Was Marijuana Really Less Potent in the 1960s?

a reply to: Krazysh0t

A stressed plant produces more THC. The law of averages means more bad growers, more stressed plants and therefore much stronger weed.

a reply to: and14263

Yea if only it actually worked that way, but it doesn't. Bad growers make bad pot. Average growers make average pot. In fact, it really works on an exponential graph. You have to put in more and more effort to get less and less percentage increases in THC potency.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

I can tell you that what you got in the 60's was indeed super WEAK SAUCE compared to today. Research? Why not just ask someone who was around back then?

a reply to: Krazysh0t

Here we will have to agree to disagree. But I suggest you Google THC levels and stressed plants. To add, a stressed plant of most variety will also produce stronger offspring.

EDIT, by any variety I mean tomatoes, peppers, beans, ... It's a common technique used to make impressive plants and fruits.

a reply to: InTheLight

I agree with your assessment of the marijuana back then. Those damn seeds were always popping.

cheech and chong acapulco gold filters

originally posted by: and14263
a reply to: Krazysh0t

A stressed plant produces more THC. The law of averages means more bad growers, more stressed plants and therefore much stronger weed.

Where did you get this from?!

Have you seen the grow rooms of today? I would say they are far from being stressed.

a reply to: and14263

Ya a simple google search said you are wrong, not sure if links are acceptable here but almost all sites dedicated to the art of growing disagree with you.

You know what…the schwag that permeated that era was just sick. It's like everyone forgot the formula for growing. I'm not even sure they realized that 12/12 was essential. Just..whatever happens happens. Oh look, flowers. How did that happen. I kid you nawt. One guy, a renown author of grow books, tells us that it's a good idea to throw fruit rinds in your curing jar to add flavor. No joke. This guy is still considered to be one of the experts. Next chapter, how to avoid mold.

Liars gonna lie. Good stuff has always been around, else there wouldn't be any today. If anything, it was more pure in ancient times than now, what with all the landrace rapists and Dutch masters and ruderalis hybrids. How I'd love to do a fight club with a 100% healthy Mark Kirk. He wanted to hand out 25 years minimum for the 'kush'. Never listen to people who are paid to lie. Their voices are dangerous even when they tell the truth. It's how God punishes us for us, putting them, in control, of us.

# 378

the availability of high grade mary has gone up exponentially, i'm sure high grade has always been available if you knew the right person but now it's much more readily available. even though i was not around 50 years ago i will go out on a limb and say that the majority of stuff available nowadays looks, tastes and has a higher thc content than your average stuff back then. evolution.

I wasn't alive during the 60's so, I can't say for sure.

I've seen some refer to "skunk. Is this the equivalent of "kind"?

I'm more intimately familiar with that terminology....kind bud. But, it doesn't smell like a skunk.

I do, however, remember my mom and step dad talking about the skunk weed they were growing as a kid. I also remember the smell of it and it absolutely smelled like skunk spray. Hard to miss when it was growing in our back yard.
Yep, I had that kind of childhood.


Sheesh, I knew what a bong was before I even learned my ABC's.

I wish I were kidding.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

This potency issue is a joke. There are so many factors involved in weed strength. For a start, just measuring the THC level in the plant material is oafish in the extreme. Many people do not smoke pure joints, but roll up with a mixture of tobacco and weed. This is done for two reasons that I can ascertain. First of all, this method allows the user to control the amount of the physical substance consumed, and therefore the strength of the roll. Therefore if what the user is after, is a certain level of hit from the smoke, and no more, they will figure out the best ratio of one to the other to use, to achieve it, no matter the strength or concentration of the active ingredient, meaning the smoke remains largely the same in terms of strength.

It is not, as far as I can tell , the case that everyone who smokes weed, does so to get as high as possible, as fast as possible. Everyone has different tolerances and preferences when it comes to doing what they do, and weed is not an exception so far as I can make out. The other reason to roll this way, is that doing so preserves the weed and makes what a user buys, last longer.

There are, of course, those who will insist on rolling a blunt after work and casting themselves adrift on a sea of unthought, upon a ship of mind becalmed. But I have never heard of any of the potheads I have met in my life, doing such a thing with the hybridised, high potency stuff, if only because drooling on oneself for half an hour tends to leave a sticky residue, and furthermore, most folk only want to know what a stroke feels like, if they are unfortunate enough to have one at some stage.

The problem comes when you get ignorant people smoking as a status symbol, and seeking to outstrip one another in terms of the potency of the smoke they have, and the amount they can handle. I have never mixed with anyone who fit into that street culture mentality anyway, because that whole "my posse has more game than your posse” thing has always seemed like a lot of phallus waving to me, and I have better things to do with my time. However, I have seen the effects, and they are rarely pretty.

In any case, strength by the measure of weight is hardly the key factor in figuring out the effect of a certain strain, because all that really matters is HOW it is smoked, and WHO is smoking it. This is because there are may different approaches to smoking, and everyone's tolerances are different, depending on factors like the quality and speed of circulation of blood in their bodies, the size of their lung capacity, the number of receptors for the active ingredient they have in their bodies, and the way their individual neurochemistry reacts to the substance.

In short, studying the substance, without studying the smokers and their individual habits, means that all the measurements these scientists take, mean absolutely nothing at street level. It is the EFFECT of ACTUAL use which needs examining to establish the actual ramifications of the availability of these high potency strains, not some clinically sterile lab experiment. I would advise these boffins to go to a smokers house, and see for themselves how the substance is used, by a wide variety of people who partake, rather than just doing standardised tests on a whole heap of the stuff. It might make for results which mean something in the real world.

'Was Marijuana less potent in the 60's?'

...dunno, can't remember...

Å99

originally posted by: MagesticEsoteric
I do, however, remember my mom and step dad talking about the skunk weed they were growing as a kid. I also remember the smell of it and it absolutely smelled like skunk spray.

My son came downstairs a couple of years back and the olfactory sense kicked in hard. "Why's Dad hitting it this early in the day? Oh no...the dog!"

He was right the second time.

Now we all get 404'd...lol!

a reply to: Krazysh0t

Lots of junk, relatively speaking, floating around in the 60s and 70s. Less, much less bud weed and a whole lot of leaf weed. By the early 80s weed was coming out of southern Ohio and Mexico that was common and much better than what was generally had in 60s and 70s. The Ohio strain known as "Meigs Co. Green" said to have been developed, a hybrid, by students at Athens University hit the street fairly hard and became known nation wide. Very strong stuff. It was so good in fact that the connoisseur preferred it over other good strains that had become known by the early 80s. It and a few others were known as "two toke" weed for strength even by heads that had been smoking for years. The "Meigs" industry took off so hard that Southern Ohio really became the first target of Reagans "war on drugs". Choppers and national guard everywhere down there in the 80s.

But yea 60s leaf weed went out the window by the mid 80s as the general, largely and widely used stuff. Who uses leaf weed anymore? Its all bub these days. Much more potent and available these days. In fact its the industry standard these days. Everything these days is sold in buds.

Careful what you post people I had my thread on the documentary Drugs live: Cannabis on trial, and over zealous mods shut it down and we were discussing the exact subject matter as this thread, I even asked if mods had any problems with my posts I would be happy to edit, but nope they shut it down without warning and have not even responded to my u2u, ATS have a track record when it comes to handing out "GAG orders"
As you all can see no t&c violations here but whats betting this post gets removed?

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
a reply to: and14263

Yea if only it actually worked that way, but it doesn't. Bad growers make bad pot. Average growers make average pot. In fact, it really works on an exponential graph. You have to put in more and more effort to get less and less percentage increases in THC potency.

I will say this is probably true with sophisticated indoor growing methods. However there were strains like the "Meigs" that a moron could plant on a hillside, it grew like a weed, was a hardy pant and only needed water......and it was very strong. Oh there were a few trick but basically it just grew. Nothing fancy really.

I always believed Mexican schwag was being supported by the US government to downgrade pot in the US.

At one time the US government had the idea of planting rope hemp across the US and Mexico in areas of high pot farming to cross pollinate and wreck US and Mexican grown pot.

Interesting comments so far on this thread... it's funny that some simple things are being overlooked, like the role the sun plays vs indoor growing.

What has changed the most in the last 50 years is being able to grow semi-legally in California. Why does that matter?

California has direct sunlight and no rain for months at a time during the hottest months of the year with the most direct sunlight. This is integral to potency. The soil is also extremely fertile, and if not, you can make your soil fertile pretty easily and get special blends made up just for cannabis, that have a slow-release phosphorous for when the plant starts to flower.

There are some great indoor grows, no doubt. But there is nothing, and I mean nothing, like the power of the sun.

The cannabis plant creates cannabinoids and other chemical compounds through its interaction with different wavelengths of light. That is why a lot of indoor grows will use combinations of different types of light. But it is impossible, even today, to get anything close to what the sun produces. The plant, in turn, produces far more chemical interactions for a much wider variety and strength of the compounds that make up the CBD and THC. As another poster mentioned, the stress of the sun triggers a protection mechanism in the cannabis plant. That protection mechanism when it is during its flowering stage, is the production of resin glands that help absorb the different wavelengths of light for more efficient energy production, and also help to keep the plant cool and defend from insects. This is a fact and there is no speculation about this. This is also why well-grown outdoor cannabis will forever be more potent than anything grown indoors under artificial light. Greenhouses are truly where your best grows come from.

When it became "legal", or acceptable, to grow cannabis in large quantity in California, that's when the country started seeing a flood of very potent strains and genetic breeding. Fields and fields of it are grown under pristine conditions in Humboldt County and Eureka, but it doesn't just have to do with that.

Genetics definitely matter, and whoever says otherwise is a liar. There are strains that under the right conditions, will grow 15 feet high and produce 8 lbs of fairly good, very large flowers. There are others that will never grow taller than 7 feet and won't produce more than 3 lbs of extremely potent and compact flowers. One is great for indoor, the other is not. Some strains have natural resistance to insects and perform better outdoors with little care, while some do not but due to their mix of genetics, produce very intense and strong amounts of THC under any normal growing conditions. Others don't produce THC at all, but are great producers of CBD. Charlotte's Web is an example of that.

More than anything, the growing process matters most. There is a saying amongst farmers in the emerald triangle - "Good farmers grow good plants. Great farmers grow good dirt." Recognizing the proper soil composition needed for your plant is key, and cultivating IT is more important than anything else. Does it need a fungus rich soil or a bacteria rich one? Is the pH meant to be high or low? Do you know when to adjust it and what ingredients to use and at what rate to release it into the soil? Also knowing when the plant needs some nitrogen, because the leaves are changing color. Knowing when the plant needs phosphorous because the stigmas are turning purple or brown. Knowing when to water, and more importantly, when NOT to. I have seen more people kill plants of all kinds because of over-watering, than any other problem. The most common mistake is looking at the soil on the surface and seeing that it's dry, and thinking that it needs water. Typically, soil about an inch down below the dry surface is cooler and moist, and plants can go quite some time without being watered if the soil is good and can retain water well.

Insect control is imperative as well. If your plant is always using it's energy and sugars to fend off insects, it will effect the overall potency. Using fungicides and pesticides have a massive negative impact to the plant for obvious reasons. Simple sprays using garlic, peppermint oil, and water around the perimeter will keep most bugs away, the rest can be controlled with beneficial insects. Beneficial insects that prey on the ones that can damage the plant work wonders.

It takes all of these factors, and then some I haven't mentioned, to maximize potency of any plant. I have personally seen plants that were 15 feet tall, planted in above-ground pots that are ten feet in diameter and 4 feet tall, that produced flowers as big as a grown man's arm. It was only possible outdoors.

I'm sure that like any plant, cannabis has evolved, ebbed and flowed over time. There were probably times when it was far more potent than today, and incredible strains that are lost to history and will never be seen again. I don't think the potency has changed much, if at all, but that's just my $.02.

~Namaste

Without reading all the responses I would argue that its more potent now due to genetic manipulation. Now hear me out...the fact that people have been approaching marijuana growth more scientifically recently would bode that the breeding of the current strains have gone through a process of optimization that was just not as observed back in the 70s &80s. Today the competition is so strong that if your bud isn't in the 20 something percent range your just average. Also with the dispenseries these days calculation of factual info for their users its a lot harder to lie or myth your way to the top. I truly believe the gov studies are skewed and don't represent the truth. However your argument about quality and distributer are true and I would liken it to micro brews compared to a bud light... Good thread though and I do enjoy that we can finally talk about such topics here and educate people on the facts as opposed to the blaten lies of yesterday.

ETA: I'd like to finally disclose that I have a multitude of experience that if asked for I can detail via u2u. Thank God for those who've pushed for the changes to this point.