Ok, who put the LSD in the brownies
by digby
One of my oldest friends (Hullabaloo movie critic Dennis Hartley --- shhhh don't tell him) was the subject of a very funny story told among our crowd for years. Back when we were teens, despite admonitions not to, Dennis ate a full pan of pot brownies and ended up lying in his bed for several hours freaking out. At some point he came into the room demanding to know "who put the LSD in the brownies." That was a long time ago.
Maureen Dowd is even older than we are but apparently she's been very sheltered and never encountered marijuana baked goods until she had a similar "bad trip" to Denver recently. And now she thinks that this pot business is bad for kids because they might do what she did.
Let's just say it's always possible that some kids will fail to ask for or follow dosing directions. As a matter of fact, kids have been making that mistake for 40 years as my story above illustrates. I hate to break he news but kids didn't just discover marijuana since it's been legal, they have been smoking and eating pot this whole time! And guess what? There has not been an epidemic of ER visits by people who are think they are hallucinating on "the pot." Somehow, the millions of people who have used marijuana all these years have been able to navigate these strange waters without any major problems.
But even if there were a sudden spate of older women over-indulging in a marijuana candy bar and ending up in the emergency room it won't do anything but create a bad experience if it happens. They won't die. There will be no brain damage. Usually, the result of such events is that the person decides they don't ever want to use marijuana again. (Dennis certainly never did.) Which I would think would make Maureen very happy.
If only getting bombed on booze --- which causes you to behave like a fool, fall down, slur your words, lose your memory, vomit uncontrollably and feel as if you have the flu for about 36 hours --- would have the same deterrent effect. Funny I haven't seen any Maureen Dowd columns about the effects of getting blotto from over drinking. Do you suppose she's never had that experience either?
*I don't think kids should smoke pot, by the way. Developing brains don't need chemical alteration in my view and that includes a lot of the "medication" that's being legally prescribed these days. But we have conducted a decades long experiment on a huge population with marijuana and if there were lethal dangers we would have seen them. It shouldn't be legal for minors. But adults shouldn't be surprised if some of them use it anyway --- just like booze. But that will just mean that nothing has changed.
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