I think it is very on topic!

For people using cannabis as medicine in both legal and illegal markets, the trend to buy higher THC potency products is all about stretching their medicine with their limited budget.

To continue your analogy, it’d be like buying 90% moonshine, diluting it 20:1, and then drinking it as a mixed drink the same potency as a casual light beer.

Of course, if only 90% moonshine is available, cuz of Prohibition or Post-Prohibition, then you’re going to have more people “binging” as opposed to “budgeting.”

The THC percentage variation in different varieties varies from say 0-35%. The better analogy for prohibition’s effects are for the explosion in concentrated forms like hash oil specifically. That is the same prohibition pressure that turned opium into heroin.