Accidentswaiting to happen
The large ginger snap cookie that I bought a few hours ago looks like every other one I’ve consumed in my life. But if I ate this cookie, I could end up in a very bad way — perhaps so panicked and distraught that my colleagues would call for help.
The cookie contains 100 milligrams of THC, or 10 times what the state designates as a single “serving” for a marijuana edible.
Levy Thamba, the college student who jumped to his death last month, ate a marijuana cookie with six times the recommended amount of THC. He awoke repeatedly in what his friends described as an incoherent state, eventually smashing furniture, according to a Denver Post story, before bolting over a railing and into a fatal fall.
It would be criminal to take my ginger cookie out of its package and leave it on a desk or kitchen counter where some unsuspecting friend might see it. Absent the wrapper, there is simply no way to know it is anything but a harmless treat.
Colorado’s edible marijuana market is a work in progress. The Department of Revenue hastily released numerous rules governing edibles’ packaging and sale last summer, while warning that “additional regulation” was likely. Thamba’s death and the arrest this week of Richard Kirk, who allegedly killed his wife in Denver after consuming the edible “Karma Kandy Orange Ginger,” should add new urgency to rule-making.
Ardent pot partisans resent such talk, which they consider a throwback to “reefer madness” propaganda. You can’t protect some people from their own stupidity, after all, and what about the violence spurred by alcohol? Why doesn’t the public get as worked up about that?
Fair points, but alcohol comes in unmistakable containers, not infused in baked goods and candy. No one confuses a bottle of beer with a cola.
Some people will always overindulge in their drug of choice. But they should do so by clear choice, not by mistake.
For that matter, consumers have developed a very good understanding of what to expect from booze. Many have no such appreciation of edibles. They don’t know how much is enough or how long to wait for the high.
The helpful clerk who assisted me at Native Roots Apothecary in downtown Denver (where Thamba’s party also bought cookies) said to be sure to wait 45 minutes for results. But the state-required packaging says “the intoxicating effects of this product may be delayed for two or more hours.”
When the impatient Thamba felt nothing after eating a small portion of his cookie, he reportedly finished the rest all at once.
Several of the edibles at Native Roots, including one style of cookie, were either stand-alone 10 milligram items or single servings sold in packages of 10. Shouldn’t this be the standard? It won’t prevent overuse but it will reduce the impact from unwitting consumption or the tendency to break off a hunk of an edible without any exact notion of the resulting potency.
And shouldn’t we be able to detect infused products by sight? House Bill 1366 in the legislature would require any marijuana edible to be “shaped, stamped, colored, or otherwise marked with a standard symbol.” That’s essential.
I voted for Amendment 64 and have defended its implementation from those who seek to chip away at its edges. I also know people with serious medical conditions who consider marijuana edibles a godsend.
But this ginger snap cookie on my desk makes me very uneasy. It’s both an accident waiting to happen and an invitation to overconsumption.
And it’s so unnecessary.