Researchers from the University of Mississippi have found out that marijuana's potency has become stronger today than it was back in 1995. The study used a total of 38,681 samples of cannabis and was recently published in the Biological Psychiatry journal.

The thousands of samples were obtained from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and dates back to Jan. 1, 1995 up to Dec. 31, 2014. The data results showed that the number of sinsemilla variety samples increased and the potency of the illegal marijuana samples rose from 4 percent in 1995 to about 12 percent in 2014.

According to Oxford Eagle, the research was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and led by Mahmoud A. ElSohly, research professor and professor of pharmaceutics from the Research Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences. The National Center for Natural Products Research supplied the high-quality grade marijuana to the licensed researchers including Suman Chandra, James C. Church, Susan Foster, Chandrani Gon and Zlatko Mehmedic.

"I'm very proud to work for the Marijuana Project. It is very well-known across the country, and I'm honored to work for Dr. ElSohly. It is extremely important that we keep good security and up-to-date inventory when we are growing. We document everything we do and make sure that all the DEA and FDA requirements are met," Chandra said.

The study concluded that the increase in marijuana potency has a higher risk of cannabis addiction among young people. It is mainly due to the majority of illegally produced cannabis changed from regular marijuana to the much stronger sinsemilla variety.

"We can see that the ratio of THC to CBD has really, really increased and climbed so much higher. When a person smokes marijuana with lower doses of THC, it is a pleasant feeling. It is the munchies, the happiness," ElSohly told Live Science.

However, ElSohly added that smoking marijuana with high doses of THC poses a higher risk of psychosis or panic attacks. He pointed out several likely factors behind the increase in potency of illegal marijuana like the development of tolerance to THC.

"They need increasingly higher doses of THC to get high. These people create a demand for more and more potent varieties of pot," he said.

In a recent report by Newser, the frequent use of high-potent varieties of marijuana could result in psychosis and may cause damage to nerve fibers. The reported damage is very similar to a concussion and could lead to other mental health problems.