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This article was published 20/2/2016 (1672 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Opinion

As counterintuitive as it sounds, legal marijuana will probably result in some Canadians getting a lot less high.

In the 1980s, marijuana tended to be about three per cent tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the plant’s primary psychoactive ingredient and the substance largely responsible for making marijuana users feel stoned.

These days, the average THC content of marijuana is more like 12 per cent, and samples seized by law-enforcement agencies have tested as high (sorry) as 24 per cent.

The increasing potency is a result of prohibition, which encouraged organized crime to reap huge profits from the production, distribution and sale of a product that used to be grown outdoors.

Now largely grown in clandestine indoor locations, weed tends to be cultivated with clinical precision. Over the decades, growers have figured out how to boost the THC content of marijuana to the point where what used to be a mellow, mood-altering drug is now a potent near-hallucinogen.

At the same time, those growers figured out how to reduce the content of another substance found within marijuana — cannabidiol, also known as CBD. This was done because CBD, which promotes relaxation and reduces stress, mitigates the mind-altering effects of THC.

This is why aging Baby Boomers aren’t waxing nostalgic when they claim the chill-out substance of their hippie youth now just makes them neurotic. Illegal weed is not just trippier, but also contains less of the ingredient that makes the trippy sensation tolerable.

Legalization, promised by the Trudeau Liberals, is bound to bring about quality controls and regulatory practices that will result in lower-THC and higher-CBD strains of marijuana on the market.

This is already starting to happen, as medical marijuana users have demonstrated a viable market for weed that’s less likely to make consumers agitated and paranoid. As well, in U.S. states where marijuana sales are legal — and in B.C. cities where illegal dispensaries have proliferated with impunity — recreational users have shown a taste for strains that induce less of a high.

In part, this is because marijuana users are no different from alcohol or caffeine users. Few people want to consume so much of a psychoactive substance that they wind up incapacitated, notwithstanding the weekend predilections of university students and professional athletes.

In Colorado, for example, visitors to legal marijuana dispensaries find themselves perusing the wares of what can best be described as apothecaries — less clinical than pharmacies, but not quite as tacky as head shops. "Budtenders" who consume the wares advise customers about the psychoactive effects of any given strain on offer.

This is a different service from that offered by staff at a liquor store, whose primary purpose is to advise customers about the way a bottle of wine tastes or how well it pairs with food.

This is why it’s concerning to note how Canadian medical-marijuana producers are jockeying to become legal weed distributors on a mail-order basis. Canada is in danger of creating conditions for the rise of Big Bud, which may wish to continue foisting high-test marijuana on the populace.

It’s also concerning to note both Manitoba and Ontario are mulling provincial control of marijuana retail sales. Late last year, Manitoba Premier Greg Selinger displayed how poorly he understood the future economic potential by declaring provincial employees won’t be smoking weed, which he described — inaccurately — as a dangerously addictive drug.

Marijuana can indeed be harmful, in the hands of kids. This is why it makes sense to have provincial regulators enforce age limits for purchasing weed and control the THC and CBD content.

But the only way to ensure Canada winds up with a variety of weed is to ensure there’s no impediment on the retail side. If legal weed is too expensive or too homogenous, the underground market will continue to thrive.

Nobody wants that. If you buy weed now, you’re likely supporting organized crime. Marijuana consumers who insist on purchasing fair-trade coffee and cruelty-free eggs probably don’t want to think about the fact their weed-purchasing practices may provide revenue for people who force underage girls into the sex trade.

This is part of the reason Canadian police are so eager to see the end of prohibition. Biker weed finances misery.

It’s also too strong. I personally look forward to lighting up on the day when weed is finally weak enough for me to handle — and doesn’t weigh on my conscience.

bartley.kives@freepress.mb.ca