Not Your Father's Marijuana and other myths

[crazy-mental]

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.

good informative thread.
it makes sense..

the police use these myths for propergander, to make the weed sound even worse.

 

[beginningbotanist420]

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.

HAHAHA made my fucking day! Al, i love you. in a completely heterosexual way.

 

[Hydrotech364]

Its the regulation,control and taxation thats there worry.If we grow it at home we wont sling the taxes that they get for beer or hard alcohol.I always keep my taxpaying as low as i can!Tobacco is something i use but i dont need it bad enough to grow it!Taxes will be the thing that bites us in the ass!!!Every now and then it would be cool to go to the store and pick up a pack of trainwreck though!

 

[Al B. Fuct]

You can bet homegrowers would not be part of the plan if a taxation model were implemented. It'd be corporate agribusinesses which can easily be monitored for tax compliance by the feds. If they permitted tax stamps based homegrowing, compliance enforcement would be 'whack-a-mole'- and they know it.

 

[TheBrutalTruth]

Damn shame that the government cares more about tax revenues than the happiness of people, and allowing them to conduct some kind of industrious commerce.

Legalization should be complete, with out any regulatory interference.

 

[LolipopCrop]

You can bet homegrowers would not be part of the plan if a taxation model were implemented. It'd be corporate agribusinesses which can easily be monitored for tax compliance by the feds. If they permitted tax stamps based homegrowing, compliance enforcement would be 'whack-a-mole'- and they know it.

Yep I believe that. Thats the main reason why the federal government isn't onboard to medical use. No real plan in place to tax it. No plan in place to manufacture it and sell it on their own. They would much rather see people get hooked on Heroin based medications and pay the piper, so the piper can pay the gov't.
Then they have the nerve to call Cannabis a gateway drug. What about all the people that end up using Heroin because they cant afford their medication, so its cheaper to buy it off the street. Or what about all the highschool kids that got a hold of their parents oxy's and now shoot dope so they dont get sick. No gateway drug there, huh?. What the hell gives them the right to even put Oxy Contin (which is Heroin) and Xanax out there and not let Cannabis see daylight. For starters, Oxy, and Xanax are the mopst physically addictive drugs known to man. You can actually die if you stop taking Xanax without weening off slowly. Oxy will put you thru a ten day sickness if you try to stop using that without a detox program. The gov't is worse than the scumbag drugdealers on the corner. Money rules all and that is all their is to it. If cannabis were medicaly legal they wouldn't get a lot of that money that those drugs bring in, so dont count on it ever being federally legal without the propper programs and laws already in place.

 

[Al B. Fuct]

LC, sorry to do some mythbusting on you, but in fact, patients who have become dependent upon prescribed oral opiates do not generally move on to injecting heroin. They DO tend to get busted doing prescription frauds, though.

Xanax is a benzodiazepine. Benzos are not physiologically addictive, but like cannabis or a newspaper delivered at the same time every day, can be psychologically addictive. You will not die if you abruptly stop chronically using even very high levels of Xanax.

OxyContin is not heroin. It is oxycodone, a synthetically derived form of codeine. It IS however, very physiologically addictive, and withdrawal symptoms are often treated with methadone, the same palliative used to help heroin users withdraw 'softly.'

I agree that cannabis has not been given a fair trial as a useful medication, but the main reason for that is because raw, unrefined cannabis is impossible to classify as a medication because of the huge variability in potency. Govts frequently block medical research into cannabis and then claim that there's 'no evidence' for the medical usefulness of it.

 

[LolipopCrop]

Damn, I wasn't planning on debating with the guy who taught me how to grow dope. but here we go...

LC, sorry to do some mythbusting on you, but in fact, patients who have become dependent upon prescribed oral opiates do not generally move on to injecting heroin. They DO tend to get busted doing prescription frauds, though.

I agree that more people have ended up doing a prescription fraud instead of running to go do dope on the street, but the fact that Heroin is making a comeback all of a sudden must have something to do with the Oxycontin craze. All I was saying is that people do end up on Heroin who probably never would have if they wouldn't have gotten a hold of clinical opiates, so clinical opiates could be considered a gateway drug. People lose jobs, they lose benefits, they cant afford $400 at a crack for a bottle of Oxy's so they go get a bag of H for $20. Or they run out of pills and cant tell the doctor so they have to go and get Heroin or sit around sick for a week or so. Like I say, generally u are right, I guess I wasnt speaking in general, just more or less on what I see.

Xanax is a benzodiazepine. Benzos are not physiologically addictive, but like cannabis or a newspaper delivered at the same time every day, can be psychologically addictive. You will not die if you abruptly stop chronically using even very high levels of Xanax.

Actually here you are wrong, Benzos are very physically addictive! They can cause fevers, vomitting, nausea, seizure, and coma if you stop taking them, that sound physical to me.
Also, you can in fact die if you stop using them w/o weening off properly. I'm not speaking about what happens everyday, but it can, has, and does happen.

OxyContin is not heroin. It is oxycodone, a synthetically derived form of codeine. It IS however, very physiologically addictive, and withdrawal symptoms are often treated with methadone, the same palliative used to help heroin users withdraw 'softly.'

Yes Oxycontin is from Codeine, and Heroin is from Morphine. When u look back one more step, where are Morphine and Codeine from? They are both opiates from the same plant, with very similar attributes. They all will make you physically dependent on opiates, and more and more people are becoming aware that Heroin is really no different than Oxycontin in ways of pain relief and the way it makes you feel. .

I agree that cannabis has not been given a fair trial as a useful medication, but the main reason for that is because raw, unrefined cannabis is impossible to classify as a medication because of the huge variability in potency. Govts frequently block medical research into cannabis and then claim that there's 'no evidence' for the medical usefulness of it.

Exactly right about unrefined cannabis, but the same thing goes for the unrefined Poppy plant or Papaver somniferum, and they find a way to refine that.
I also agree that gov't blocks research.
Why do Gov'ts block research though?
I think it is becuz of Prescription Drug Companies Lobbyists groups.
These lobbyists support a camapign in return for a vote in their favor when it comes time to vote for or against research into Cannabis. Thats just what I think though.

 

[Al B. Fuct]

D
People lose jobs, they lose benefits, they cant afford $400 at a crack for a bottle of Oxy's so they go get a bag of H for $20. Or they run out of pills and cant tell the doctor so they have to go and get Heroin or sit around sick for a week or so. Like I say, generally u are right, I guess I wasnt speaking in general, just more or less on what I see.

I'm quite sure this may reflect isolated cases, but the documentation I have seen does not support the general supposition that prescription opiate users move to being IDUs of heroin. IDUs tend to have started off being IDUs.

Actually here you are wrong, Benzos are very physically addictive! They can cause fevers, vomitting, nausea, seizure, and coma if you stop taking them, that sound physical to me.
Also, you can in fact die if you stop using them w/o weening off properly. I'm not speaking about what happens everyday, but it can, has, and does happen.

My information on benzos comes from the doc treating me with them some years ago. The information provided to me at the time was that it is common for patients to become psychologically dependent but not physiologically dependent ie display of autonomic system changes when chronic administration of the drug is withdrawn.

Yes Oxycontin is from Codeine, and Heroin is from Morphine. When u look back one more step, where are Morphine and Codeine from? They are both opiates from the same plant, with very similar attributes. They all will make you physically dependent on opiates, and more and more people are becoming aware that Heroin is really no different than Oxycontin in ways of pain relief and the way it makes you feel. .

Your statement was 'oxycontin is heroin,' and it is not. While all derived from the same poppy, codeine, morphine & heroin are not the same compound, and neither are oxycodone and heroin. I absolutely do not dispute the physiological dependence capability of oxycodone; I was run over by a drunk driver about 15 years ago and have had multiple reconstructive surgeries and spent about a year in hospital as result. I've lived through withdrawing from hydro & oxycodone.... and it sucks a lot.

Exactly right about unrefined cannabis, but the same thing goes for the unrefined Poppy plant or Papaver somniferum, and they find a way to refine that.

My point was that raw cannabis itself won't ever pass muster as a medication that can be prescribed by physicians. Unfortunately, THC is molecularly a lot more fragile than opiates. THC is sensitive to heat and light and breaks down into isomers CBD & CBN, while opium is a lot more malleable in the chem lab. There's several pharmaceutical outfits in pursuit of cannabis based medications, the most notable being GW Pharmacuticals, makers of Sativex, who are at present struggling through cannabis chemistry, trying to make the unstable THC molecule play nice and maintain its efficacy when processed into a controlled dose medications. I've read some fascinating stuff not long back about integrating THC into polymers for use in transdermal patches.

I also agree that gov't blocks research.
Why do Gov'ts block research though?
I think it is becuz of Prescription Drug Companies Lobbyists groups.
These lobbyists support a camapign in return for a vote in their favor when it comes time to vote for or against research into Cannabis. Thats just what I think though.

There's lots of theories about why cannabis remains a prohibited substance against the recommendation of all reasonable research; I think it could be equally reasonable to blame alcohol manufacturers or even the old standby, DuPont, which in the 1930s wanted to sell nylon rope to the US Navy, in the stead of hemp for rope.

 

[Busmike]

Hell, I've been tryin to OD on pot for 40 years! Must be doin somthin wrong....

 

[NewGrowth]

Benzo's are nasty and there are definitely physical withdraw symptoms. I have seen them first hand it looks like someone coming off of opiates. Shaking, cold, then hot, and when they come out of it a bit they are generally uncomfortable can't sit still, ect. I was given clonazepam and I refused to take it after a while. My only medicine now it cannabis and it works well. I don't even have to smoke pot everyday to get the benefits either. Found a good link about benzo withdraw http://www.stormloader.com/bettyf/

 

[LolipopCrop]

I'm quite sure this may reflect isolated cases, but the documentation I have seen does not support the general supposition that prescription opiate users move to being IDUs of heroin. IDUs tend to have started off being IDUs.

I think as time goes on you will see those stats change. All this Heroin use is stemming from somewhere. I think its kind of a coincidence that Heroin use has skyrocketed as have opiate prescriptions, and in much higher doses than have ever been recorded in the past.
I dont believe that IDU's start out as IDU's. I would guess that very few people are introduced to a drug by iv. A person doesn't just wake up and say "I'm going to start injecting drugs". They start off by doing a small amount and tolerance eventually builds up to the point that they cant get high enough anymore. They feel like they need to shoot up to get high, and get the most out of their drugs.

My information on benzos comes from the doc treating me with them some years ago. The information provided to me at the time was that it is common for patients to become psychologically dependent but not physiologically dependent ie display of autonomic system changes when chronic administration of the drug is withdrawn.

I think more research may have concluded that they are in fact physically addictive.

Your statement was 'oxycontin is heroin,' and it is not. While all derived from the same poppy, codeine, morphine & heroin are not the same compound, and neither are oxycodone and heroin. I absolutely do not dispute the physiological dependence capability of oxycodone; I was run over by a drunk driver about 15 years ago and have had multiple reconstructive surgeries and spent about a year in hospital as result. I've lived through withdrawing from hydro & oxycodone.... and it sucks a lot.

True, I should have worded that differently. Heroin is not Oxycontin. They are so similar though it is hard to tell them apart. If they both came in identical pills similar in strength, there would be no way to tell the two apart just by using them.

My point was that raw cannabis itself won't ever pass muster as a medication that can be prescribed by physicians. Unfortunately, THC is molecularly a lot more fragile than opiates. THC is sensitive to heat and light and breaks down into isomers CBD & CBN, while opium is a lot more malleable in the chem lab. There's several pharmaceutical outfits in pursuit of cannabis based medications, the most notable being GW Pharmacuticals, makers of Sativex, who are at present struggling through cannabis chemistry, trying to make the unstable THC molecule play nice and maintain its efficacy when processed into a controlled dose medications. I've read some fascinating stuff not long back about integrating THC into polymers for use in transdermal patches.

Never even thought about it that way. Great info!

There's lots of theories about why cannabis remains a prohibited substance against the recommendation of all reasonable research; I think it could be equally reasonable to blame alcohol manufacturers or even the old standby, DuPont, which in the 1930s wanted to sell nylon rope to the US Navy, in the stead of hemp for rope.

LOL... so true, fuckin DuPont, bastards!

 

[LolipopCrop]

Sorry Al, this is a myth busting thread and I kind of fucked it up by stamping my opinion on it and acting like it was fact. Just to clarify for everyone, what I said was only my opinion and could all be a myth for all I know.
So I apologize for misleading anyone.
In an attempt to change the subject I will ask this question:
Is the need to flush your medium 7-10 days before harvest a myth?
Some people say it is necessary to flush, my opinion is, if you don't overfeed u don't need to flush. I have no proof other than what I have tried. I was just wondering if there is scientific reasoning that anyone knows of.

 

[Al B. Fuct]

LC, I don't think you tried to mislead anyone! Thanks very much for your comments.

On flushing; it's optional. I've run several crops with my tank #4 running plain water and gave some flushed & non-flushed buds to a half donzen of my regulars. Not a soul could tell any difference.

 

[Ap0c0leS]

I dont agree with you Newgrowth.... I have come off of both Strong opiates and also high doses of benzos with none of this" shakeing" withdrawal you are speaking of. I had no problems what so ever coming off of these substances.,. What you are saying is very opinionated.. If marijuana was legalized for medical use in the USA i would definitly have access to it and i would use it to my benefit. Unfortunatly i believe marijuana itself, would not be strong enough to counteract my chronic pain that is only controled by these substances you are knocking.. some of us use our medications responsibly so dont group us with those that do not