Dr. Keith Humphreys

And so it's probably that, that people are, you know, sort of feeling, you know, it's just too nervous, you know, and whether they should or they shouldn't, that's just, I think, probably in the soup, one of those benefits people care about.

And there are people, it has to be said,

who are more socially engaging when they've had a drink than when they haven't because they're kind of wound up people when they relax some other stuff comes out and they may seem more appealing.

Yeah, so whenever I talk about it, I make a distinction between sort of old and new cannabis.

So, you know, if you go back to the 80s and 90s, when as you mentioned it was illegal everywhere,

The THC content, that's the principal intoxicant would be, you know, 3%, 4%, 5%, something like that on average.

And now, you know, studies of legal sales show the average product is about 20%.

That's dramatically stronger.

The other point is how people use it is different, perhaps related to that high potency.

Jonathan Calkins pulled together a lot of really interesting data that got a lot of play and it showed that about 40, I think it's 42% of people who use cannabis use it every day or almost every day.

That is also different.

So, if you go back in the past, the more modal user might have been once or twice a week.

So, you put those things together,

So you take somebody, you know, what was like an 80s pot smoker?

Well, on weekends, you know, I'd smoke a joint at, you know, 5%.

But now if it means every day I'm consuming 20%, you quickly realize like their brain exposure is dramatically higher, about 65 times higher between the modes of those two experiences.

And what, you know, so what does 65 times mean?

Well, it coincidentally is also the potency difference between a coca leaf

and cocaine, that is 65 times two, so it's a big difference.

And as you know, dose makes the poison.