Oh, THAT’S what the “medical” means in “medical marijuana”

Marijuana has never been more potent, more productive and more varied in its appearance, flavor and effect. It is twice as productive as in the 1980s and three or more times as potent.

Experts such as Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, say the increasingly high potency of current marijuana varieties has transformed pot for many users into a drug that can induce psychosis and paranoia and increase addiction.

"The marijuana people were smoking 20 years ago was much less potent, and that explains why in the past medical consequences associated with marijuana were relatively rare," she said. "Now we are seeing an increase in (emergency room) admissions."

From a WaPo article, reprinted in today’s Statesman, on the subject of the move to legalize pot in California for medical purposes—to begin with.