Pubdate: Thu, 25 Feb 2016
Source: Chicago Tribune (IL)
Copyright: 2016 Chicago Tribune Company
Contact:  http://www.chicagotribune.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/82
Author: Josh Noel

THE STRUGGLE TO EDUCATE THOSE WHO GO TO INDULGE

You're in Colorado, where recreational marijuana is legal.

You decide to indulge and eat a weed brownie. (First one since college!)

Nothing seems to happen. You can still reel off the state capitals, 
hold a coherent conversation, and an entire bag of salt-and-vinegar 
potato chips doesn't sound particularly tasty.

So you eat another brownie. And, waiting for something to happen, 
perhaps one more.

And then - blam! Anxiety. Sweats. Panic. Heart palpations. And your 
Colorado vacation takes an unwelcome turn to the emergency room.

Another potential outcome, of course, is that you have an 
extraordinarily fun night and play video games. But the more dramatic 
scenario has happened with increased regularity, according to a 
Northwestern doctor's study to be published Thursday in the New 
England Journal of Medicine.

According to a Colorado Tourism Office survey, 8 percent of visitors 
to the state during the first half of 2015 visited a marijuana 
dispensary. Nearly 7 percent of respondents said that the 
legalization of marijuana was a primary motivation for their trip, up 
2 percent from the previous year.

With 426 retail cannabis outlets across the state as of Feb. 1, 
according to the Colorado Department of Revenue, educating visitors 
has been a challenge on a number of levels, said Mike Van Dyke, who 
monitors the potential health impacts of legalized marijuana for the 
Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.

Despite the legalization, prohibitions abound, including smoking in 
public and smoking in most hotels and public indoor spaces. Visitors 
have been careless about disposing leftover weed at the end of a trip 
and often don't know they're not allowed to legally transport the 
marijuana out of state, Van Dyke said.

But the biggest difficulty has been educating tourists about 
marijuana edibles. With public smoking prohibited and only retail 
shops selling marijuana - there is nothing like Amsterdam's legendary 
cafes for tourists to frequent in Colorado, which has a handful of 
private pot-smoking clubs - visitors are often left to indulge in 
marijuana edibles for a high.

But most people have no idea how to properly dose themselves and fail 
to realize the unique potency of Colorado marijuana until it's too late.

Marijuana advocates have adopted a slogan of "Start low and go slow" 
with regard to edibles, and shared the sentiment on Denver billboards 
with the advice, "Don't let a candy bar ruin your vacation."

Van Dyke - who contributed to the research done by Dr. Howard Kim, a 
Northwestern research fellow and emergency medicine physician - runs 
a marijuana education project called Good to Know, but he suspects 
it's been more effective with Colorado residents than tourists.

"Visitors are here for a short time, and it's hard to get to those 
people," Van Dyke said.

The key to educating pot tourists, he added, is the conversation that 
happens between salespeople (known as "budtenders") and consumers. He 
noted that it's difficult to ensure that those conversations are being had.

"We've been talking about how to figure that out for awhile, and we 
can't find an accurate way to do it," he said. "All the retailers 
I've been to - which is not a huge number - are doing a good job 
telling people how to appropriately use these products."

However, Van Dyke said the study points to an issue that both the 
marijuana industry and government need to resolve.

"There really needs to be a joint effort between public health and 
the industry to figure these things out," he said. (Pun not intended, 
he added.)

"There's a perception that marijuana is completely harmless, but 
there are plenty of health effects that go along with marijuana use," 
he said. "Trying to get the message across that this isn't a 
completely harmless drug is a challenge."

As with most things, being a responsible pot tourist is incumbent on 
the individual traveler. Educate yourself on Colorado marijuana law. 
Know that eating professionally cultivated marijuana is more of a 
long game than a sudden high. And because marijuana can't be smoked 
in hotels, consider renting accommodations via Airbnb or VRBO, where 
there are fewer restrictions.

"One of the things I'd like to get across to tourists is safe 
disposal of the remaining product," Van Dyke said. "We see people 
leave their marijuana behind in their hotel room. Imagine leaving a 
chocolate on the counter of where you were just staying. There's a 
potential for someone to come across it and not know that it's not 
just an ordinary chocolate."

Michael Elliott, the executive director of Marijuana Industry Group, 
a trade association of licensed marijuana businesses, said tourists 
need to read the labeling carefully on weed products, particularly 
edibles, which have strict requirements.

"Educating tourists, particularly about edibles, is probably the 
biggest challenge," Elliott said. "We don't want people taking two, 
three, four, five times as much as they should and to have an 
incredibly unpleasant experience, like if you've had too much alcohol."

Then he paused and added, "Though unlike alcohol, no one has ever 
overdosed and died from marijuana."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom