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Young adults are told to beware of high-potency cannabis, yet when they walk into a dispensary, that is almost all they find. The market has become a competition of numbers, THC percentages climbing like stock tickers, potency sold as prestige. There were choices once offered in jars of fragrant flowers: lavender, citrus, pine, hay and spices. These have been replaced by an endless monotone of heavy-handed highs.

Elderly consumers, who might seek gentle relief for aches or the comfort of a familiar ritual, are left stranded. Where is the mild varietal that recalls an afternoon garden, the smoke that relaxes without disorienting? Where is the option to enjoy cannabis as a companion, not a conqueror?

Even younger consumers who crave community and conversation find little accommodation. They do not want to be knocked flat after a single puff. They want to linger, to share, to laugh. Have an experience close to sipping wine than downing grain alcohol.

But the system is not designed for them. Society waves a finger: Beware the strong stuff. The industry shrugs and says: It's the only thing we sell. Regulations reward what can be quantified and monetized: the highest THC number on the label. Industry follows the incentives, producing products that grow ever stronger, ever less diverse. Consumers are caught in a paradox; the warnings are everywhere, yet the alternatives are nowhere.

This is not a new story. Tobacco, once a genus of abundance, included an estimated seventy species, all native to the Americas. Several of which were historically smoked, chewed, snorted or even "drunk." That diversity has been stripped away. Today, the market is dominated by ever-more concentrated and convenient formats, culminating in vapes that deliver nicotine with pharmaceutical precision.

Alcohol tells a similar tale, though with a few more hopeful twists. Beer and spirits still span a wide spectrum, though not as wide as they once did. Regulation made highly pure spirits a sustainable reality: whiskey often sold straight from the barrel was adulterated by unscrupulous merchants with cheap spirits or toxic substances. Laws and standardization brought safety but also transformed whiskey into an everyday commodity. Copyright and trademark protections created virtual monopolies over certain drinks ("steam beers," for instance), while homogenizing what had once been a riot of local styles. The modern craft beer revival suggests that consumer appetite for nuance can return.

Opioids illustrate the point most starkly. For much of the twentieth century, their use was carefully tiered: codeine for a cough, morphine for surgery, heroin once (disastrously) prescribed as a "safer" substitute. Then came fentanyl in the 1950s, created not by cartels but by a doctor at his startup Janssen Pharmaceutica, which was later absorbed by Johnson & Johnson in 1961. He was driven by the ambition to design the most potent narcotic analgesic possible. Fentanyl's origin story underscores the uncomfortable truth: it was regulation and the Pharma marketplace, not the Sinaloa Cartel, that pushed opioids to their modern extremes.

In each case -- tobacco, alcohol, opioids -- the middle ground eroded. And in each case, it was regulation, not the illicit market, that pushed products toward greater purity and thus potency. Legal frameworks tend to simplify and standardize, rewarding what is measurable and marketable, which often translates into "stronger."

Cannabis is following the same path. The moderate, the flavorful, the low-dose flower, the "session beer" of cannabis, has vanished. In its place is a monoculture of ever-stronger products, optimized not for experience but for numbers.

And yet, science tells us that less can often be more. Large doses of pure cannabinoids are consistently linked to adverse events: anxiety, paranoia, cognitive impairment, disrupted sleep, even paradoxical increases in pain. Lower doses, by contrast, often strike the sweet spot with far fewer risks. The best deals for consumers, and the best outcomes for public health, come not from chasing THC percentages but from embracing moderation.

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It is time to re-educate cannabis consumers: the best deal in cannabis isn't the highest THC percentage. The best deal is the product that gives the most enjoyment, the most relief, with the fewest side effects. That generally mean slower potency cannabis. Cannabis is not a hurricane, where more force means more cleansing. It is not a blunt instrument where "stronger" equals "better."

This is a market failure. Public health officials warn of potency while dispensary shelves offer little else. Consumers such as young adults seeking sociability or elderly patients seeking relief, and everyone in between, are denied the option to choose products aligned with responsible use.

If lower-potency products were widely available, people could use more responsibly and, importantly, decrease their use more easily when they wanted to. That's not just a consumer preference; it's a public health win.

Think of it like beer. Not every day calls for a 14 percent triple IPA. Most evenings call for pilsners, light beers, lagers -- products designed for sociability, moderation and steady enjoyment. Cannabis should offer the same spectrum: products to savor, not just endure.

There is a wide-open market opportunity for cannabis companies willing to reclaim the middle ground. Develop flavor-first, low-potency product lines: terpene-rich flowers at 5 percent to 10 percent THC, consider balanced blends of hemp and marijuana, and "session joints" designed for sociability rather than obliteration. Brand them for experience, emphasizing aroma and taste, not just potency.

Such products meet consumer demand for moderation, satisfy regulators calling for safer options, establish a more sustainable cannabis culture and are aligned with clinical research on cannabis products, which consistently show better outcomes with low to moderate potency products (as referenced earlier).

Consumers deserve better. Young adults deserve choices that don't feel like Russian roulette. Elderly patients deserve products that soothe without overwhelming. Social users deserve flowers that create space for laughter, not silence.

Until regulations and industry incentives shift, the market will continue to flatten cannabis into a one-note symphony of strength. But the demand for balance will not disappear.

The folk song once asked, Where have all the flowers gone? In cannabis, the answer is brutally simple: they have been bred, regulated and monetized out of existence. The path forward requires something equally simple: bring them back, in lower doses, with richer aromas and the promise of responsible use without punishment.