It's all purely anecdotal, but as a cannabis smoker of 30+ years that lived in an area with a large variety of cannabis types and strengths, there is definitely truth to 'skunk' causing problems.<p>I don't believe there is anything special about the makeup of it, other than it's too strong for the way people smoke today. The tolerance range for cannabis is very large. A new smoker can take a single tiny puff and need to take the rest of the day off. A long term user can smoke 5 grams, probably 100x the quantity the new user did, and feel sober within an hour. It's too much build up over time that your brain is never really cleared out. And then you go crazy.
Reading from <a href="https://hightimes.com/culture/how-much-thc-is-in-a-dab-a-bowl-and-a-joint/" rel="nofollow">https://hightimes.com/culture/how-much-thc-is-in-a-dab-a-bow...</a><p>> A pinner with 0.4 grams of weed should deliver roughly 36 mg of THC, while a gram joint will dish out 90 mg of THC.<p>How much THC would be in a skunk joint?<p>Edit: 14 / 9 * 90 = 140mg for a gram joint.<p>This is excellent reason for the government to sieze control of cannabis by regulating, taxing, and controlling it. In Nevada recently cannabis stores have the potency marked and clearly visible. if you want to ingest 20 grams, eat two gummis or two squares of chocolate.
Completely anecdotal but i saw friends who moved on to long term use of "skunk" in the UK change a lot. They never kept up with the pack or reached close to their potential and ended up drifting away from the friendship group.
"sinsemilla, also known as skunk" ... by Telegraph readers, and absolutely nobody else. In the UK press "skunk" is a term used to refer to, well, everything from hash to weed, to sometimes heroin - and they're all the same thing, don't you know.<p>In Uruguay, 9% THC content is what <i>the government</i> sell. [1]<p>Oh, and here's a crazy thing - if it's really strong - you <i>smoke less</i>, because it's not like you're not in control of what you roll into a joint - and in the UK, almost everyone rolls with tobacco or a rolling mix.<p>“If the cannabis market is saturated with higher potency cannabis this increases the risk of younger and more naive users developing problems as they are less likely to adjust the amount of cannabis they ingest than more experienced users.”<p>This is what we call "utter tripe". If that young and naive first-time-user decides to roll a fat joint, and then smokes the whole thing - well, they're going to first of all turn grey, then sweat, then lose control of their bowels, and feel pretty horrible for a few hours - and they won't make that mistake again.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/10/how-uruguay-made-legal-cannabis-work" rel="nofollow">https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/10/how-uruguay-ma...</a>
This article is a bit of joke and shows how far behind Britain is, in terms of cannabis use, compared to a place like the Bay Area.<p>10% THC cannabis was routine 10 years ago in the BA. Now, you can get 99.5% THC- a medicinal extract with extensive purification and attestable quality- although it is pricey (you pay for purification). It's consumed with a vaporizer, no combustion products if you set the heater low enough.<p>Most of this product is purchased by well-heeled techies and other successful business and industry types; one of the nice things about mostly pure THC is that it's not completely debilitating (for experienced users).<p>Whether there is an actual medical situation with high concentration THC would require much better studies.
"Latest figures shows there were 7,545 hospital admissions in 2016/2017 for drug-related mental health and behavioural disorders, 12 per cent higher than in 2006/2007."<p>Why provide a stat that includes all drugs in an article about one specific drug
'Super Strength' is a relative description, it is comparing professionally bred and grown strains against bush weed from the 1970's. It is no more super strength that the strains available in the US right now. The telegraph is essentially a right wing tabloid these days, little better than the Daily Mail, im suprised to see such a poor article so high on HN.