The Trouble with THC

Among fad-following drug users, the initials of the day are THC. They stand for tetrahydrocannabinol, the chemical compound that is the active ingredient in marijuana, hashish and all other psychedelic drugs derived from Indian hemp. In other words, THC is the kicker in the high.

THC has been extracted in microscopic quantities, and at great cost, for years. It was first synthesized--again, at great cost--in Israel in 1967. Ever since, U.S. potheads have been waiting for a reliable supply of genuine THC from illegal laboratories.

Something called THC appeared on the black market last summer, but in such short supply that it commanded a price of $8 or more per capsule. The predictable result is that nearly all the "THC" now being consumed, by sniffing or otherwise, is not really THC at all. Instead, it may be talcum powder, an amphetamine ("benny"), LSD or, more likely, a tranquilizer no longer approved for human use but still used to knock out ailing rhinoceroses and elephants in zoos.

Consumer Criterion. "We have yet to encounter any legitimate THC in the street trade," says Richard Callahan, New England regional director for the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. Narcotics agents throughout the U.S. agree that genuine THC is virtually unobtainable on the street. The reason, say Callahan and other experts, is that the process of synthesizing THC is so complex and costly ($5 to $10 per effective dose) that its manufacture makes no commercial sense, even to the Mafia. According to Stanford University's Psychopharmacologist Leo Hollister, genuine THC in doses as low as 70 milligrams may produce symptoms like those caused by LSD--dizziness, blurred or vibrating vision, shortened attention span and otherworldly hallucinations. Dr. Harris Isbell of the University of Kentucky, one of the nation's top researchers in psychotropic drugs, goes further: "Sufficiently high doses of THC," he maintains, "can cause psychotic reactions in any individual."

How do users know whether or not they are getting real THC? "If it doesn't cost at least $15 a capsule, I stay away from it," says a worldly California coed, applying the American-consumer standard that if it costs enough, it must be all right. Whatever the users' criteria or confidence, they are most likely to get such substitutes as the animal tranquilizers, which are known to West Coast aficionados as "hog" and to East Coast fanciers as the "peace pill."

Kicking a Cat. One hopeful but skeptical Manhattan hallucinator recently submitted one of his trusted $5 caps of "THC" to Arthur D. Little Inc. of Cambridge, Mass., for chemical analysis. The disquieting, bad-trip report: it contained less than one-hundredth of one percent of THC (the rest was a common tranquilizer). In that low concentration, one cap would not be enough to give a mouse dreams of kicking a cat.

Marijuana itself is so variable in potency that the National Institute of Mental Health announced last week that it will have five standard strains grown under contract at the University of Mississippi. At the Research Triangle Institute in Durham, N.C., extracts--including THC--will be prepared from this pot, and the N.I.M.H. will let a limited number of qualified medical researchers test the products, under strict control, on human subjects. That way, N.I.M.H. hopes eventually to find out what are the standard, predictable effects of pot and its various derivatives, including genuine THC.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.