Thankfully, more and more states in the United States are beginning to come around to the idea of legalizing medical marijuana and, in some cases, mairjuana for recreational use. This means that we now have more access to cannabis than ever before, and in quite the variety of product lines. Today we are going to be talking about the battle to protect the potency of concentrated marijuana products. What are marijuana concentrates? Well, usually they come in the form of waxes or resins, and they are cannabis products with very levels of THC. This type of product, while it may sound like a great way to get super high extremely fast, is best to be used by medical patients who are struggling with some severe and debilitating medical conditions that cause them to need very high doses of cannabis in a quicker way than just using regular marijuana. However, getting concentrated onto the list of other legal marijuana products has been a struggle to say the least. Many states that have legalized medical marijuana are very wary about how much THC they are willing to allow in the state. While some states don’t allow cannabis in any form to contain THC (so basically you can only use CBD), others have put various potency caps on cannabis products, including concentrates. The problem with this is that marijuana concentrates are a necessity for some patients who deal with a great amount of chronic pain or have trouble functioning throughout the day.
Nobody is really taking a dab of marijuana concentrates just for fun – rather, many medical marijuana patients simply need it to be able to function without severe pain. That is why many organizations in the medical cannabis industry are fighting against state policies and laws that put potency caps on the level of THC in the state’s medical program. Personally, I can understand where lawmakers are coming from. Legalizing medical marijuana in some states is a big deal already, especially with the stigma that the older generation associates with any sort of cannabis. Putting a potency cap on products is a way to try to make using marijuana safer and control how much THC people are consuming. However, I think it is more imperative to put higher potency products on the market, but make them only available to patients that are in serious need of pain relief or something like that. Since all medical patients have to go through a doctor or medical professional anyways, this would not be that hard of a strategy to implement.
Some examples of state laws include laws in Washington and Arizona. A couple years ago, lawmakers in Washington state moved a bill that would cap concentrates at medical dispensaries and adult-use dispensaries at 10% THC. This potency cap is extremely low, especially when compared to some of the higher concentrations on the market like Bubba’s Deadhead Girl, which measures at 79% THC concentrate. Dandy’s True OG also measures very high on the potency levels, coming in at an average of 82% THC. These types of concentrates would be completely off limits for medical users and adult-users of marijuana alike. Arizona also proposed to put the potency cap of marijuana at a maximum of 2%, which is also incredibly low.
The average potency of most of the cannabis products range anywhere from 12% to 25%, so that would eliminate most of the concentrated marijuana products that patients are familiar with. Honestly, I really don’t think limiting the THC cap is such a bad thing, but it should be a really high level in my opinion. We don’t want people to hurt themselves by taking too much of a concentrate with 100% THC, but we also want to give medical marijuana patients the fast and effective relief that they need.
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