With the rise of legal weed statewide, drug education moves from ‘don’t’ to ‘delay’

Dawn Charlton, an instructor with Being Adept, leads a discussion on marijuana for sixth-graders at Del Mar Middle School in Tiburon.

about how marijuana affects dopamine pathways in the brain. Then she led a discussion about marijuana “edibles” and how the liver metabolizes them.

“It can take up to 30 minutes to maybe even an hour or two before it really hits you,” she said. “When somebody eats an edible and they don’t really feel the effects, what do you think happens?”

“They eat more!” a student called out.

“They eat more,” Brady nodded. “Yeah, an hour, an hour and a half later? Boom! Like a freight train, they’ve been hit, and, you know, can barely move or can barely talk, that kind of thing. So they may have to go to the hospital.”

True, that sounds a little scary, but it’s presented neutrally, as a consequence at the end of a sequence of decisions.

Where the legalization of the marijuana industry has affected

the content of these lessons is on the subject of potency. Brady told the students that legalization has spurred competition and innovation among suppliers, to the point where they’re now churning out extremely potent and precisely calibrated forms of pot called “concentrates,” which comes in various forms.

Brady ran through their names: oil, bubble, shatter, wax and dabs.

“They call it a ‘dab’ because one tiny little nail head (of it) – I mean I’m talking like the end of my pinky – one tiny, little nail head is the same as three joints hitting the system all at once,” she said. “So it’s a lot stronger than it used to be.”

Tests of THC levels in marijuana samples over the years back this up. Whereas a typical joint in the ’70s probably had a THC level of 4 to 5 percent, at best, growers are now breeding strains of cannabis that produce buds with THC levels as high as 20 to 30 percent.