5 ms·

While I'm not proposing "doing nothing" about this problem, how much of this is likely to be a "hangover" from prohibition. Based on absolutely no data whatsoev

While I'm not proposing "doing nothing" about this problem, how much of this is likely to be a "hangover" from prohibition. Based on absolutely no data whatsoever, my instinct would be that demand for high-THC/low-CBD products would decrease as access to cannabis becomes less novel.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
nerdponx 4y ago
My intuition is similar, especially as older and less "drug oriented" users continue to enter the market. In Massachusetts, a lot of dispensaries show the THC level, and I usually just buy the one with the lowest content.
jgtrosh 4y ago
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6312155/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6312155/ > without any clear guidelines or regulations from government officials, the cannabis industry has taken a page from the tobacco and alcohol industries’ play book and developed strains of marijuana and concentrated marijuana products with much higher concentrations of THC, the psychoactive component that causes addiction. The more potent a drug is, the stronger the possibility of addiction and the more likely the person will continue to purchase and use the product. Doesn't seem like there's any incentive to reduce potency.
- lucideer 4y ago
  I opened with "I'm not proposing doing nothing" - I do think measures to remediate this problem in the short term are a good idea, in line with the fears outlined in your article. Nothing in your article tackles my main point though? > the cannabis industry has taken a page from the tobacco and alcohol industries’ play book As a slightly off-topic aside: tobacco I'm less familiar with (I wasn't aware of efforts by the industry to grow strains of the plants with higher nicotine content but it seems unsurprising), but including alcohol here is bizarre. Alcohol isn't naturally occurring in harvested produce - it's an output from a process. And even then, maybe they're talking about distillation, but that process predates the industrial revolution by 100s maybe 1000s of years. Tbh this throwaway statement kinda makes me question the article...
  - InefficientRed 4y ago
    > Alcohol isn't naturally occurring in harvested produce - it's an output from a process. Ethanol is naturally occurring. That said, I agree that including alcohol here is bizarre. As far as I can tell there has never been a monotonic increase in ABV; instead, there is a large selection ranging from high alcohol content to even alcohol-free (which is so unpopular in the US as to be barely worth mentioning, but quite popular in Germany, and I'm now seeing large and even regional breweries in the US produce AF versions of their most popular beers). > Unless they're talking about distillation Most alcoholic beverages are made through some sort of distillation process, so I'm not sure what difference you're alluding to here.
    - lucideer 4y ago
      > Most alcoholic beverages are made through some sort of distillation process, so I'm not sure what difference you're alluding to here. Most alcoholic beverages (beers, wines) are not distilled - distillation is typically only used to take a drink above the 20-30% ABV mark (spirit / liquor).
    - skissane 4y ago
      > Most alcoholic beverages are made through some sort of distillation process How do you define “most”? - but I’m pretty sure non-distilled/non-fortified alcoholic beverages (wine/beer/etc) make up more of the alcoholic beverage market (whether in litres or dollars) than distilled/fortified beverages. I think they also are a lot more if you were to count SKUs (number of varieties of non-fortified wines/beers/etc > spirits/liqueurs/fortified wines/etc)
      - InefficientRed 4y ago
        Oh, okay. Just confusion of terms. My brain organizes things as "beer, wine, and alcohol (aka spirits)" as opposed to "alcohol, including beer and wine". And an "alcoholic beverage" is just either a spirit alone or a spirit mixed with something. Probably because that's how my state organizes the stores (with wine/alcohol in separate stores from beer, so if you say "we need to buy beer" that means going to a different place than "we need to by alcohol").
cheschire 4y ago
I suspect there's some truth here. Like how not everyone goes for the 80+ proof drinks, many just go for drinks that are 5% ABV or less.
- dmix 4y ago
  Same with nicotine vape pens, 35-50mg salt ones have a comparable dosage to cigarettes (and are pretty gross) but it's easy to slowly move down to 5mg. This was impossible before with just cigarettes [1], which only had a 'lite' option which I doubt had any less nicotine. The only option was to quit. Weening off via 5mg is way easier. [1] Besides maybe the nicotine gum which is even grosser
  - gigaflop 4y ago
    I'm not sure where you're getting those numbers from. The vape shop near me sells nicotine salts in 25mg/ml to 50mg/ml ranges, which roughly translates to 2.5% and 5% strength. I've never seen something so low as 5mg/ml.
    - dmix 4y ago
      maybe you're only using a disposable brand like Juul? You could go down to 3mg here in Canada with the one I used. Picking a salt liquid at random, this one lets you go down to 1mg, since they probably add the nicotine to a 0mg product: https://www.dashvapes.com/products/e-juice/24/grappleberry+ice/2527/19921 https://www.dashvapes.com/products/e-juice/24/grappleberry+i...
      - gigaflop 4y ago
        Interesting, I'm used to the US market. Back when I was a regular user (as opposed to sometimes-caving-and-buying-a-dispo quitter), salts were usually 25 and 50, with lower strengths provided by freebase nicotine juices. I think the last freebase juice I bought was a 3 or 6mg, but those were less common. Disposables are usually 5% salts over here, afaik.
  - 4y ago
slfnflctd 4y ago
Being too high can be really uncomfortable for a lot of people. Some strains produce more unpleasant side effects than others, as well (although people will often react very differently to the same thing, of course). I didn't believe there was any such thing as weed I wouldn't like before I gained legal access. Now I know better. Perhaps there's been resistance to talking about this much because it's a new freedom and consumers are afraid too much criticism could lead to that freedom being yanked back away. However, I have noticed more conversation about finding the right level of CBD... so I think your instinct may not be far off.
- IfOnlyYouKnew 4y ago
  I've taken every non-opiate drug available under the sun. The only really bad experience was a night of absolute terror after a deep drag on a joint.
  - ta988 4y ago
    The dose make the poison. Lots of non-opiate drugs can cause nights of terrors (for you or those around you).
dfxm12 4y ago
Or people would use less. I think national regulation around standard strength, doses, labeling, etc. could help here in a way that legalization (or decriminalization) at a smaller level can't.
- lucideer 4y ago
  > Or people would use less. Not sure what form you buy your weed in, but typically reducing the dose is not as straightforward as it would be with, e.g. a powdered or liquid product. > national regulation [...] could help here in a way that legalization [...] can't. I'm not sure I follow - are you proposing regulation in addition to legalization, or instead of? I don't really understand how the latter would work (or why they would/should be mutually exclusive) but maybe I'm just misinterpreting?
selfmodruntime 4y ago
I‘m not proposing laws that forbid high THC products. But there needs to be advertising. People understand that downing a bottle of vodka can mail or kill.
- lucideer 4y ago
  I would absolutely propose laws to regulate THC. One of the big advantages of legalisation is the ability to apply targeted & graduated rules to products.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

nerdponx 4y ago

My intuition is similar, especially as older and less "drug oriented" users continue to enter the market. In Massachusetts, a lot of dispensaries show the THC level, and I usually just buy the one with the lowest content.

jgtrosh 4y ago

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6312155/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6312155/ > without any clear guidelines or regulations from government officials, the cannabis industry has taken a page from the tobacco and alcohol industries’ play book and developed strains of marijuana and concentrated marijuana products with much higher concentrations of THC, the psychoactive component that causes addiction. The more potent a drug is, the stronger the possibility of addiction and the more likely the person will continue to purchase and use the product. Doesn't seem like there's any incentive to reduce potency.

lucideer 4y ago
I opened with "I'm not proposing doing nothing" - I do think measures to remediate this problem in the short term are a good idea, in line with the fears outlined in your article. Nothing in your article tackles my main point though? > the cannabis industry has taken a page from the tobacco and alcohol industries’ play book As a slightly off-topic aside: tobacco I'm less familiar with (I wasn't aware of efforts by the industry to grow strains of the plants with higher nicotine content but it seems unsurprising), but including alcohol here is bizarre. Alcohol isn't naturally occurring in harvested produce - it's an output from a process. And even then, maybe they're talking about distillation, but that process predates the industrial revolution by 100s maybe 1000s of years. Tbh this throwaway statement kinda makes me question the article...
- InefficientRed 4y ago
  > Alcohol isn't naturally occurring in harvested produce - it's an output from a process. Ethanol is naturally occurring. That said, I agree that including alcohol here is bizarre. As far as I can tell there has never been a monotonic increase in ABV; instead, there is a large selection ranging from high alcohol content to even alcohol-free (which is so unpopular in the US as to be barely worth mentioning, but quite popular in Germany, and I'm now seeing large and even regional breweries in the US produce AF versions of their most popular beers). > Unless they're talking about distillation Most alcoholic beverages are made through some sort of distillation process, so I'm not sure what difference you're alluding to here.
  - lucideer 4y ago
    > Most alcoholic beverages are made through some sort of distillation process, so I'm not sure what difference you're alluding to here. Most alcoholic beverages (beers, wines) are not distilled - distillation is typically only used to take a drink above the 20-30% ABV mark (spirit / liquor).
  - skissane 4y ago
    > Most alcoholic beverages are made through some sort of distillation process How do you define “most”? - but I’m pretty sure non-distilled/non-fortified alcoholic beverages (wine/beer/etc) make up more of the alcoholic beverage market (whether in litres or dollars) than distilled/fortified beverages. I think they also are a lot more if you were to count SKUs (number of varieties of non-fortified wines/beers/etc > spirits/liqueurs/fortified wines/etc)
    - InefficientRed 4y ago
      Oh, okay. Just confusion of terms. My brain organizes things as "beer, wine, and alcohol (aka spirits)" as opposed to "alcohol, including beer and wine". And an "alcoholic beverage" is just either a spirit alone or a spirit mixed with something. Probably because that's how my state organizes the stores (with wine/alcohol in separate stores from beer, so if you say "we need to buy beer" that means going to a different place than "we need to by alcohol").

cheschire 4y ago

I suspect there's some truth here. Like how not everyone goes for the 80+ proof drinks, many just go for drinks that are 5% ABV or less.

dmix 4y ago
Same with nicotine vape pens, 35-50mg salt ones have a comparable dosage to cigarettes (and are pretty gross) but it's easy to slowly move down to 5mg. This was impossible before with just cigarettes [1], which only had a 'lite' option which I doubt had any less nicotine. The only option was to quit. Weening off via 5mg is way easier. [1] Besides maybe the nicotine gum which is even grosser
- gigaflop 4y ago
  I'm not sure where you're getting those numbers from. The vape shop near me sells nicotine salts in 25mg/ml to 50mg/ml ranges, which roughly translates to 2.5% and 5% strength. I've never seen something so low as 5mg/ml.
  - dmix 4y ago
    maybe you're only using a disposable brand like Juul? You could go down to 3mg here in Canada with the one I used. Picking a salt liquid at random, this one lets you go down to 1mg, since they probably add the nicotine to a 0mg product: https://www.dashvapes.com/products/e-juice/24/grappleberry+ice/2527/19921 https://www.dashvapes.com/products/e-juice/24/grappleberry+i...
    - gigaflop 4y ago
      Interesting, I'm used to the US market. Back when I was a regular user (as opposed to sometimes-caving-and-buying-a-dispo quitter), salts were usually 25 and 50, with lower strengths provided by freebase nicotine juices. I think the last freebase juice I bought was a 3 or 6mg, but those were less common. Disposables are usually 5% salts over here, afaik.
- 4y ago

slfnflctd 4y ago

Being too high can be really uncomfortable for a lot of people. Some strains produce more unpleasant side effects than others, as well (although people will often react very differently to the same thing, of course). I didn't believe there was any such thing as weed I wouldn't like before I gained legal access. Now I know better. Perhaps there's been resistance to talking about this much because it's a new freedom and consumers are afraid too much criticism could lead to that freedom being yanked back away. However, I have noticed more conversation about finding the right level of CBD... so I think your instinct may not be far off.

IfOnlyYouKnew 4y ago
I've taken every non-opiate drug available under the sun. The only really bad experience was a night of absolute terror after a deep drag on a joint.
- ta988 4y ago
  The dose make the poison. Lots of non-opiate drugs can cause nights of terrors (for you or those around you).

dfxm12 4y ago

Or people would use less. I think national regulation around standard strength, doses, labeling, etc. could help here in a way that legalization (or decriminalization) at a smaller level can't.

lucideer 4y ago
> Or people would use less. Not sure what form you buy your weed in, but typically reducing the dose is not as straightforward as it would be with, e.g. a powdered or liquid product. > national regulation [...] could help here in a way that legalization [...] can't. I'm not sure I follow - are you proposing regulation in addition to legalization, or instead of? I don't really understand how the latter would work (or why they would/should be mutually exclusive) but maybe I'm just misinterpreting?

selfmodruntime 4y ago

I‘m not proposing laws that forbid high THC products. But there needs to be advertising. People understand that downing a bottle of vodka can mail or kill.

lucideer 4y ago
I would absolutely propose laws to regulate THC. One of the big advantages of legalisation is the ability to apply targeted & graduated rules to products.