Don’t Harsh Our Mellow, Dude
By Maureen Dowd
The caramel-chocolate flavored candy bar looked so innocent, like the Sky Bars I used to love as a child.
Sitting in my hotel room in Denver, I nibbled off the end and then, when nothing happened, nibbled some more. I figured if I was reporting on the social revolution rocking Colorado in January, the giddy culmination of pot Prohibition, I should try a taste of legal, edible pot from a local shop.
What could go wrong with a bite or two?
Everything, as it turned out.
Not at first. For an hour, I felt nothing. I figured I’d order dinner from room service and return to my more mundane drugs of choice, chardonnay and mediocre-movies-on-demand.
But then 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.
I strained to remember where I was or even what I was wearing, touching my green corduroy jeans and staring at the exposed-brick wall. As my paranoia deepened, I became convinced that I had died and no one was telling me.
It took all night before it began to wear off, distressingly slowly. The next day, a medical consultant at an edibles plant where I was conducting an interview mentioned that candy bars like that are supposed to be cut into 16 pieces for novices; but that recommendation hadn’t been on the label.
I reckoned that the fact that I was not a regular marijuana smoker made me more vulnerable, and that I should have known better. But it turns out, five months in, that some kinks need to be ironed out with the intoxicating open bar at the Mile High Club.
Colorado raked in about $12.6 million the first three months after pot was legalized for adults 21 and over. Pot party planners are dreaming up classy events: the Colorado Symphony just had its first “Classically Cannabis” fund-raiser with joints and Debussy. But the state is also coming to grips with the darker side of unleashing a drug as potent as marijuana on a horde of tourists of all ages and tolerance levels seeking a mellow buzz.
In March, a 19-year-old Wyoming college student jumped off a Denver hotel balcony after eating a pot cookie with 65 milligrams of THC. In April, a Denver man ate pot-infused Karma Kandy and began talking like it was the end of the world, scaring his wife and three kids. Then he retrieved a handgun from a safe and killed his wife while she was on the phone with an emergency dispatcher.
As Jack Healy reported in The Times on Sunday, Colorado hospital officials “are treating growing numbers of children and adults sickened by potent doses of edible marijuana” and neighboring states are seeing more stoned drivers.
“We realized there was a problem because we’re watching everything with the urgency of the first people to regulate in this area,” said Andrew Freedman, the state’s director of marijuana coordination. “There are way too many stories of people not understanding how much they’re eating. With liquor, people understand what they’re getting themselves into. But that doesn’t exist right now for edibles for new users in the market. It would behoove the industry to create a more pleasant experience for people.
“The whole industry was set up for people who smoked frequently. It needs to learn how to educate new users in the market. We have to create a culture of responsibility around edibles, so people know what to expect to feel.”
Gov. John Hickenlooper and the Legislature recently created a task force to come up with packaging that clearly differentiates pot cookies and candy and gummy bears from normal sweets — with an eye toward protecting children — and directed the Department of Revenue to restrict the amount of edibles that can be sold at one time to one person. The governor also signed legislation mandating that there be a stamp on edibles, possibly a marijuana leaf. (Or maybe a stoned skull and bones?)
The state plans to start testing to make sure the weed is spread evenly throughout the product. The task force is discussing having budtenders give better warnings to customers and moving toward demarcating a single-serving size of 10 milligrams. (Industry representatives objected to the expense of wrapping bites of candy individually.)
“My kids put rocks and batteries in their mouths,” said Bob Eschino, the owner of Incredibles, which makes candy and serves up chocolate and strawberry fountains. “If I put a marijuana leaf on a piece of chocolate, they’ll still put it in their mouths.”
He argues that, since pot goodies leave the dispensary in childproof packages, it is the parents’ responsibility to make sure their kids don’t get hold of it.
“Somebody suggested we just make everything look like a gray square so it doesn’t look appealing. Why should the whole industry suffer just because less than 5 percent of people are having problems with the correct dosing?”
Does he sound a little paranoid?
紐時專欄作家：吃大麻巧克力 我幻聽8小時
美國科羅拉多州今年1月開放大麻合法化，大麻進入各式糖果，入口是何滋味？《紐約時報》專欄作家莫琳‧陶德3日所刊自述，是迄今最痛切的報導。
她下榻科州一家飯店，心想既然報導科州大麻合法化這場「社會革命」，自當從當地店鋪買些合法的食用大麻，嚐嚐鮮。她在房間裡咬一口焦糖巧克力條，沒事，繼續小口吃。來這麼幾口有什麼關係? 結果關係大著。
她感到身體和腦子一陣可怕的顫抖，從書桌差點到不了床上，她蜷在床上，幻聽狀態維持八小時。她口渴，沒法動身拿水。想關燈，無力伸手。她喘著氣，陷入偏執。她努力回想自己身在何處，身上穿什麼，摸摸牛仔褲，呆瞪牆壁。偏執變深，她深信自己死了，只是沒人告訴她。如是者竟夜，神志恢復極緩。
翌日，她採訪一家糖果廠，廠裡的醫學顧問說，她吃的那種糖果條，新試者應該切成16份。但包裝上沒印食用警告。
科州開放21歲以上成人食用大麻合法化，州府三個月內進帳1260萬美元 (台幣3億7800萬元)。但開放大麻這種藥力可觀的藥物，黑暗面逐漸浮現。
3月，一名19歲的懷俄明學院學生吃了含有65毫克四氫大麻酚 (THC，大麻主要成分)的大麻糖果，從丹佛市一家飯店陽台跳下死亡。4月，丹佛市一名47歲男子吃過含大麻的糖果，胡言亂語，從保險箱取出手槍打死三個孩子和正在打911電話求救的妻子。
糖果廠網站廣告說，「吃一口就夠了」。科州兒童與成人食用大麻下肚而求醫者日益增加，鄰州則看到愈來愈多昏暈如醉酒的開車族。
科州開放食用大麻的方式，本來就只便宜已經吸慣大麻的人，並未考慮開放對一般民眾的影響；州長希肯魯柏與州議會最近才指定成立專案小組，研擬包裝區分，含大麻的餅乾、軟糖，與不含大麻者應清楚識別；著眼點是保護兒童，並指示州府有關單位限制每人一次能買的含大麻糖果數量。希肯魯柏另外簽署一項法案，規定包裝印上標記，可能是一片大麻葉。
《華盛頓郵報》通俗文化專欄作家艾莉莎‧羅森柏格4日刊文，揶揄陶德「太嫩」，美國也許多數人贊成大麻合法化，但並非人人知道如何食法才安全，以及應該如何避免不愉快的副作用。
原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/04/opinion/dowd-dont-harsh-our-mellow-dude.html
2014-06-05．聯合晚報．A8．國際焦點．編譯彭淮棟
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