Maureen Dowd eats Colorado cannabis candy bar, unwise about dosage.

[metalbot]

68. I guess I'm a liar too

Drugs affect different people in different ways, and for people who have developed no tolerance, they can be very intense. About 14 years ago, I was in Holland, and thought to myself "Hey, I'm in Holland! I should buy some weed!" I got directions to the nearest shop, bought a small amount, rolled it in a joint, and smoked it. Now, obviously this was a dumb thing to do - I'd been a heavy smoker in college many years before, and smoking most of a joint would never have been a problem. But years later, with no tolerance, this was quite possibly the most wrecked I've been under any drug (including alcohol).

I had another experience a few years ago where a friend made brownies. Again, not a regular user. Ate a brownie. An hour later, I'm feeling nothing, so I eat another brownie. Thirty minutes after that I was completely non-functional.

I'm not claiming that either of these was an "OD" in the sense that they were life threatening, but they were both OD's in the sense that without expecting it, both made me incapacitated in ways that were completely unexpected. They were overdoses in the sense that "I took more than a reasonable person in my situation should have taken to have a good experience".

Pot can be a powerful drug, and it's a mistake to pretend that it's not. It may be safer in many ways than alcohol, but at the very least when I drink alcohol, I never get surprises. I know exactly what a beer, a shot, or a glass of wine does to me. I don't have to make choices about "Well, if I have 4 shots of vodka I'll be couch locked for 4 hours, but if I have 4 shots of tequila, I'll be up with my friends arguing about philosophy." I've never had a "surprise, you're really, really drunk!" experience.

We should be treating ALL drugs with care, whether it's alcohol or recreational weed. There are going to be some growing pains as we incorporate recreational weed as a mainstream activity, and what the reporter is describing is exactly one of these growing pains - not "bullshit".