POTENCY MYTH

Re: "Police pursue today's high-yield pot" (Sept. 22).

Sgt. Cy Chaytor was wrong when he said, "THC levels once were in the 0.9
per cent range, but today are as high as 10 to 15 per cent." Dan Gardner's
article in the May 17, 2003, issue of the Ottawa Citizen debunked that
particular myth (among others):

"A 2002 RCMP report cautions that exaggerated claims about marijuana
potency are being made in the media and warns that any such claims should
be based on 'actual laboratory analysis results.' The report provides the
results of two such analyses. Between 1996 and 1999, a total of 3,160
samples of seized marijuana were tested for THC levels: The average each
year varied between 5.5 to six per cent; the top-rated sample was 25 per
cent, but samples of more than 16 per cent were extremely rare, and 'almost
a third of the samples were under three per cent.'

"Researchers agree that marijuana potency increased in the 1980s and 1990s,
but that increase was modest: Mitch Earleywine, a professor at the
University of Southern California, surveys the evidence in Understanding
Marijuana (Oxford University Press, 2002). He concluded pot in the United
States likely rose from 1.5 or two per cent to four or 4.5 per cent from
the 1970s to the 1990s."

Some lay people, such as police officers, may feel they have a duty to
promulgate myths about illegal drugs.

Alan Randell, Victoria, B.C.