This debate continues to rage, mostly in the tabloids but perhaps also in the new Labour Cabinet "Chill Out" rooms - and a search of the literature does seem confusing. Addiction (July 2005) published a report from Italy revealing that cannabis seizures over 20 years showed little change in THC concentration, and my chums at Transform whose bias they wear on their sleeves, say that american seizures have only revealed a doubling of potency in recent years (not a "30 fold" increase as some hysterical headline grabbers have claimed).
I find my most reliable information source is our patients, and mine all seem to think that Skunk is a great deal stronger than block resin and weed was some years ago. Does that matter? well the association with psychotic illness has been made,
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract;jsessionid=F1921C7E09548430C6B105183E5B437D.tomcat1?fromPage=online&aid=141663
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet
and there are a number of disquieting parrallels with addictive practices in the past. For several thousand years the Indians of the Andes chewed Coca leaves with impunity and our Victorian forebears regarded a Laudanum habit as little more than a "weakness of character". But those who profit from supplying these things have learnt that greater concentrations of drug increase compulsion and demand, even tobacco companies enhance the nicotine content of cigarettes - if that were not the case, then Crack and Heroin would have no supply or demand - and we would all be happy with playing Snap, and not pressing buttons on Fruit machines all day. And greater compulsion and demand seem invariably to have harmful consequences.
We will see where this leads - but the lessons of the past seem to be going unheeded as usual.
