A strange thing has happened on the road to marijuana legalization. Users of all ages and experience levels are finding that a drug they once took for fun and relaxation now causes them existential dread and paranoia. “The density of the buds is crazy, they’re so sticky,” a friend from college recently wrote to me. “I recently smoked a joint from the dispensary solo and got high just walking around.”
In 2022, the federal government reported that in samples seized by the Drug Enforcement Administration, the average level of tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC — the psychoactive compound in marijuana that causes a high feeling — had more than tripled from 5 percent to 16 percent compared to 25 years earlier. That may be an understatement for how powerful marijuana has become. Walk into any dispensary in the country, legal or not, and you’ll be hard-pressed to find a single product advertising such low THC levels. Most strains claim to contain at least 20 to 30 percent THC by weight; concentrated marijuana products designed for vaping can be labeled as high as 90 percent.
For the average stoner who wants to take a few hits without getting completely high, this is frustrating. For some, it can be dangerous. In recent years, reports have increased of people, particularly teenagers, experiencing short- and long-term “marijuana-induced psychosis,” with consequences such as hospitalizations for chronic vomiting and auditory hallucinations of talking birds. Several studies have linked heavy use of high-potency marijuana, in particular, to the development of mental disorders, including schizophrenia, although a causal link has not been proven.
“It’s quite possible that this new type of cannabis — very strong, used in these very intense patterns — can cause permanent brain damage in teenagers because the brain is developing so much during this time,” Keith Humphreys, a professor of psychiatry at Stanford and a former drug policy adviser to the Obama administration, told me. Humphreys stressed that the proportion of people who experience isolated psychotic episodes while using weed will be “far greater” than the number who end up permanently altered. But even a temporary bout of psychosis is pretty bad.
One of the basic assumptions of the legalization movement is that marijuana, while not harmless, is pretty harmless—and probably a lot less dangerous than alcohol. But much of the weed sold today isn’t the same stuff that people were locked up for selling in the 1990s and 2000s. You don’t have to be a proponent of the war on drugs to worry about the consequences of unleashing so much high-potency weed on the world.
The high that most adult weed smokers remember from their teenage years is most likely produced by “mids,” or medium-quality weed. In the pre-legal era, unless you had access to premium strains like Purple Haze and Sour Diesel, you probably had to settle for mids (or, one step below, “reggie,” like regular weed) most of the time. Today, mids are hard to come by.
The simplest explanation is that casual smokers, craving the Mids and Reggies of their youth, are not the industry’s primary customers. These are serious stoners. According to a study by Jonathan P. Caulkins, a professor of public policy at Carnegie Mellon University, people who report smoking more than 25 times a month make up about a third of marijuana users, but account for about two-thirds of all marijuana use. Such regular users tend to develop high tolerances, and their tastes dictate the industry’s grow decisions.
The industry is aware of this fact. In May, I attended the National Cannabis Investment Summit in Washington DC, where investors were introduced to the terms high quality And effective almost interchangeable. They told me that high THC percentages would appeal to heavy users – the dedicated wake-and-bakers and the joint-before-sleep crowd. “30 percent THC is the new 20 percent,” Ryan Cohen, a Michigan grower, told me. “Our target buyer is the guy who just worked 40 hours a week and wants to get damn high without spending a lot of money.”
Smaller producers may be able to carve out a niche for themselves by catering to those of us who prefer a milder high. But the way the legal marijuana market has evolved has left them struggling to survive. With states able to determine what their legal marijuana markets look like, limited licensing has emerged as the preferred tool. This approach has resulted in legal marijuana markets being dominated by large, well-funded “multistate operators” (as the industry parlance calls them).
Across the country, MSOs are buying up licenses, acquiring smaller brands, and lobbying politicians to include home-cultivation bans in their legalization bills. The result is the illusion of endless choice and a tough climate for the little guy. Minnesota’s 15 medical dispensaries are owned by two MSOs. All 23 in Virginia are owned by three different MSOs. Some states have tried to lower barriers to entry, but the big chains still dominate the market. (Notable exceptions are California and Colorado, where marijuana has been legal longer and where markets are less dominated by mega-chains.) Despite the abundance of stores in some states and the obvious variety of strains on the shelves, most people who walk into a dispensary will choose from a limited number of vendors that maximize THC content.
If the incentives Market data indicate ever-increasing THC concentrations, and one way to achieve milder strains would be government regulation. But legal weed largely exists in a regulatory vacuum.
Six years ago, my colleague Annie Lowrey noted, “The lack of federal involvement in legalization has resulted in marijuana products not being tested for safety like drugs, not being measured and dosed like food, not being subject to agricultural safety and pesticide standards like crops, and not being held to labeling standards like alcohol.” Little has changed since she wrote that. A few states have capped the amount of THC per serving for edibles, but only Vermont and Connecticut have potency limits for what’s known as flower, the old-fashioned kind of weed you smoke in leaf form. And then there’s the Wild West of legal hemp-based THC products, which have virtually no potency limits at all.
Marijuana is still illegal under the federal Narcotics Act (CSA). While states were allowed to make their own regulations, the lack of legalization at the federal level also meant there was no federal regulation. In May, the Justice Department officially proposed reclassifying marijuana from Schedule 1 of the CSA, where heroin is, to Schedule 3, where ketamine and anabolic steroids are. This change, if it happens, will dramatically expand the world. medicine– Marijuana research and access, but it will not affect the recreational market at all.
To establish an approach to marijuana legalization that protects users and provides them with real choice and information about their use, Congress would have to delist marijuana entirely, not just reclassify it. Delisting marijuana would circumvent the legal burdens of Schedule 3 and allow the federal government to establish a nationally standardized set of health and safety regulations for recreational use, not just medical purposes.
Such a change would ideally give the federal government, specifically the Food and Drug Administration, the power to regulate marijuana in the same way it regulates other uncontrolled substances like alcohol and tobacco — by overseeing packaging, advertising and distribution. Sellers could be required to produce clear, standardized nutrition facts-style labels that detail true THC content, recommended dosages and professional advice in case of a bad high. A complete repeal of regulation would also narrow the research knowledge gap, as private marijuana companies could subject their products to FDA-approved testing and develop modern regulatory strategies that meet public health standards.
The history of drug control in America has long been one of discriminatory, draconian measures. But the move toward legal marijuana has gone too far in the opposite direction. If marijuana is to be sold legally, consumers should know what they’re buying and be able to trust that someone is keeping it safe. If we can agree as a society that getting high on marijuana shouldn’t be illegal, we can also agree that smoking marijuana shouldn’t mean dissociating at a house party or running into the middle of a snowstorm because you think imaginary bad guys are after you. The sad irony of legalization is that the easier it’s become to get marijuana, the harder it’s become to smoke it.
