Pubdate: Sun, 31 Oct 2010 Source: Denver Post (CO) Copyright: 2010 The Denver Post Corp Contact: http://www.denverpost.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122 Author: Susan Greene POT EDIBLES AN EVERLASTING PUZZLE I've always been intrigued by the idea of the Everlasting Gobstopper. Conjured by Roald Dahl in "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," the fictional jawbreakers were designed by Willy Wonka for kids with very little pocket money. They were supposed to last forever, never losing texture or flavor. Wonka was constantly tinkering with the recipe. I'm reminded of gobstoppers every time I get a news release promoting some new medical-marijuana concoction. "Edibles," as the growing array of products is called, come in everything from apple pie to whipped cream. The upside for patients is that they don't have to smoke. The downside is that the products, like Wonka's invention, are works in progress. Intrigued by the expanding menu of ways to take their medicine, users are gambling on dosage. Edibles often come unlabeled, with no ingredients listed or indications of when or where they were made. They can be inconsistent from one batch to the next, leaving patients barely medicated after one use but wasted after the next. "You never know what you're getting," says Billy, a 48-year-old back-pain sufferer who avoids smoking because he's also asthmatic. Consider a product by the Colorado-based Dazys edibles maker. This isn't your grandmother's hard candy. The daisy-shaped confections made from hashish come in flavors such as sour apple and raspberry lime, but I'm told taste pretty much like soap. "Product is manufactured without any oversight for health, safety or efficacy," reads the label. No joke. Dazys' "X strongs" and other hard candies are all the rage among young patients. Candies and chocolates generally are popular among covert users and those unable to slip out of their routines to light up their meds. This is a big season for edibles as patients stock up for Halloween. I watched two men dressed as Cheech and Chong buy all nine mini-cheesecakes at a Capitol Hill dispensary on Friday. "Dinner party," said Cheech. "Gotta have 'em." Three young women at a dispensary near the University of Denver made a run on brownies, cookies and ice cream. Heavily medicated, I'm assuming, they had this discussion on whether to chase it all down with some THC soda: "Too fattening?" "You think?" "Come on, you guys, it's a holiday." The problem with edibles, users say, is quality control. Some complain that it's unpredictable when the pot will kick in. Others gripe about labeling. "You'll see things that say 'triple strength,' but nobody's telling me what triple strength means," says David Maddalena, a Denver actor and restaurant manager. "There's no regulation out there for the dosage. So everybody seems to be kind of making it up." One new company is trying a more scientific approach by lab testing and retesting its line of healthier edibles. Simply Pure's Scott Durrah, a Denver chef, says the market demands more grown-up options. That's why, all Wonka like, he's experimenting with ginseng and vitamin B in his sesame brittle and coconut almond cups and with varying strains of marijuana in his granola bars before taking his products to market. Simply Pure did a focus group last week. The feedback shows how tricky the alchemy of edibles can be. "I was in the (sic) as high as I was going to get," wrote one participant. "I was really super high actually but in a very comfy way." "Waited 6 hours after ingestion to fill the questionnaire," wrote another. "No noticed effect." - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake