Pubdate: Mon, 27 Aug 2012
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Copyright: 2012 The Denver Post Corp
Contact:  http://www.denverpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122
Author: Kerry Booth
Note: Kerry Booth of Denver is a document-control clerk working for 
RTD on the Union Station project.

BEWARE OF THAT COOKIE

The hallucination was startling: Outside the window was the front 
yard of my boyhood home. But I was hundreds of miles and decades 
removed from that house. Not only did I think I was looking back 
through time but across space as well.

As a writer, I am used to imagining strange things, but the feeling 
that I could touch the past was exhilarating and terrifying. All 
because of a cookie- an "edible" that was meant to be medicinal.

It was no ordinary cookie. Its origins go back to the 1950s. That was 
when the first cookbooks featuring marijuana in recipes appeared. But 
it was in the '70s that the popularity of "special brownies" really 
gained traction.

That was a raucous time. My siblings embraced the experimental 
culture that permeated every part of society. From the clothes to the 
music, movies and art, "experimental" was the word everyone lived by. 
Recreational drugs were all around.

I can't remember a time when I didn't hear about all the different 
choices available to anyone looking for them. As the youngest of five 
kids, I was too young to indulge, just starting school. I faced my 
own temptations growing up in the '80s.

I had never been comfortable with my siblings' actions while high, or 
their choices to try a multitude of other substances. From the 
giggling to the lethargy to the constant need to be high, they were 
different people when they smoked. It shouldn't be a surprise then 
that I tried nothing more potent than beer until I was out of college.

With that kind of attitude, many members of my family welcomed the 
profusion of medical marijuana establishments in Colorado as new laws 
were passed. Medical marijuana is helpful to a great many people. Its 
effect on those suffering with cancer and glaucoma has been well 
documented. Edibles also have an added benefit to asthmatics who are 
unable to smoke. The ingestion of marijuana increases the 
effectiveness of the "herb" and the absorption into the bloodstream.

When I tried the cookie, I was on a camping trip with family. We were 
staying in a hunting cabin near Westcliffe: no running water, no 
electricity. My brothers, sisters, and cousins had been camping at 
the place together for years. Since I had never actually tried pot, I 
endured a certain amount of chiding from them. Using pot had become 
as normal to them as wearing shoes.

A cousin offered me an edible, the current, hip term. It was 
chocolate chip, and except for the slight green tinge, it could have 
been one of the cookies you baked with your children. The normally 
sweet, smooth treat was overlaid with an organic, slightly bitter 
aftertaste. My cousin told me I should expect the first effects in 
about an half an hour.

For me, however, the potency of the effects-the elevated heartbeat, 
loss of motors skills, severe dry mouth-was almost more than I could 
handle. As with alcohol, my reaction time and vision were slowed. 
Unlike alcohol, I had to deal with hallucinations and waves of nausea 
each time I moved my head.

These effects went on for hours. All around me, those people used to 
marijuana moved around the campsite seemingly unaware of the terror 
racing through my mind. I even hoped at one point, as my pulse 
thundered through my head, that someone knew where the closest clinic was.

I left the next morning just after sunrise, waking no one, 
embarrassed at my loss of control. The one thought I came away with 
was that marijuana cannot be considered safer than alcohol.

To me, this is the essential disconnect between those people who 
blithely extol the virtues of marijuana and those who refuse to 
believe it has any beneficial effects. The truth lies somewhere in the middle.

When I tried it, I was surrounded by family, however unhelpful and 
ignorant of the severity of my reaction. Like anything that affects 
the mind and body, no two people will experience a high the same way. 
Clearly, it is not something I want to encounter again. But I am in 
no position to tell someone suffering from chronic pain that 
marijuana isn't for them.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom