DRUG PREPARATIONS: FROM "HEADACHE POT TO HOSPITAL POT

DRUG PREPARATIONS: FROM "HEADACHE POT" TO "HOSPITAL POT"

The products made from marijuana plants for psychoactive effects vary markedly in their THC content and therefore in their psychoactive potency.

Low-grade marijuana is made from all the leaves of both sexes of the plant. These vegetative leaves contain very little THC compared to the pistillate flowers of the female plant or to the smaller leaves adjacent to them. The THC content of such a preparation may be only 1 percent or lower. Smokers sometimes call this "headache pot" because smoking it can produce more of a headache than a high.

Medium-grade marijuana is made from the dried flowering tops of female cannabis plants raised with and fertilized by male plants. Fertil­ization limits the psychoactive potency of the resulting marijuana because the female flowers secrete THC-containing resin only until fertilization. After that time the flower no longer needs the protective resin, and it begins to produce a seed.

High-grade marijuana is made from the flowering tops, or "cola," of female plants raised in isolation from male plants. The resulting mari­juana is called sinsemilla, which means "without seeds." As the female flowers mature without fertilization, they continually secrete resin to coat the delicate flowers and small leaves surrounding them; the flowers grow in thick clusters, heavy with resin. When these "buds" are har­vested and dried, they contain an average of around? to 8 percent THC. Some samples of sinsemilla test as high as 20 percent.

Such powerful marijuana has been called "hospital pot" because occa­sionally an unsuspecting smoker, expecting the usual gentle high of medium-grade marijuana, gets frightened by the sudden and powerful high of sinsemilla, panics, and winds up in the emergency room. Actu­ally, the best treatment for such a scare is a calm and reassuring "talk down" by a friend. The feeling of panic often arises from an unexpected sense of loss of control, and the individual needs only to be reassured that he is safe and that nothing will threaten him. Some cultivators in the United States, using well-controlled indoor growing conditions, produce marijuana with THC concentrations as high as 24 percent, but the THC content of most marijuana in the United States is in the range of 10 percent. In recent years United States marijuana has been touted as being ten times more potent now than it was in the 1960s and 1970s. This claim isn't exactly true. Since the 1970s the TUG content of marijuana seized by US law-enforcement officials has been measured by the Potency Monitoring Project in Mississippi—a government-funded project. In the early 1970s they generally reported that samples of seized marijuana contained low concentrations of THC—in the range of 0.4 to 1 percent—but those samples often came from low-potency, high-volume Mexican “kilobricks," which probably contained considerably less THC than most of the marijuana that was actually being smoked in those days. Also, it was not until the late 1970s that the higher-potency cannabis products available to smokers, such as buds and sinsern ilia, were included in the samples analyzed by the Potency Monitoring Project. Thus, esti­mates of THC content in the 1970s probably underestimated the average 'INC content of the marijuana smoked during that period. When inde­pendent laboratories analyzed marijuana samples during the 1970s, THC contents were often considerably higher than those reported by the Potency Monitoring Project—in the 2 to 5 percent range—though lower than most marijuana samples today. After 1980 the seized marijuana tested by the Potency Monitoring Project included more representative samples of what was available on the street, and between 1981 and 2000 the TUG content hovered between 2 and 5 percent—consistent with the average range of independently tested samples during the 1970s. Still, marijuana cultivators have gotten better at their business, and it is reason­able to assert that THC concentrations in recreationally used marijuana have increased significantly. They may continue to increase as well. The recent changes in both medical marijuana and recreational marijuana laws in some states will probably help to fuel further refinements in both genetic plant selection as well as growing techniques. Although there are alternatives to smoking marijuana, such as eating it or vaporizing it, most marijuana is still smoked, and for most people the less smoke they need to take in, the better. The higher the concentration of cannabinoids in mari­juana, the less needs to be smoked, so our bet is that cultivators will be motivated to continue looking for ways to increase the cannabinoid con­tent in marijuana.

Hashish is produced when the resin of the cannabis plant is separated from the plant material. The purest form of hashish is virtually 100 per­cent resin. In India this pure material is called charas. Most hashish, how­ever, is not pure resin and contains varying amounts of plant material as well. It often appears as a dark-colored gummy ball that is rather hard, but not brittle. The average THC content of hashish is around 8 percent but can vary quite a bit—up to 20 percent. Hashish is often smoked in a pipe or rolled into a cigarette along with tobacco or lower-grade mari­juana. A more traditional means of smoking hashish is to ignite a small piece and let it burn under a glass or cup. The user then tilts back the glass and inhales the smoke from underneath.

Hash oil is the most potent of the preparations made from the cannabis plant. After the plant is boiled in alcohol, the solids are filtered out, and when the water evaporates, what's left is hash oil. Hash oil is generally a thick, waxy substance that is very high in THC content—ranging from 20 to 70 percent. It can be scraped onto the inner rim of a pipe bowl for smoking or used to lace tobacco or marijuana cigarettes.