent strains every time they consume cannabis.
In the recreational market, many smokers don’t purchase cannabis based on THC content at all: Brand, design, quality, strain type and price are all factors cannabis users could consider before making a purchase.
Illegal market buyers don’t have many of those options. However, it’s less likely black market growers can consistently grow the highest quality product. Black market operations are faced with numerous uncontrollable factors that recreational operations are not.
Not to mention, black market flower doesn’t go through the stringent testing legal flower goes through. These factors can lead to inconsistent potency measures batch to batch.
Hamilton believes the U.S. and U.K. both need to conduct a national survey of cannabis to find out potency measures, the THC to CBD rations and contaminant levels in the flower.
The National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) is the leader in drug research across the world. NIDA Director Dr. Nora Volkow believes higher potency cannabis can make symptoms worse in vulnerable individuals, according to PBS News Hour.
Volkow cites stats showing increases in individuals seeking treatment for marijuana addiction. Volkow states the number of cannabis users isn’t increasing, but emergency visits involving cannabis users are. Volkow says both of these problems could be caused by marijuana’s potency, PBS News Hours reports.
Others, like Dr. Carl Hart, believe that higher potency cannabis can have positive health benefits. Hart is a Columbia University neuroscientist. Hart is most famous for being critical of U.S. drug policy and has made two appearances on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, where he’s spoken at length about his views on the matter.
Hart has done studies where people are given two joints, one has low potency cannabis and the other high potency cannabis. Most of the people would smoke the entire joint containing the weaker cannabis, but many wouldn’t smoke the entire joint containing the stronger cannabis. Hart is referring to what scientists call self-titration, or mindful adjustment of the amount you ingest based on the strength.
Hart believes this could make potent cannabis healthier in the long run. If it’s stronger, you smoke less, so there’s less smoke inhalation, which could be less toxic for your lungs, Hart told PBS News Hour.
Hamilton and Volkow believe we need to be careful with the self-titration argument. Hamilton uses a comparison to alcohol. If you give someone vodka and beer, some people will regulate the amount they drink, but many won’t.
Volkow says that regular cannabis users are much more likely to self-regulate than new users.
“It’s something that needs exploring more, whose able to self-titrate and who, maybe isn’t?” Hamilton added.
While it’s clear some people are susceptible to mental health problems from cannabis consumption; there isn’t enough evidence to prove that high amounts of THC are causing mental diseases to manifest. Certain people who smoke strong cannabis or “skunk” as it’s called in the U.K., have experienced short and long term mental health problems, but there’s other risk factors that lead to psychotic breaks or the onset of schizophrenia as well.
The next story in the cannabis and mental health series will explore cannabis and how it relates to schizophrenia and psychosis.
