(12-12-2025, 08:52 AM)Ninurta Wrote: I can't see recrimializing it, but that's just me - I don't believe in micro-regulating consenting adults if they aren't hurting someone else. I don't even agree with criminalization of meth and cocaine, really. Not even heroin. The criminalization has created a booming black market that is where the cartels thrive, and it drives prices way up, which is also the source of a lot of crime associated with drugs - the crime where folks are robbing other folks to get the money for their next fix. If the prices weren't so high, the ancillary crimes surrounding it would drop, and the cartels would go broke.
With that said, this weed they have out there now is not your grandpa's weed. When someone says "this shit is KILLER!" they might not be that far off. When I was younger, weed was harmless. You'd smoke a bit, get high, and go on your merry way. About the worst you could expect from it would be to get thrown into an uncontrollable laughing jag, laughing at shit that wasn't all that funny to begin with.The weed they have now, after years and years of selective breeding to get more bang for the buck - so they can charge more bucks, of course - has elevated the THC levels beyond ridiculous. What used to be at around 2% to 4% THC is now CLAIMED to be 15, 20, 30, or even 40% or more THC... which I think is probably marketing bullshit for anything over about 18% to 20% THC.
Another little clue - as THC content goes up, there is less room for things like CBD in it, so you get more bang and less cure. CBD tends to moderate the effects of THC to manageable levels, as well as other good stuff for you, like pain relief, psych help (it's been used to good effect for PTSD, for example), and crap like that. You need about equal parts THC to CBD, even in "Stoner" weed for a good buzz.
I'll tell ta a little personal story. When I was younger, I smoked weed. That's the weed I got used to, the weed we had back then, that 2-4% THC weed. Then I just stopped one day, and swore off of it, and got on with life. I swore off of it for about 40 years or so, maybe a bit more. Then, a few years ago, I'd retired, had nowhere to have to be and all day to get there, nothing else to do, so I thought I'd give it a try again.
That right there was a mistake.
I got hold of some, which was claimed to be 40% THC weed, and going by the way weed used to be, I smoked it like I used to do. Damn near killed me - literally. I was not only tore up from the floor up, my heart started racing and wouldn't stop. It got up to 183 or 184 beats per minute, which is technically tachycardia, before we called the Rescue Squad, since I was clearly going to keep going until my damn heart blew up.
And all this while I was stoned to the bone. It took the Rescue Squad 45 minutes or more to get here, and all that time my heart was trying to beat it's way out of my chest and run away from my body. I was so wrecked on that shit that if I HAD died, I'd have never known it.
Once I got that sorted out, and got my heart rate back under control - and came down offa that high - I pretty much swore off of it again. If that's what weed has become, I'll find something else to do. Don't need it. If I wanted to die, I'd jut drink some damned bleach or something. Don't need no weed that promises a high and then kills ya in the middle of it. Liquor is much better to sit around and commune with.
It was after that incident that I developed atrial fibrillation, and I've often wondered if that weed experience didn't precipitate it. I'll never know for sure, but I'll always be suspicious. Don't need no more of that - the next one might be the BIG one!
It also wrecked my relationship with liquor, if it's what caused the A-FIB. The medicine they have me on for life now for that don't mix well with liquor. Apparently, the metoprolol lowers blood pressure as a side effect, and liquor intensifies that lowering, potentially to dangerous levels. Now, don't get me wrong, I haven't clear quit drinking, but I've had to really, REALLY cut back on it. That alone might've killed me already if it wasn't for the fact that I'm no stranger to low blood pressure - my BP was 80 over 70 for most of my life, sometimes as low as 70 over 50, so I can manage it pretty well. Just makes ya a little tired some times, and you learn not to stand up too fast, else you run a risk of seeing little black spots swimming circles around your head and sitting your ass right back down, fast..
So, anyhow, this weed they have nowadays ain't no joke, and it was positively criminal for them to do that to what was once a useful plant.
Bastards.
My advice to weed smokers is to try to find "heirloom" or "landrace" varieties, and get seed for them if you can manage it, to grow your own heirloom weed. It's better, and it's safer, and it cuts out the cartel middle-men... and any potential "additives" they may have laced your weed with. I never got wrecked on it like that in the old days. Be warned - those varieties are hard to find, and seed for them is even harder to find. Might be a lost cause. Everyone these days appears to be crazy after the high-test weed, and they've all forgotten the old adage from the days of my youth that "speed kills".
"Crazy" may be the operative word in that last sentence - this modern crap has a high potential to drive one bat-shit crazy, just as the story reported. Weed wasn't like that back in the day when it had sane levels of THC like the Good Lord intended it to have before these breeders tried to horn in on the God act.
Anything that has "gorilla" or "blueberry" or "diesel" or "rhino" or any of that other crazy shit they put in weed names these days is better passed on, in my opinion, unless you are just TRYING to wreck your whole world. If that's the case, then go for it, with my blessings. No judgement here. You do you, and let me do me.
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I think they should limit the strength to like it was back in the seventies myself. You are right, but raising the THC so high, it takes away much of the medicinal CBD chemistry. It is not a medicine anymore, it is a drug to get high. We now have legal pot here in Michigan, and the price actually went down to around a hundred bucks an ounce from being around two hundred plus when it was illegal. The state gobbles some of that money they charge here, so they don't seem to be concerned that the highly potent strains are causing mental issues.
I liked the nice smell and flavor that it had back in the seventies. Now it smells like crap, I gave up smoking three decades ago because the taste was not pleasing like it used to be, and occasionally did get some from a friend who sold it over twenty years ago....and did not even smoke most of it because it was too strong and did not taste like it should. Now that it is legal, I though about growing some mild tasty stuff, but you can't seem to find the seeds anymore for that. If I would have known this was going to happen, back in the seventies I would have saved the seeds of the best tasting stuff...mild in strength...and grow it now that it is legal.
I can't understand why anyone likes the crap they sell today. It gets a person real stoned, it wouldn't be fun anymore. There used to be fun parties with a hundred young people at them, drinking and passing joints around back in the early seventies. Then the stronger pots came around and it divided the culture. I was welcome at both of the two different cultures that formed....and I saw society splitting apart even in the pot culture at that time. But I could not bring someone from the regular cheap pot culture with me to the high quality parties...that was taboo. That split the class apart. Back then there were the hard drug users class too, and they did have their own culture group. The tickers, and the hashers, and of course those who liked crystal and those who liked downers. Most of the LSD crew fit well into the other groups, most of them were mellow trippers. Heroin was not very popular in the party culture in our area back then....now I know quite a few older people who have kids and grandkids that got messed up on Heroin. That drug is really problematic. so are the meths and fentanyls. The upper class back long ago did a lot of Cocaine...but with the cost, not many could afford it locally, kids of the businessmen and kids of judges could afford that stuff, and of course later on some lawyers indulged in that...but the working class rarely used that drug.around here, the barrel parties out in the woods mostly had beer and cheap pot that barely gave you a buzz.
Of course I was just an observer, I did nothing illegal and fun.
I never got dragged into the police station and questioned because I was at a party with a friend that ODed by the Tri-county detectives with all the police in the area in attendance....which I knew most of those cops from partying with over the years. I just mentioned that don't any of the cops here get high and drunk or own fully automatic weapons or do anything illegal...with all the cops in the room I knew well looking down...maybe twenty of the twenty five watching...they just sent me on my way and said stay out of trouble. I told the detective questioning me I never squeal on anyone, if they want someone to talk, they can find someone else. I actually gained respect from the cops in the room that day...they knew I could be trusted. I even gained respect from the overzealous cop that was questioning me. Nothing happened, the friend of mine got busted for Tick in his blood, he did sell some harder drugs, after three years in prison he reformed and became a LPN working for a hospice group going out to visit people who were disabled and old with disabilities. He did that for twenty years...he actually straightened out pretty well, getting his training and crudentials while in prison....having a prior knowledge of drugs gave him some insight into side effects of medicines on people I suppose. He never became an RN though, I suppose he did not want to be involved in dispensing meds anymore.