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. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom