Page 88 - Potency News Today

Vary the potency. >> you have with you hundreds of bags of heroin. >> im a stamp collector. >> what a lot of people dont realize is dealers stamp a brand name. >> dealers will usually have -- >> theres no heroin obviously inside this. >> we used it all before we started here today. >> but talk about the branding of it. the idea is to what, develop loyalty? >> well, to have customers understand that this belongs to you without putting your name on it, so to speak. so frequently dealers will have ...

High for the same amount of money. so thats why they go and they look for maybe a certain brand that theyre selling in a certain area. >> because of potency. >> exactly. so what was his resistance to this? we know he had it in the past. and what are the other drugs he had with him? basically an opiod antagonist. thats one of the other drugs they found in his apartment. >> a lot of drugs they found in his apartment. minus the prescription. mike brooks, thank you very much. minutes from now, the...

To make it more potent? >> yes. and if the person taking the drug gets a potency much greater than usual that can cause death and reported from the east coast. whether or not thats what happened here, the medical examiners and toxicologists will find out within a couple of days. >> if that ingredient was added? youre saying most heroin addicts outgrow their addiction before theyre 40 years old. do they outgrow it or die from it? >> when i was the chief medical examiner, we did a lot of studies. ...

>> evan, tell me this. why do officials say there has been such an increase in recent years? one presumes availability comes into it. >> reporter: well, yes. its cheap, its become a lot more available. were told today that you can get a dose of heroin essentially for about $6 to $10 on the streets in new york and any big city on the east coast. its -- like you said, its plentiful. the number of seizures in the southwestern border have gone up triple, according to the dea. its also become a lot m...

Is your first thought? >> sounds to me like he was out on a run as addicts on the street would say. bingeing, loaded up with the various things that he was using. it sounds like he was a little out of control. >> you are in communities where people are buying and selling heroin. you say it is particularly dangerous right now because of this bad batch. its tainted heroin. tell me about this that. >> its really bad right now. the street supply of heroin has never been more uncertain than right now...

>> and i imagine here too, this is something -- i mean, it was a surprise to some of us, but to others, certainly, theyre very much aware this is a big problem. what are they doing to address the large number of people who are addicted? >> reporter: well, you know, thats actually one of the big questions, how you can treat this problem. in big cities where this has been showing up, in new york, for instance, where phillip seymour hoffmans death has become the center of news, i think a lot of aut...

Go into the negative effects of the high, the psychosis, irritation, irritability, paranoia and all of this. >> and while not all of the plants are this high, theres no question hes seeing a trend. in 1972, the average potency was less than 1% thc. now, nearly 13%. >> are people becoming more obsessed with high thc marijuana? >> i think so. they start out with half percent to one percent. and they get a good high. then as they continue to use that, it doesnt give them the same high any more, so ...

Better. and todays marijuana could be more addictive. it has more of the psychoactive ingredient thc than ever before. brain researcher dr. nora volkow. >> if you smoke a very potent marijuana, then the thc content is going to go very fast into your brain at relatively high concentrations, and then that increases its rewarding effects and likelihood of transitioning into addiction. >> how much stronger is it? >> you see the barbed wire, obviously, on the fences. >> well, i traveled to mississipp...

The rewarding effects. and likelihood of transition into addiction. >> how much stronger is it? >> you see the barbed wire obviously on the fence. >> i travelled to mississippi, where marijuana is illegal. but here, on the campus of one of the countrys oldest universities, ole miss, a huge stash of marijuana is under lock and key. >> this is our vault. >> is pretty tight security. look at this door. >> mamood runs the marijuana potency project. >> what potency is this? >> about 8%. >> for three ...

>> how much is this worry you, 36% thc confiscated? >> very dangerous material. for someone that is not experienced in marijuana smoking takes some of this, and theyre going to go into the negative effects of the high, the psychosis, the irritation, irritability, paranoia, all of this. >> while not all the plants are this high, theres no question he has seen a trend. in 1972 the average potency was less than 1% thc. now its nearly 13%. >> are people becoming more obsessed with high thc marijuana...