Pubdate: Wed, 11 Jun 2014
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Copyright: 2014 The Denver Post Corp
Contact:  http://www.denverpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122
Author: Vincent Carroll
Page: 17A

MAUREEN DOWD'S BIG ADVENTURE WITH EDIBLES

Maureen Dowd asks us to believe that a highly intelligent, 
well-traveled writer for one of the world's leading newspapers 
casually overdosed on a THC-infused candy bar in her Denver hotel 
room because she had no idea how much a novice should eat.

The experience was so bad, The New York Times columnist wrote earlier 
this month, that she "lay curled up in a hallucinatory state for the 
next eight hours," convinced that "I had died and no one was telling me."

This is a most peculiar tale. Does Dowd know how to divide by 10?

You wouldn't know it from her column, but Colorado law requires 
edible marijuana products manufactured for retail sale to feature the 
total amount of THC in milligrams. Meanwhile, the labels also contain 
this advisement: "The standardized serving size for this product 
includes no more than 10 mg of Active THC."

These rules have been in place since the first day of retail sales in 
January, according to a spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of 
Revenue, which oversees marijuana regulation. So a novice interested 
in avoiding an overdose would divide the total milligrams by 10 and 
consume an amount somewhat smaller than the "standardized serving 
size" - and perhaps significantly smaller if she were prudent.

Dowd gives no hint that such information was available. She says she 
"nibbled off the end," as if making a blind stab at the right amount, 
"and then, when nothing happened, nibbled some more. ... What could 
go wrong with a bite or two?"

Did she wait "two or more hours" for the intoxicating effects to kick 
in before nibbling again? Retail edibles packages offer that warning, 
too, as mandated by state law.

What is still more curious about Dowd's account is that before she 
returned to her hotel, she had been given a dispensary tour by My 420 
Tours co-founder Matt Brown, who warned her how to use edibles. You 
won't find that in her column, either. The Cannabist's Ricardo Baca 
ran down this fact, and Dowd confirmed it when Baca inquired.

"What could go wrong with a bite or two?" Dowd wondered. How could 
anyone who had taken Brown's tour and read the packaging not have some idea?

I'm no apologist for the edibles industry. After buying an infused 
ginger snap cookie in April, I described it as an "accident waiting 
to happen" because of its daunting TCH content (100 mg) and its 
uncanny resemblance to a normal ginger snap.

I argued that stand-alone cookies (and, by extension, most other 
baked goods and candies) should only contain 10 mgs of THC to 
eliminate the tendency of consumers to break them up in rough 
approximation of what they desire. At the very least, portions should 
be demarcated on the product.

I also put in a good word for a bill, since passed, that requires 
marijuana edibles to be "shaped, stamped, colored, or otherwise 
marked with a standard symbol."

But my concern was primarily for children and for adults who 
encountered edibles, with no intermediary information, at parties, 
for example, or unpackaged at a friend's home. I wasn't thinking of 
those who ignore advice, discount labels or succumb to impatience.

It's not only that columns like Dowd's mislead out-of-staters. They 
also mislead Coloradans. Just this week, the dean of the school of 
medicine at the University of Colorado, Richard Krugman, sent an 
e-mail to colleagues in which he cited Dowd's column before claiming 
the "failure to require labels [on edibles] with potency information 
or warnings ... is a significant public health issue" in Colorado.

The edibles industry has some work to do, as its representatives will 
freely tell you. But if it's going to be denounced for its 
shortcomings, let them at least be real.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom