Pubdate: Sat, 07 Jun 2014
Source: Middletown Press, The (CT)
Copyright: 2014 The Middletown Press
Contact:  http://www.middletownpress.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/586
Author: Alyssa Rosenberg, The Washington Post
Page: A6
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v14/n489/a04.html

WE NEED TO LEARN ABOUT USING MARIJUANA

If there is one thing you can say about New York Times columnist 
Maureen Dowd, it is that she knows her brand. Even when she has a bad 
high in Colorado and uses it as the peg for a column on the messy 
process of marijuana legalization, she does not lose sight of her 
Dowdisms. Dowd may have lost her mind via mis-dosage, but in writing 
about it, she stays on message by describing "my more mundane drugs 
of choice, chardonnay and mediocre-movies-on-demand," blaming a 
girlish affinity for chocolate for her misfortune and confessing her 
stoned fascination with the green corduroy jeans she was wearing at the time.

But while it is easy to make fun of Dowd's bad experience with 
edibles, when it comes to marijuana, there is a good point tangled up 
in her column. A majority of Americans may favor legalizing 
marijuana. But that does not mean that everyone knows how to consume 
it in ways that are pleasurable and safe for them, or that avoid 
unpleasant side effects.

Most Americans learn to drink by a process of trial and error, 
conducted through wellestablished rituals and with social support. If 
marijuana is to be consumed in similar ways, a lot of new consumers 
will have to learn how to toke.

Take Dowd's experience. She got much higher than she wanted to 
because she made the not-unreasonable assumption that a candy bar was 
a single serving, eating the whole thing in one go. "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," Dowd explains that she finds out later. "That 
recommendation hadn't been on the label."

It is one thing for experienced consumers to scoff at Dowd's lack of 
knowledge. But she is not going to be alone, and asking for labeling 
or instructions is not unreasonable. Similarly, new marijuana 
consumers may look to analogous delivery mechanisms and social 
rituals when they are smoking joints for the first time, and expect 
that they ought to treat joints exactly like cigarettes.

When new marijuana consumers venture beyond products that look 
similar to ones they already know, they will have to figure out the 
answers to a number of questions.

New drinkers may know intellectually that beer, wine and liquor have 
different amounts of alcohol by volume. But they still have to figure 
out what they are comfortable drinking, and then determine the 
amounts they can drink and the rates at which they can drink it. The 
difference between passing out from keg stands and enjoying High West 
bourbon neat is a matter of education and socialization.

Smokers and eaters of edibles will have to learn the same things with 
different strains of and delivery systems for pot. How many hits can 
they take or brownies can they eat, depending on the bud or the 
clarified butter in question? How full should they pack the bowl of a 
pipe or the oven of a vaporizer? If their tolerance is higher than a 
single square of Dowd's chocolate bar, how many is optimal? What is 
the difference in dosage between a nice vibe at a party and hiding in 
a corner to avoid displaying your incoherence and anxiety?

Americans long ago decided that tee-totaling isn't the only 
alternative to being a sot. If the country is to determine that 
marijuana ought to be legal for recreational as well as medical use, 
we will need to find a model for marijuana consumption that differs 
from the motivation-sapped stoner or the deadly violence sometimes 
committed under the influence.

We figured out a way to regulate alcohol rather than banning it. And 
we developed a vision for classy, controlled alcohol consumption, 
even if we occasionally tweak that model in response to dismaying 
social developments like binge drinking. For Maureen Dowd's dignity, 
and the rest of our sakes, we should do the same for marijuana.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom