Jim Finnel
Fallen Cannabis Warrior & Ex News Moderator
The latest bit of anti-drug hysteria in this country is - cue the scary music - Super Pot! We're suddenly seeing breathless reports of this allegedly evil weed and how dangerous it is and now one legislator wants federal legislation to mandate a sentence of 25 years in prison for a first offense of selling it:
U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk will call for legislation Monday that would toughen drug trafficking laws regarding a highly-potent form of marijuana, with penalties of up to 25 years in prison for a 1st-time offense.
The law would target offenders who sell or distribute marijuana that has a THC content exceeding 15 percent, which is between 5 and 10 percent higher than average marijuana, according to Kirk's office. THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol, is the main active ingredient in marijuana.
Wow, 15% THC. That's SUPER pot. And once again, Europe laughs at us. What he wants made a capitol crime is a requirement in the Netherlands:
To put this in perspective, the average potency of marijuana that has fueled this fire is seven percent THC. This is the marijuana that White House Drug Czar John Walters warns is horribly dangerous because of its super-strength. In contrast, Dutch government standards require medical marijuana sold in pharmacies in the Netherlands to be more than twice that strong. So a country where teens are actually less likely to use coca*ine and hero*in than in the U.S. wouldn't even use our marijuana to heal their sick. A recent report from the European Union noted that "a slight upward trend" in potency means little because the potency of U.S. marijuana "was very low by European standards."
And the swindle continues:
Third, unlike the speculative claims of increased danger, peer-reviewed scientific data show that higher potency marijuana reduces health risks. Just as with alcohol, people who smoke marijuana generally consume until they reach the desired effect, then stop. So people who smoke more potent marijuana smoke less - the same way most drinkers consume a smaller amount of vodka than they would of beer - and incur less chance of smoking-related damage to their lungs.
Official warnings about "super pot" often accompany claims that huge numbers of teens are in treatment for marijuana "dependence and abuse," and that those numbers have risen dramatically. Such claims are utterly misleading. According to the U.S. government's own statistics, most teens in marijuana treatment are there because they were arrested, not because of actual evidence of abuse or dependence. Virtually all of the vaunted increase in marijuana treatment admissions stems from these arrests.
So, we arrest kids for smoking marijuana, force them into treatment and then use those treatment admissions as "proof" that marijuana is addictive. Somewhere, George Orwell is smiling.
This wave of marijuana treatment has nothing to do with actual dependence. According to the latest government report on drug treatment, called the Treatment Episode Data Set, more than a third of these marijuana "abusers" did not use marijuana at all in the month prior to admission. Another 16.1 percent used it three times or less.
So more than half of marijuana "abusers" used marijuana three times or less in the month prior to entering treatment - and this, we are told, is proof that we must be fearful of highly addictive "super pot"!
All of this would be laughable if it wasn't used as a pretense for violating our liberties, costing us a fortune and ruining lives by throwing people in prison for doing nothing to harm anyone else.
News Hawk: User: 420 MAGAZINE ® - Medical Marijuana Publication & Social Networking
Source: ScienceBlogs
Author: Ed Brayton
Copyright: 2009 Seed Media Group LLC.
Contact: Dispatches from the Culture Wars
Website: Super Reefer Madness! : Dispatches from the Culture Wars
U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk will call for legislation Monday that would toughen drug trafficking laws regarding a highly-potent form of marijuana, with penalties of up to 25 years in prison for a 1st-time offense.
The law would target offenders who sell or distribute marijuana that has a THC content exceeding 15 percent, which is between 5 and 10 percent higher than average marijuana, according to Kirk's office. THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol, is the main active ingredient in marijuana.
Wow, 15% THC. That's SUPER pot. And once again, Europe laughs at us. What he wants made a capitol crime is a requirement in the Netherlands:
To put this in perspective, the average potency of marijuana that has fueled this fire is seven percent THC. This is the marijuana that White House Drug Czar John Walters warns is horribly dangerous because of its super-strength. In contrast, Dutch government standards require medical marijuana sold in pharmacies in the Netherlands to be more than twice that strong. So a country where teens are actually less likely to use coca*ine and hero*in than in the U.S. wouldn't even use our marijuana to heal their sick. A recent report from the European Union noted that "a slight upward trend" in potency means little because the potency of U.S. marijuana "was very low by European standards."
And the swindle continues:
Third, unlike the speculative claims of increased danger, peer-reviewed scientific data show that higher potency marijuana reduces health risks. Just as with alcohol, people who smoke marijuana generally consume until they reach the desired effect, then stop. So people who smoke more potent marijuana smoke less - the same way most drinkers consume a smaller amount of vodka than they would of beer - and incur less chance of smoking-related damage to their lungs.
Official warnings about "super pot" often accompany claims that huge numbers of teens are in treatment for marijuana "dependence and abuse," and that those numbers have risen dramatically. Such claims are utterly misleading. According to the U.S. government's own statistics, most teens in marijuana treatment are there because they were arrested, not because of actual evidence of abuse or dependence. Virtually all of the vaunted increase in marijuana treatment admissions stems from these arrests.
So, we arrest kids for smoking marijuana, force them into treatment and then use those treatment admissions as "proof" that marijuana is addictive. Somewhere, George Orwell is smiling.
This wave of marijuana treatment has nothing to do with actual dependence. According to the latest government report on drug treatment, called the Treatment Episode Data Set, more than a third of these marijuana "abusers" did not use marijuana at all in the month prior to admission. Another 16.1 percent used it three times or less.
So more than half of marijuana "abusers" used marijuana three times or less in the month prior to entering treatment - and this, we are told, is proof that we must be fearful of highly addictive "super pot"!
All of this would be laughable if it wasn't used as a pretense for violating our liberties, costing us a fortune and ruining lives by throwing people in prison for doing nothing to harm anyone else.
News Hawk: User: 420 MAGAZINE ® - Medical Marijuana Publication & Social Networking
Source: ScienceBlogs
Author: Ed Brayton
Copyright: 2009 Seed Media Group LLC.
Contact: Dispatches from the Culture Wars
Website: Super Reefer Madness! : Dispatches from the Culture Wars
