Hanover, NH: Consumers regulate their cannabis intake based upon the potency of the product they are consuming, according to data published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research.
Researchers affiliated with Dartmouth Medical School in New Hampshire and Columbia University in New York assessed consumers’ self-reported use of lower-potency cannabis flower and higher-potency cannabis concentrates.
Consistent with prior research, investigators reported, “[T]hose who use both flower (i.e., lower potency product) and dab concentrates (i.e., higher potency product) tend to use greater amounts of flower than concentrates, and the median amount of flower used among flower-only consumers is consistently larger than the median amount of concentrates used among concentrate-only consumers.”
Researchers also reported that more experienced consumers are more likely to gravitate toward more potent products, arguably due to “their higher tolerance.”
The study’s authors concluded: “Results suggest that cannabis consumers self-titrate when switching between flower and concentrate product types. … Understanding self-titration is critical for developing evidence-based regulatory strategies.”
The study’s findings come at a time when some state lawmakers are calling for the imposition of arbitrary caps on the percentage of THC permissible in certain retail cannabis products. NORML has pushed back against the imposition of THC caps – opining that cannabis products, regardless of THC potency, cannot cause lethal overdose or organ toxicity, that consumers regulate their ingestion of more potent products accordingly, and that re-criminalizing select cannabis products relegates their production and sale exclusively to the unregulated marketplace.
Full text of the study, “Self-titration of cannabis consumption: An epidemiological perspective,” appears in the Journal of Psychiatric Research. Additional information on high-potency cannabis products is available from the NORML Fact Sheet, ‘THC Potency Concerns: Are Stronger Products More Problematic?‘