"Dabbing: Smoking Marijuana Extract With High Levels Of THC Is Growing In Popularity" - CeFaan Kim
There's a new drug with THC that's not the marijuana you're used to. Users have to heat it with a blowtorch to smoke it. It's marijuana extract; otherwise known as concentrated cannabis. The use of it is called dabbing. Dabbing is illegal in New York, but it is legal in California, Colorado, and Washington. Experts say its highly likely it will be legalized in New York in just a few years. "There have definitely been cases where people have overdosed on dabbing," said Yasmin Hurd, PhD, professor of psychiatry, neuroscience, pharmacology and systems therapeutics at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, chair of Ward-Coleman Translational Neuroscience, and director of the center for addictive disorders at the Mount Sinai Health System. "For developing brain, we know that THC has long term impact even on lower concentrations, so no one yet knows what these high concentrations of THC will do because they're very new." But medical experts say it can cause psychosis, rapid heartbeat, and blackouts. Traditional marijuana has a THC concentration of about 20 percent. Dabbing has close to 100 percent.
- Yasmin Hurd, PhD, Professor, Psychiatry, Neuroscience, Pharmacology, Systems Therapeutics, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Chair, Ward-Coleman Translational Neuroscience, Director of the Center for Addictive Disorders, Mount Sinai Health System