New York Times screebe — that’s a portmanteau of scribe and screed — Maureen Dowd published her account Wednesday of consuming a pot-laced candy bar in toto. Rarely has journalism been so unproductive.
“… I felt a scary shudder go through my body and brain. I barely made it from the desk to the bed, where I lay curled up in a hallucinatory state for the next eight hours. I was thirsty but couldn’t move to get water. Or even turn off the lights. I was panting and paranoid, sure that when the room-service waiter knocked and I didn’t answer, he’d call the police and have me arrested for being unable to handle my candy.”
That’s generally how Easter went for me as a 9 year old, too.
Dowd’s column had a social point to it — Colorado, where she downed said Hashey bar, hasn’t adequately accommodated for the casual marijuana user yet.
“The whole industry was set up for people who smoked frequently. It needs to learn how to educate new users in the market,” said Andrew Freedman, who’s identified in the story as the state’s director of marijuana coordination. (Those same folks who Nancy Grace described as “fat and lazy” may pursue a noble career of public service yet.) “We have to create a culture of responsibility around edibles, so people know what to expect to feel.”
How best to go about that, though? Dowd highlights some of the steps Colorado’s government is taking to ensure public safety, including the creation of a task force “to come up with packaging that clearly differentiates pot cookies and candy and gummy bears from normal sweets.” There’s also state-mandated testing on the way to make sure the drug is spread “evenly” throughout the product.
Flimsiest of all: “[H]aving budtenders give better warnings to customers.” (Dowd could’ve used as much, seeing as that the weed bar she consumed should’ve been cut into more than a dozen pieces, at the recommendation of a consultant she interviewed after the fact.)
The measures that particularly serve a “PSA” function are common sense. But Colorado will have to contend with something that should be obvious: the legality of chemical vice — in this case recreational, not medicinal, marijuana — entails social cost. That’s not necessarily a sole argument against the legalization of the substance, no more than it is one against alcohol or tobacco. (In regard to harder substances, it can be.)
Just as a parent or a superior would counsel a newly of-age person to drink responsibly, just as I would encourage any friend to kick a cigarette dependency should he be open to it, Coloradans would be wise to tell each other — and New York Times columnists, for future reference — to not eat the whole bar.
People are imperfect — indeed, it is a testament to good fortune that I have managed to avoid puncturing the arm of a passer-by in the course of throwing darts — but as is often the case, a responsible culture can be the best protection from itself.
