There used to be a version of weed that fit neatly into a social night. It was part of the evening, not the whole event. You could split something with friends, stay in the conversation, and still feel like the rest of the night had room to exist.
The problem with an intensity-first market is that it narrows that use case. If the default expectation is high potency and maximal effect, social use turns into risk management. People take tiny hits, skip entirely, or mentally budget around the possibility that one mistake will take them out of the room.
That changes the ritual. It changes how people host, how people date, how people relax, and how often they say yes in the first place. The category becomes less inclusive even when legal access expands, because the dominant product experience no longer fits how many adults actually want to consume.
Reclaiming a more social middle ground is not nostalgia for a worse market. It is a demand for a more human one. That is why this message hits so hard when people hear it. It does not just talk about potency. It talks about what potency changed.