Was Marijuana Really Less Potent in the 1960s?

[Grandpapy]

I don't feel it's any better, just that the choice of shopping around wasn't alway available.
I'm sure crap weed is still out there, just not in my circles.

 

[Milovan]

how was the hash back then? jamaican gum, red leb, nepali temple balls how would they compare today? and how about the backyard growers in the tropics who let their plants go full cycle under massive sun, was their weed weak compared to our indoor hydro?

Blond leb as well! The tropical pot was the shit big time!

 

[lilroach]

Funny thing was I ran from the cops because I had a few bricks of Thai in the trunk....each time they caught me they never checked the trunk.

 

[Milovan]

The answer is "It depends".



If you knew the right people you could score some Panama Red, Columbia Gold, thai-stick, hashish, and Hawaiian weed. Those were as potent as what we have today. Sensi weed was more of a concept than a norm back then. Getting a bag of weed with no seeds in it was a novelty (most weed had about 100 seeds per ounce)....and went for the crazy price of $50 an ounce.QUOTE]
The reg Columbian and Oaxican (wrong spelling) was full of seeds but the "yellow" Columbian Gold had no seeds such as thai
stick, Buddha and Chocolate thai had no seeds when I got plenty of them strains.
The tropical strains such as Maui, Hawaiian, Blue Hawaiian, Kona, Puna Butter and Elephant Stick
had no seeds either. I didn't get seeds in the Panama Red and Skunk also.

 

[Milovan]

Distribution channels back in the day were not up to the standard we're used to these days... putting it mildly.

My folks smoked plenty of weed around the world, because WE traveled THERE.

Memories cloud with the passage of time- and again, tolerance levels have/had a big impact on perceived potency.

It was potent and effective then, and it certainly is now. Quantifying this objectively is Mission Impossible. The best we can do now is to grow land race strains.

@homebrew420 has done quite a bit of this lately, hoping he can provide some insight?

Landrace strains will only turn out correctly when grown in the Country of origin.

 

[Milovan]

Some say Thai Stick was soaked in opium....some say it wasn't.

What I can say is that when I smoked Thai Stick I ended up in a high-speed police pursuit (helicopter included)......twice within 2 weeks.

The opiated thai sticks were actually oil!
I used to get 60 at a time and they always got the baggies oily.

 

[doingdishes]

i had thai stick when i was 15 & WOW!! that same dealer got stuff from the Philippines and it was always amazing. we called it 2 toke week because after 2 tokes, you were wasted.
for years all that was around was black putty hash-gold seal "freedom of Afghanistan i think was the stamp. i haven't seen that stuff for decades.
blonde & red hashes were in there as well.
the fist time i saw bubble hash i thought "wow..old school putty" & then i put heat to it & it smeared across my fingers...it was really good but just not the same

 

[hydroMD]

In the early '80's I had some Lambreath sent to me from a Jamaican I worked with. Probably still the best smoke Ive tried.
Wait til Monsanto get their hands on it. Make your own seeds and save em.
I think its pretty arrogant to think we have taken a plant thats been around for thousands of years and made it better in the last 10. More propaganda from the sock puppets to feed their 'Harm the Children' agenda.
Is todays corn, wheat, soy better? just because they fucked with it doesnt make it better

10 years is more than enough to dramatically change genetics with the amount of breeding done year round in greenhouses and indoors.

 

[Sativied]

I'm sure that the gene pools have been diluted from the "old school" high-end weed of the past, but I look at my Blue Dream, my Golden Goat, my Pineapple Express, my Ghost Train Haze, and my NYCD and say to myself "What we've done ain't all that bad" in regards to the zillion crosses we have to chose from these days.

Sure, I don't want to dismiss all the work breeders have done over the past decades, on the contrary, but it (increased yield, thc, looks/structure) does come at a cost by default. The only way to breed a trait true/stable is to breed other genes out.

O haze is an easy example. When I look at SSH, amnesia haze and other popular haze hybrids I favor they sure look better... they yield more, they taste better, and I rather grow those than O haze. It's (at least without full insight of the dna) impossible to cross it with anything without losing some of the O Haze.

Even though it was much harder decades ago, careful selection and testing has gone into the old IBLs and indica-sativa hybrids many crosses and pollen chucks are based on. After that is was a long time all about THC levels and frostiness, the thc levels tested in many coffeeshops every year for decades show that nicely. Over the past 5 or more years it's more about taste and even looks (purple...). Now with lab testing for cannabinoid profiles breeders can focus again on the effect and use landraces to 'repair' the genepool.

 

[The Hippy]

Oh the memories,,,,or whats left of them LOL
20 dollar oz's and mexican flower top weed.
Not sorry to see the Mexican cartels loosing ground though....violents fucks that they are. Back to starving in Mexico I hope. They give MJ a bad name.

 

[retyred]

As a recent "retiree" who did without mj for over 35 years because of my career I think it has become more potent. Breeding, genetics and growing techniques have increased thc levels. In high school in the 60s you could smoke and still function, stuff I've run into now will pretty well make me a blathering idiot if I'm not careful.
ps:
I'm straight right now. Anyone remember Rochdale?

 

[ttystikk]

know what's funny?
i just got a stack of old hightimes from a friend who's demo'ing a house.. 1983-89
..and in one they posed the exact same question.

wonder if this question/BS fact will ever go away? (they actually said that it was infact more potent in the 19th century.. dunno where they got that from though )
wonder if it's just generations wanting to think they're stuff is the best lol

First, whoever said that marijuana genetics are narrowing has it exactly backwards; there is an explosion of genetic diversity underway greater than any in the plant's ten thousand year history of association with our species... which brings me to my second point;

It's BEEN many thousands of years and hundreds of generations of growers who have made the plant what we see today. We stand on the shoulders of every one of them and there is nothing new under the sun genetically, just new mixes and ever more and better selective breeding.

I'm quite sure that Thomas Jefferson's personal stash would get any of us plenty ripped today.

 

[ttystikk]

Landrace strains will only turn out correctly when grown in the Country of origin.

I don't buy this cock n bull story for one single minute.

 

[Big Pauly]

You all don't don't know what you're talking about. If you watch TV commercials you'd know that weed today is 300-400 times stronger.

=)

 

[BarnBuster]

Every year has had it's good and bad. At least I was lucky/connected/$$$$ enough in that I've had pot at the very least several times a year since the early 70's that's really kicked my ass. My memories of dope gone by has been clouded by the halcyon days of my youth. Spicy gold Columbian pot that sent you on a rocket ship ride has always stood out in my mind. however.

 

[WHATFG]

Ya I argued about that and this is how it was explained to me...if pot was 5% 30 years ago that would be 100%...so if it's 300-400% it's really 3-4 times stronger therefor...15-20% which is not wrong but it doesn't sound as bad as 300-400%...

 

[Grandpapy]

Every year has had it's good and bad. At least I was lucky/connected/$$$$ enough in that I've had pot at the very least several times a year since the early 70's that's really kicked my ass. My memories of dope gone by has been clouded by the halcyon days of my youth. Spicy gold Columbian pot that sent you on a rocket ship ride has always stood out in my mind. however.

Pin joints of gold!!!!! Aw man that shit won't get a fly high.....

4 hours later........What were we doing???

 

[BarnBuster]

Pin joints of gold!!!!! Aw man that shit won't get a fly high.....

4 hours later........What were we doing???

Ha, Ha, having no idea which direction you should drive on a road you've been on 1000 times before

(Edit: first time I smoked gold, a buddy got in the car and started cracking on me about what I brought to smoke. what I had was good. we fired it up, he took a couple of hits, made a face like he was smoking dog shit and tossed it out the window. he pulled out a pin thin, i laughed at it, we smoked it and got lost. a memory that's stuck in my mind for 40 years)