Maybe you shouldn’t do drugs before figuring out what you are getting into, you jackass:
The caramel-chocolate flavored candy bar looked so innocent, like the Sky Bars I used to love as a child.
Sitting in my hotel room in Denver, I nibbled off the end and then, when nothing happened, nibbled some more. I figured if I was reporting on the social revolution rocking Colorado in January, the giddy culmination of pot Prohibition, I should try a taste of legal, edible pot from a local shop.
What could go wrong with a bite or two?
Everything, as it turned out.
Not at first. For an hour, I felt nothing. I figured I’d order dinner from room service and return to my more mundane drugs of choice, chardonnay and mediocre-movies-on-demand.
But then I felt a scary shudder go through my body and brain. I barely made it from the desk to the bed, where I lay curled up in a hallucinatory state for the next eight hours. I was thirsty but couldn’t move to get water. Or even turn off the lights. I was panting and paranoid, sure that when the room-service waiter knocked and I didn’t answer, he’d call the police and have me arrested for being unable to handle my candy.
Yeah. I’m an old woman who is hallucinating or living in an alternate reality already (seriously, read her column and remember where she lives and her circles), so I’m going to fly to Colorado, sit in a hotel room by myself and try the most potent strain of weed possible, and then write about what a shitty experience I had and condemn it because kids might eat it.
First off, why did you do this alone?
Second, why in a hotel room? (*** Updated to elaborate ***- You’re in fucking Colorado. One of the prettiest states in the country with a vibrant community of artisan chefs, brewers, foodies, and well, pot growers. Why would you not venture out, walk around, meet some people, have a drink, ask them where to eat, walk around some more and find a smoke shop, strike up a conversation and say “Hey- I’m new to this and writing for the NY Times. Wanna give me a fun, safe, and happy experience?” They might take you to the mountains to a nice little hole in the wall bar or bistro and and you could have your first experience surrounded by nice people.
That makes so much more sense than flying across the country to eat weapons grade THC and sit miserably in a hotel room, although karmically (sp?), it is what you deserve. My best experiences in my life have been when I was traveling and just went off on my own, left my traveling companions behind, and met a couple of random people and partied with them until the wee hours. And I’m a loner shut-in, but I cope. *** END Update ***)
Third, did you consider researching what you were about to take?
Fourth, was there any Floyd or Dead on your iPhone?
I know I will regret writing this, if for no other reason than it will make my parents cry, but I did a lot stronger drugs for eight days in a row in 1988 sitting around NYC at MSG when the Dead were there (it ended with a benefit with Suzanne Vega for some charity on the final night- my google-fu sucks atm but look it up on the archives), drinking dollar tall boys and generally being a filthy degenerate for a week, and I had some pretty traumatic internal mental experiences, but I didn’t fucking get home and think “Man, that shit should be banned because parents might leave it out for their toddlers to consume.” I thought to myself, that’s a really bad venue and I have no one but myself to blame.
Five, if some asshole leaves potent cookies out for kids to eat, it’s not the marijuana, it’s that they are an asshole. The kid would probably be dead in a few years anyway, because the callous douchebag parent probably also leaves around loaded handguns (his Constitutional fucking right), owns a pit bull, drives drunk with the kid in the car, or soaks all the carpet near power outlets with water and conveniently drops a fork near each.
Six, fuck you Maureen Dowd. Go back to sniffing Lewinsky’s panties.
*** Update ***
Seems to be a mild debate about labeling. Legalization HELPS that, because you know what you are going to get and things will be regulated. That doesn’t excuse this idiotic Mo-Do column. I’ve been to thousands of liquor stores and never once seen an Everclear grain alcohol bottle with a label that said “Don’t chug this on an empty stomache, Maureen.” I’ve sipped quite a bit of moonshine run through the finest radiators in West by God Virginia, and never seen a warning label. You know why? I don’t put shit into my body without knowing what I am doing.
Suffern ACE
What the hell is going on?
You are correct, though. If she had friends, she should have invited them over. But would you want to get stoned with Richard Cohen and David Gergen?
Gin & Tonic
This is why I come here.
Ash Can
LOL
PopeRatzo
Drugs don’t kill, people do. But rarely those high on pot, even the strong stuff.
I don’t believe a single word of Maureen Dowd’s. Not this column, not her last or her last thousand. She probably never left her Manhattan condo.
gbear
Luckily she didn’t show up at a party to find friends smoking a bong who told her that everyone else was five hits ahead of her so she should catch up right away (ps: that night didn’t end well).
beltane
@PopeRatzo: Maybe she got her story from Tom Friedman’s cab driver.
gbear
Doesn’t this also happen to her when her iPhone battery goes dead?
Cervantes
No, leave Lewinsky’s unmentionables alone.
beltane
@gbear: I also have to call bullshit on the eight hours. In fact, I will go out on a limb and say she’s exaggerating to the point of lying.
Mike R
Could this be a feeble attempt to get some younger people to read her column. Nah, that was wrong she is just a village scold. Probably offended that somewhere people are having fun and she isn’t invited.
Tommy
What an idiot. I smoke pot like once a year. In another time in my life I smoked daily. Well into my 30s. If you gave me some really good weed, l’d know I don’t need much of it. A small amount would get me really high. Guess she never talked to anybody that smoked pot :)!
techno
@beltane:
I finally figured out why Tom Friedman gets so many stories from cab drivers. It’s because every cab driver on earth is more informed and has better insights into the human experience than Tommy-boy.
KG
@gbear: that night never ends well
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
Aw fer fuck’s sake.
gnomedad
OT, the NRA has apologized for suggesting that brandishing weapons in restaurants might not be a good idea.
? Martin
Noooo. Tim Donnelly is losing!
lige
What century is she from again? I assume anyone her age living in NYC would have tried pot at some time.
gbear
@beltane: I could see it as being a one hour high followed by seven hours of psychosis due to the fact that something had temporarily messed with her mind. She wouldn’t know.
beltane
@techno: Even the cabs themselves are more informed and have better insights on the human-experience than Tommy-boy.
beltane
@gbear: Or she just fell asleep and woke up the next morning with a really bad case of cotton-mouth.
hilts
Maureen Dowd is a crime against journalism and reading her column is like listening to fingernails being dragged across a blackboard.
ranchandsyrup
Sometimes modo gets shown the light
In the strangest of places when she looks at it right.
I applaud her admission that regulations aren’t always evil.
MattR
@gbear: Eight might be stretching it, but I can definintely see someone being really high for multiple hours if they consume too much.
Culture of Truth
“…and only then could I finish reading “My Pet Goat” to a bunch of first graders.”
jl
Aw, shit. When I first read that, I thought hotels were leaving that candy on the pillow. I guess my pilgrimage to CO can wait, at least until I find out whether the hospitality industry in WA has gotten a clue.
Higgs Boson's Mate
Dowd, lying? Next you’ll be telling me that the sky is blue and that water is wet.
Joel Hanes
Oh c’mon.
Cut the woman some slack.
She was stuck in some motel room, for hours, much higher than she’d ever been before, and alone with Maureen Dowd .
Pretty much anyone’s going to experience that as a bad trip.
I know I would.
Soonergrunt
Don’t hold back, John. Let us know how you really feel.
maya
MoDo strikes me as more of an Absinthe sipper.
Tommy
@Culture of Truth: Is that an ad for pot? I have smoked a ton of pot in my life and never had that experience. Heck I mentioned it is a rare thing for me now. Like once a year or so. Hits me hard. I’ve never had her experience.
beltane
One thing you can say for Andrew Sullivan is that he would never have written a column like this.
MikeBoyScout
Here’s the tell
I figured if I was reporting
Lucky for MoDo she didn’t figure to be a war reporter.
RaflW
@PopeRatzo: I don’t believe that she drinks Chardonnay, either. Early Times, and plenty of it? That I’d believe.
.
Love this review of Early Times from Deadspin: smells a little bit like unwashed hair, and it tastes like when you drop a vanilla ice cream cone and it hits your knee on the way to the ground and then you throw yourself upon the earth in despair and then you get up and lick your grass- and dessert-stained sweatpants.
I can totally see MoDo doing that, only its her tumbler of Early Times that has spilled on her sweatpants, and she’s wringing them out to get the booze back in her glass.
Hey, she uses a glass, so it’s not, like, a problem, ok??
jl
I sat alone in the room, staring at the pitcher of tropical rum drink. I looked just like children’s fruit juice, smelled just like it..I took a little sip, and it tasted like it. I gulped the whole pitcher down…
After MoDo got her stomach pumped, or wiped it up off the bathroom floor, I guess she could write a story about the awful threat of booze.
Though, hypothetical scenario, maybe. I have a hunch the Village down it like tap water, but don’t know about MoDo.
Edit: Any hope for a Noonan column on this?
MattR
John’s title clearly calls for this, but I have had this one stuck in my head recently.
? Martin
Man, it’s a 4-way race for CA controller. Could send 2 Dems, 2 GOPs, or one of each. Kinda cool seeing the new rules play out.
Spender
Eff Mo.
That is the stupidest thing I have read all day.
Everything John says is true.
The 60s and 70s must have never happened to Mo
She has joined the Cokie, Peggy N crowd, square and unaware as hell.
How nice and enjoyable it would have been to have someone with experience to toke a bit and relax.
Jeez , it aint hard.
Joel Hanes
@? Martin:
Tim Donnelly is losing
Tim Donnelly is at all times the very archetype of losingness.
Ken
Decisions, decisions. Do I tell her that nutmeg – which you can purchase in any quantity from any grocery store – can also cause hallucinations? And if so, should I also point her to the LD50 information, or assume that she’s sensible enough to look that up before eating half a cup of it, after locking herself alone in a room?
RaflW
@Culture of Truth: The Pet Goat.
/pedant
StringOnAStick
Heh. CO resident here. My hubby and I split one of those candy bars; all it did was make us super horny, not rolled up into fetal positions. We haven’t been partakers in years, so either MoDo is lying (no!, really?!) or we’re total stoners*.
* We’re not stoners. That was the first time in a decade, and we haven’t done it since for some reason.
? Martin
How bonkers are the GOP candidates? Jerry Brown is winning every county in the state – including the ones that want to secede.
Ash Can
@jl: I was just going to say, it’s a shame she didn’t have Peggy Noonan there with her. “Oh, for FUCK’S sake, Maureen, quite whining. Fuckin’ lightweight.”
My Truth Hurts
Edibles can be intense and are not for beginners.
Gus
I thought your tweet said she had cancer. Oh well.
TaMara (BHF)
Well, I won’t argue with the MoDo insults, but…I live in Colorado. Edibles have become a problem because of the dosage vs. serving and bad labeling.
The Denver Post Edibles articles
And living here, legal weed has been…interesting. Most of the issues will work themselves out. I’m on the “it should be legal” side, but there are quite a few people who misunderstand the word recreational. And yes, we can tell when you’re stoned at work being useless and it will be reflected in your quarterly review. LOL.
Comrade Mary
So, umm, I did ask some more experienced friends about hash brownies — on behalf of a friend, I swear — over the weekend. They told me that if you eat instead of smoke, you stand a good chance of getting more intensely high and for a longer period.
So should I get back to them and claim bullshit because Dowd?
sm*t cl*de
So what’s her point? That medicinal marijuana is not actually pleasant so there is no danger of it being abused for recreational purposes? Righty-ho, one more reason to decriminalise the stuff.
Silencio
@PopeRatzo: I believe it. Because it sounded so square and milquetoast and naive.
beltane
@TaMara (BHF): With legalization should come labeling standards such as exist for alcohol and just about everything else.
? Martin
@My Truth Hurts: Yeah. On my son’s band trip last year, two of the kids brought some brownies and slipped them to their roommate who they didn’t know, then went off to see Blue Man. That young man ended up okay, but spent the evening in the hospital. Hit him pretty hard and had no idea it was coming.
Morzer (0th of His PseudoName and Founder of the Walter Sobchak Peacekeepers)
Caramel candybar is obviously a coy metaphor for something else. What we have here is a torrid confession to wanting to jump Obama’s bones – and by God that virtual Barry Bamz is one helluva mind-blowing experience for poor little Modo:
“I felt a scary shudder go through my body and brain [we call this an orgasm]. I barely made it from the desk [where you were perving on White House fantasy pics] to the bed, where I lay curled up in a hallucinatory state [those first orgasms can be tricky] for the next eight hours [damn, but Barry’s got game]. I was thirsty but couldn’t move to get water. Or even turn off the lights. I was panting [I bet you were] and paranoid…]”
TaMara (BHF)
@beltane: And that’s what they’ve finally decided. There are going to be these speed bumps along the way. One thing friends have told me (I don’t partake, so I rely on them) is that they want labeling that tells you how it was grown. Preferably organically – this is Colorado after all.
And can I say, John Denver is probably smiling down from heaven.
Old Dan and Little Ann
MoDo should try meth. People on Cops taking meth sometimes jump off high level buildings. I’d like to read about that.
Joel
Back in my college days, I had a roommate who liked to smoke weed with me and my buds. After taking a few hits, he would curl up in a fetal position and convulse uncontrollably for a while. The first time it happened, we nearly called 911. That’s right — the first time. The guy loved his weed, even if it fucked him up something intense.
ranchandsyrup
“I went to Colorado and stared into my soul and all I got was this shitty column”
YellowJournalism
If this story isn’t acted out on a late-night show this week, there is no joy left in the world.
Silencio
@Old Dan and Little Ann: The syllable count is all wrong. But that is almost a haiku.
YellowJournalism
@Old Dan and Little Ann: The needle scene in Pulp Fiction comes to mind…
beltane
@TaMara (BHF): I no longer partake, but one of the reasons partakers have favored legalization is so that the product could be accurately labeled and sourced, making purchase and consumption much less of a roll of the dice. Something similar to proofs in alcohol for the active ingredients in cannabis would be very helpful. There are actually a lot of people who would like to purchase milder stuff.
brendancalling
what a ridiculous person.
kindness
John are you telling us you don’t have a well dogeared copy of Deadbase or are you saying you were too lazy to pull it out and look it up?
Adam Jonas Waldorf
She’s an idiot who must be protected from herself. Colorado has made a huge mistake
moderateindy
I’m not a fan of the newer super potent weed that has come along in the last 15-20 years. It does get the occassional user way too high (for like 20-30 min, not 8 hours). Part of the allure of smoking weed, passing joints or a bowl in particular, is the social aspect of the activity. Granted the conversations aren’t always cogent, but they’re usually entertaining. With the really potent stuff, interaction is often scarce, as one gets so high that it can be hard to function.
I actually imagine that as the industry matures, the product lines will be much more diverse, and the varieties with a lower potency will be more popular. Like liquor, there will be those that tend towards moonshine, and higher proof liquors, that give the biggest bang for the buck, and a larger majority that would rather imbibe in the 80 proof stuff.
beltane
@kindness: I think it was a benefit for the rainforest.
gratuitous
Sheesh. Here’s where she went wrong, and not one of you poseurs has figured it out: Cannabis is a communal experience, and MoDo couldn’t find anyone to fly with. No wonder she had a shitty time. Although in all fairness, I don’t suppose the entire state of Colorado has enough people who’d want to party with MoDo to make it worth her while.
Stay in New York, Maureen. The lambs don’t scream so loud there. And please leave the rest of us alone?
MattR
@moderateindy: Louis CK has a bit about underestimating the new strains of weed and getting too high with a group of 20 year olds.
RaflW
@Comrade Mary: I’ve been AA-sober 12 years, and dropped my very occasional pot use several years before that.
A key moment was taking a double dose (sequential, like Dowd suggests, when the first “wasn’t working”) of hash-oil cookies. I was miserably high for about 6 hours. My friends were high tolerance pot ppl who stuck to single doses and enjoyed an evening of cards, dinner and bonfire – we were camping. I felt like I was trying to discern which of 3 possible meanings each sentence the other people said, for hours. Exhausting and very weird.
So I went to my tent. Which was dark and boring, yet I couldn’t sleep for the bedspin-like disorientation. Also, I was freezing cold (it was like 60 degrees that night – my perceptions were borked by the thc) and I could feel every. single. heartbeat. in my chest. What a craptastic night. Calling it high is quite a misnomer!
I never, ever did edibles again, and all pot was out soon after.
—
All that said, and as one in recovery awhile, I’m OK with legalization as a social/legal issue. But dosage does need to get sorted. It’s why booze has proof & liquor control boards tend to want a consistent pour at bars: how (besides taste, in some drinks – though not others) would people know if they were having a moderate or nuts amount of alcohol if every serving varied widely?
jnfr
Thank you, John. Thank you.
jnfr
@beltane:
Amen to that. Doesn’t match even folks I know who ate edibles without knowing what they were. She’s a fraud.
kindness
@beltane: I have it. It’s on cassette and I haven’t listened to it in many a moon. Not a soundboard but good show. Hell that tape has to be 25 years old now. I bet it’s loaded with dropouts. I don’t even have my cassette deck hooked up to my stereo anymore but I couldn’t toss the bootleg Dead tapes.
Eating the stuff will get you a lot higher than smoking it. Doesn’t mean MoDo isn’t a jerk and an asshole. She is. She shoulda done it with Pegs Noonan and a 1.75 liter bottle of Gin. That’s more Noonan’s speed.
Don K
Oh for fucks sake! If you can’t handle pot, then don’t do pot. Go back to your West Side parties and have a nice glass of chardonnay.
Honestly, I figured this one out during senior year of high school, and if I ever ended up curled up on the bed it was from something a hell of a lot stronger than a pot candy bar.
Anne Laurie
To be fair, Cole, you should’ve included this part:
Even forty-plus years ago, when weed was grown like an actual weed, my old man the jazz-club aficinado warned his kids that not everybody who enjoyed smoking dope would enjoy eating the stuff. Not that he wanted to encourage us to Break the Law, or anything, but some people’s gastrointestinal tracts are just waaaay too efficient at processing THC, apparently. His… contacts… told him this was, like cystic fibrosis, a known problem for pasty-white Irish types, but he was aware they may just have been pulling his pasty-white-Irish leg…
Ruckus
@RaflW:
Stopped all drugs 3 decades ago this year. I liked it too much. Figured if I didn’t stop at the level I was the search for better highs might not end well. Cut back alcohol to the point that I haven’t bought any in a little over a decade. Have had one or two at parties, as long as I walked there or had hours to be completely straight.
Don’t know if I’ve outgrown it, don’t care that much or what but I just don’t get the point anymore.
Mandalay
Heh. There are 11 comments on NYT for MoDo’s drivel, but there are 75 comments here for Cole’s awesome rant about MoDo’s drivel.
The good guys are winning.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Anne Laurie:
How could Dowd be expected to know that in advance? It’s not like she’s a journalist.
Ruckus
@? Martin:
Sounds like some real assholes there.
I was though once involved in a incident with some oatmeal cookies of my own recipe. The liquid is all whiskey. I took them to work and one of the fellas tried them and liked them, asked for the recipe. Gave it to him and he freaked out because he is an alcoholic. I explained to him that the alcohol evaporates in the cooking, but he was mad. Told him sorry but I didn’t know he had an issue and I would have warned him had I known. We still get along, and understood that we were both wrong. He did like the cookies though, unlike your son’s classmate.
TaMara (BHF)
This. The people at these pot shops are eager to share with you. It’s like a wine bar, they’ve got all kinds available and they want to brag on it. And everyone else wants to tell you about our favorite place to hang, hike or bike.
pseudonymous in nc
For once, I’m going to sympathise with Dowd, because I hope that all of my stoned paranoid freakouts are in the past. Perhaps the NYT wouldn’t approve an expense-paid trip that was more like a piece from the Travel section than an Op-Ed on location?
Edibles have been the biggest problem in Colorado, because they’re appealing as a non-smoke/vape option, but that shit sneaks up on you. There’s also some weight to the argument that the regulatory framework has been shaped to accommodate stoners and amateur-hour sellers, and not people who want an occasional recreational puff. As with e-cigs, if it’s going to get widespread acceptability, it has to get professional sooner than later.
AxelFoley
You so sexy when you get mad, Cole.
Ruckus
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
I like that you speak the truth.
beltane
@kindness: Ingesting it will get you much higher than smoking it, but this almost always entails falling asleep/passing out after a brief, though unpleasant, period of panic. In order to experience eight hours of hallucinations you need to be taking another entirely different class of drugs.
David Koch
you realize modo is a relic of a bygone era that no one pays attention to.
Comrade Mary
I’m taking furious notes here, guys. For a friend.
pseudonymous in nc
@TaMara (BHF):
Oh, I’m very sure of that. I have heard (so, thin anecdata) that Dowd is very shy in person regardless of what she projects in her columns. Doesn’t excuse 90% of her work, but allow me to pass on this particular pile-on.
And when Washington state does its thing, it’ll learn from Colorado not to let the stoners and the proprietors of Bongz’R’Us have as much control over the regulations. And by the time it’s more widespread, there should be a consensus on what works and what doesn’t. Grow-lab of the several states.
cmorenc
@John Cole:
I can understand from my first personal experience last winter with Colorado pot shop edible chocolate how it can unexpectedly overpower even a several-decades veteran stoner such as myself into a state of total zombie couch-lock, and I didn’t eat but three squares out of the smallish eight-square block of chocolate I’d bought. And I’ve had experience smoking some one-hit pretty trippy shit. I bought the chocolate (and some bud) in Denver and headed up to go skiing at Arapahoe Basin on a gorgeously clear, bluebird-sky day (and yes, I’ve skiied stoned before just fine). And BTW, I never got around to smoking any of the bud that day for reasons that will soon be apparent. I began nibbling on the chocolate about a half-hour before reaching A-Basin, but not much of anything had happened by the time I had arrived at A-Basin about 11:00 am and carried my stuff over from the parking lot to first the lift-ticket window and then the locker-room to put my stuff on. However, just as I had all my stuff on and was about to head out the door to put on my skis and ride the lift up – KA-POW! Within a couple of minutes, I was totally couch-locked and had to find a discreet, out of the way place in the cafeteria area upstairs to lay down. It finally wore off enough that I could get up just as the lifts closed at 4pm. Fortunately, I was staying very nearby up in the mountains and had a way to get there beside driving myself.
Now, I’ve baked homemade mj brownies before and gone out surfing with my buddy, and had other experiences with homemade edibles. But the Colorado pot-shop chocolate is something you have to take really seriously, and eat much less of it than you think and be very patient and in a safe environment where you can afford to get couch-locked. You simply don’t know how your body is going to metabolize it and how fast once it really gets going and how strongly it’s going to affect you. Some people it won’t affect this strongly, but your first time trying the pot-shop chocolate you would be wise to not arrogantly assume you can easily handle it just because you have lots of experience smoking it or with homemade brownies.
I COMPLETELY understand why once it came on, MoDo didn’t feel much like doing anything but laying down in a bed and mind-tripping.
Goblue72
Fact #1: MoDo is a twit. The Lewinsky panty sniffing put down is spit on.
Fact #2: There is a fair bit of hyperbole in her “article” in a lame at being arch & cool. Which doesn’t work if you are 62 and Maureen Dowd.
Fact #3: Depending on your tolerance levels, the medical grade edibles being sold in CO & WA can seriously mess you up. My wife has a lot lower tolerance than I & she’s had some medible experiences that involved a fair bit of room spinning, out of body discomfort and the need to lie down perfectly still for many hours until it wore off.
kdaug
And yet, she survived.
RaflW
Your first update is adorable, John.
Maureen Dowd does not, repeat not strike me as someone who would venture out, strike up conversations, and have an enjoyable and possibly high experience with random Colorado strangers.
Her columns, when I on rare occasions read them, strike me as being written by someone who doesn’t like strangers, doesn’t make new friends, and is really only into herself.
Hence the solo trip to nowheresville.
(Or, more likely, a total fabrication based on a youthful indiscretion with a hash pipe).
cmorenc
@Don K:
I get the impression you don’t have any fucking clue what you’re talking about here regarding the edible chocolate mj bars in Colorado – see numerous posts (including mine) – I’ve got to admit it surprised the hell out of me how much couch-lock stronger it was than I ever expected, and I’m a longtime veteran stoner.
James E. Powell
Maureen Dowd graduated from high school in 1969 and college in 1973. She lived in New York City during the peak years of the Cocaine Era. And we’re supposed to believe that she has no prior experience with recreational drugs?
It’s just total bullshit. She ought to be ridiculed out of her job, but then the NYT would feel like they had to hire one of the New New Wave Right-Wingers to take her place.
Comrade Mary
OT but kind of important: I just found a gorgeous daddy longlegs spider in my bathroom. I’ve learned that teeny tiny house spiders are better off staying indoors, as they will be able to find prey, but should I be escorting this one outdoors, or can it live just fine indoors? I don’t think I have much in the way of visible insect life around here, that’s all.
No, I am not going to kill it.
Cacti
If Maureen Dowd was a lifelong teetotaler, then decided to down a pint of Everclear for her first drinking experience, would anyone consider her to have an informed or credible opinion about drinking?
MoeLarryAndJesus
I’m sorry that Maureen Dowd has never had an orgasm, but that’s no excuse for her taking it out on the rest of the world.
John (MCCARTHY) Cole
@cmorenc: I agree completely with one facet of this. When I ate hash brownies and was doing foil hits of opium a couple decades ago, I spent long hours alone giggling, crying, and listening to Greek Theatre ’83. Ironically, the set I loved had Women are Smarter.
That can not be said about Dowd. She flew across the country, took the strongest dose she could find, and freaked out in a hotel room. Why not just put a couple drops of liquid in her eye and crank Pantera with razor blades all over the room?
Know what the fuck you are putting in your body, fer fuck’s sake. Not to mention, she lived! No one was hurt! She just got too fucking high in a hotel room and wrote about it.
If she was as cavalier with driving a car, alcohol, jumping into the bear cage a the NYC zoo, etc., she’d be dead instead about whining about warning labels on weed.
PRO-TIP: Stop doing stupid shit and blaming it on the law, the drug, other people, etc. You are clearly the common denominator in the bad things happening to you.
pseudonymous in nc
@Cacti:
Apparently lots of people in Colorado have been introduced to marijuana through the equivalent of “pint o’ Everclear” because they don’t want to inhale something and the comestibles are hella strong and haven’t been especially well-labelled. Take it up with them too?
MattR
@cmorenc: Any idea how the Colorado edibles compare with what you would find in Amsterdam?
John (MCCARTHY) Cole
@Comrade Mary: We don’t kill spiders or bats around here.
TG Chicago
@Morzer (0th of His PseudoName and Founder of the Walter Sobchak Peacekeepers): Dowd wrote a stupid column, but that’s no reason to be sexist and creepy.
RaflW
@John (MCCARTHY) Cole:
Amen.
I remember a kid in my brother’s high school being rushed to the E.R. with like a 0.25 BAC and damn near dying because he guzzled booze with no tolerance/experience.
Granted there is some danger in idjits doing something like Dowd but in a car (or at Abasin and having the dose kick in halfway down Pali rather than in the locker room). But thc is much less dangerous an o.d. drug than also-legal alcohol.
pseudonymous in nc
And the entire column, if you strip away the MoDo-ishness, hinges on something said by someone else, namely the state’s MJ coordinator:
Now, you can argue that the “pot au chocolat in the hotel room” experience was a bit too neat a personal demonstration, but anyway.
John (MCCARTHY) Cole
@Cacti:
Then maybe she should have not eaten a strong dose of a drug she knew nothing about. She’s not a common plebe. She’s a Pulitzer Prize winning columnist. She has resources. She could have asked and, well, I dunno, thought about things first.
AxelFoley
@Ash Can:
Sounds like the start of a very bad porn movie.
Arclite
Best John G. Cole post in quite a while. Bravo!
And Mo Do is an idiot.
TG Chicago
I don’t think Dowd necessarily made this up, but she did this with the intention to write a column about it. And “I had a nice, pleasant experience” doesn’t make for much of a column. So you take too much and write about the demon weed.
All the incentives pointed to her purposefully overdosing herself.
Goblue72
@AxelFoley: GILF pr0n meets BDSM?
Violet
People have different reactions to medications so it’s no great surprise that they might also have different reactions to pot. And as we get older we can have different reactions to things from the ones we had when we were younger. MoDo may have been a stoner in her younger years but she’s no longer so young. Even if the pot was the same she might have a stronger reaction now.
But the column is dumb. Typical Republican framing–“I had X experience so that should be the basis of every decision made about this issue.” No sense that other people and other experiences even exist.
AxelFoley
@Goblue72: HAHAHAHA
Ruckus
@John (MCCARTHY) Cole:
This is MoDo we are talking about isn’t it? Does she ever do either of those things, asking and/or thinking?
jl
@Comrade Mary:
Friends tell me, that if it is properly prepared, it comes on slower and lasts longer when you eat it rather than smoke. At least that is what I have heard. 8 hours, though. Informed acquaintances of mine, find that hard to believe unless it was super strong hash, rather than dope.
Aw hell with it. I spent a lot of time in AK back starting in HS, when it was quasi legal up there and everyone below 50 and many above were taking it in public.. I never liked to smoke it much. Putting it something to eat is much better. It is like drinking, a person can get a short buzz or wipe themselves out for days (which I never did). Don’t know if you can outright kill yourself with it, unless you smoked so much you choked to death.
I am not old enough to have been in the initial hippy wave, but I’m no spring chicken. And ever since I was in HS, been hearing from the oldsters how they used nice mellow organic stuff, not like this nasty scary new stuff. Whatever. Unless its some dangerous synthetic garbage cooked up in a bath tub, I imagine the real stuff grown in the ground has been paradoxically getting scarier and stronger and staying the same forever.
Edit: however, I haven’t used anything at least in the lower 48, for decades. So, cannot say I know much about recent developments, come to think of it.
Mandalay
@TG Chicago:
Right. Kind of like how Friedman engages Middle Eastern cab drivers in conversation, and then writes columns about their wisdom.
Except Friedman makes up everything that he claims came from the cab drivers on his laptop while he watches TV in his hotel room.
Goblue72
@pseudonymous in nc: well exactly. Leaving the MoDo is nails on chalkboard factor aside, medibles aren’t really anything like the experience one might have had eating pot or hash brownies in the 90s or earlier.
I did my fair share of drug experimenting back then. (Including a trip to Morocco cuz I wanted to really go off the deep end)
Today’s MJ is potent – I think the New Yorker did a piece a few years ago on how California’s medical MJ market has driven the trend to increasingly potent strains. And the edibles are even more potent – even the stoner pro experts agree – eating a big old medible brownie can result in a bad trip –
http://www.leafly.com/news/products/medibles-101-everything-youve-ever-wanted-to-know-about-edibles
Thymezone
Actually, MD’s piece reads pretty well, if you smoke a joint first.
MikeJake
Pot cookie messed me up real bad once. It was wildly enjoyable for about 10 minutes (I was watching a commercial for one of those automatic stair lifts for old people, and I had an evil thought about the bolts failing on the chair and dumping the old man in the commercial out of the chair and leaving him languishing in the middle of the staircase, and I couldn’t stop laughing) , but after that it knocked me on my ass for hours.
The whole time, random words called out in my head, reverberating off the inside of my cranium and combining into some strange new language of gibberish that I’ll never recall again. It was then that I considered that maybe that was what crazy people heard in their heads all the time. And that scared me! Because I was high for so long, I started worrying that my brain would never go back to normal.
magurakurin
Fuck Dowd. The world will be a better place when she stops writing for the NYT. Whether it comes by retirement or death, it won’t be soon enough either way.
She’s a fuckwit. Her opinions on marijuana are less than meaningless.
as Raven would wisely remind us
FIDO
jl
@TaMara (BHF):
” I live in Colorado. ”
Yo DO!? I find that fascinating. You are lucky. I hope it is in a nice part of Colorado.
Have the legal developments there given you any ideas for recipes? Or maybe you could have some informed friends provide you with some ideas.
I’m a looking forward to the recipe posts now!
Paul
But seriously, how is this different from leaving a gun on the table?
Oh, right. The kid dies. Duh!
cmorenc
@MattR:
While actually in Amsterdam for four days, I only smoked buds in coffee shops, BUT: on the morning of my flight out, I bought a “space-cake” to eat on the way to the airport to make my flight more enjoyable. A “space-cake” is a standard cupcake-size muffin embedded with mj – and of the two available strengths listed in terms of gram-equivalent of marijuana baked in, I bought the stronger. It was a really good, strong buzz, but not incapacitating – and not nearly as potent as the chocolate bar I bought at the mj shop in Denver (caveat: three years between experiences, but I’m pretty sure I’m recalling the space-cake and its effects accurately). Of course, you have to take into account that when the space-cake took effect about an hour into the transatlantic flight, I was very comfortably seated already in a window seat with virtually no physical demands the next five hours, whereas I’m not really sure how compatible it might have been in a more physically active situation – though I was able to get up from my seat and go to the bathroom a couple of times perfectly normally without difficulty.
Suffern ACE
@TG Chicago: yep. The story is going to be “Dowd gets stoned.” She would not have done this if she thought she was in real danger. She knew enough not to write the story on binge drinking and driving.
Diana
@Comrade Mary: kill it, it’s a spider. And daddy longlegs kill easy.
Apropos of nothing, Modo’s column reminds me of a long-ago Summer In Europe During College when I was traveling with a college roommate whose mother was coming to visit us in Amsterdam. Because Mom was coming tomorrow, we decided to try the hash bars the day before.
I can’t remember what we ate, but we both got so stoned that the next morning we were still high. Which was a serious problem since Roommate’s Mom was due to show up. So my poor roommate said to me, “It’s going to be so obvious to my mom that I’m still high, you’re just a roommate she doesn’t know so if you’re stoned she won’t care, can’t you meet her at the airport, escort her around town, and in general feed and amuse her until this evening? Just say I got food poisoning. By evening this will surely have worn off.”
So of course I said yes, this was my college roommate and friend.
The only problem was, I was still stoned. Thanks to Europe’s stellar public transportation system, I didn’t have to drive anywhere, and I managed to meet Roommate’s Mom, collect her luggage, stow her at the hotel, and even visit the Rijksmuseum with her. I was still so stoned that I couldn’t read a label and still remember the name of the painter when I looked at the painting (and I remember that annoyed me, because we didn’t have time in our travel schedule to see that museum again) but I thought I was carrying it off OK until I finally handed her off to her kid, at which point she said to her daughter (after how are you blah blah blah), “Is your friend high or something?”
Ah, good times, good times.
? Martin
Tim Donnelly still losing! Nooooo!
And for Controller:
Tammy D. Blair (Party Preference: DEM) 121,212 5.6%
John A. Pérez (Party Preference: DEM) 448,968 20.6%
Betty T. Yee (Party Preference: DEM) 479,843 22.0%
David Evans (Party Preference: REP) 488,236 22.4%
Ashley Swearengin (Party Preference: REP) 516,620 23.7%
Laura Wells (Party Preference: GRN) 124,949 5.7%
The 3-way split between Dems may deny any of them from reaching the general over the 2-way split for the GOP. Top two voter getters advance. This is a fun system.
Suffern ACE
So, in summary of the long day, which well heeled mainstream establishment strait-laced pundit behaved the most strangely today: Maureen Dowd, forcing herself to pass out so she could complain about it, or David Gergen, wishing on TV that we had generals with the “courage” to shoot our own soldiers, like good ol’ Patton. I’m handing it to Gergen.
Suffern ACE
@? Martin: you’ll lose the governorship once brown retires.
jl
@Suffern ACE: General Zombie Patton, please meet Mr. Zombie Reagan. I’m sure you’ll get along well. At least for awhile. I’ve read Patton did not tolerate… but never mind, I may wander into subversive treason against Zombie Reagan inadvertently.
Edit: Aww, what am I thinking, this is Zombie Patton, he loves Zombie Reagan, by definition. I must be high on something.
Goblue72
@jl: its more potent today. Mainly due to the medical marijuana market in the states that have had pretty loose medical MJ laws, like California. It’s created a market where there’s an incentive for growers to develop strains that concentrate as much THC per gram of bud as possible.
http://m.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/28/080728fa_fact_samuels?currentPage=all
? Martin
@Suffern ACE: Kamala Harris will be the next Governor.
LanceThruster
Jimmy Carter could have talked her down like that Dan Aykroyd SNL bit.
ulee
It’s obvious that when this chick writes, she wants to be clever. That’s her bottom line. Problem is, she isn’t. I just spent the evening reading The Long Walk by Richard Bachman. Now that’s writing. Good entertainment, someone who actually knows what he is doing. Yea, I know King writes fiction and the idiot writes columns, but it’s a matter of competence.
LanceThruster
And Nancy Reagan could have counseled her on how to get hopped up.
jl
@Goblue72: Thanks for the link. I will have my research cut out for me next time I visit WA or CO.
Goblue72
@? Martin: ayup
Radio One
if this was attempt to channel HST as a journalist experimenting with drugs alone in a hotel room, lol
MattR
@cmorenc: That is pretty much my experience with the space cake as well. We ate one in the hotel one evening and we went into that zombie couch lock for few hours before passing out and sleeping til noon. I don’t think I could have been out and about. Zombie probably would have been a decent description for my facial expression. But we were also exhausted and stoned to being with which is why we were staying in. We then ate another on the morning of the flight home and it was pretty much as you descibed. It kicked in before we took off, but I was fine in the terminal (I described it to my friend as “doughy”) and was able to interact without issues (or at least I think I was). And then it helped me sleep for most of the plane ride home. Good to know in advance that the Colorado edibles sound significantly stronger and to eat only half of what I think I should have.
MoeLarryAndJesus
I hate the nickname “Modo” so much I hope Jonathan Livingston Seagull shits on her forehead.
That would at least give her a reason for that constant scowl on her face.
ulee
@MoeLarryAndJesus: Give her a break. She’s trying to smile, but it comes across as a grimace or a scowl. She is an idiot savant, minus the savant.
Fred
Back in 1970 something I bummed out on the infamous “Orange Sunshine in a Barrel”, known for sending stronger minds than mine off for a stay in the rubber room. It was awful but it sure wasn’t as bad as MoDo describes her bad MJ “trip”.
I know pot is a lot stronger these days than it used to be but I call bullshit on this account. Nobody can get that screwed up on pot, no matter how potent.
AnotherBruce
It’s late on the west coast, so probably no one is going to read this, but I think most of you miss the point. She didn’t smoke pot, she ingested THC candy. In other words, she ingested what in my halcyon youth we called a “chemical”, by which we typically meant LSD, DMT, etc. She had a trip as it were. None of which negates any of John’s observations, she really should have met up with some people so she would have an idea of what she was doing, not just for social company, but for knowledge about what she was going to get into, and also which she might have enjoyed if she had some social company. It probably wouldn’t have done any good for her anyway, because she came to the experience with a negative mindset.
Christ, I sound like a magic bus hippie. But I was actually more of a punk when I was trying these drugs. And shit I had a lot of fun with them and my friends. Old age sets in though, and getting through life is weird enough without chemicals.
cokane
Well said Cole.
I’ll add.
1. Reporter goes to Colorado to report on weed legalization.
2. Spends trip in own hotel room.
3. Has a job at the NYT… somehow
The Pale Scot
I insist that BJ provides something this funny to wake up to every morning, I’m going to be giggling all day.
I’d give anything to have been in the next room running my fingers along the wall intermittently.
The Pale Scot
That show is in the internet archives
The Pale Scot
@John (MCCARTHY) Cole:
I remember that party, you were there too?
matt
So, she’s a lightweight.
Tell me something I didn’t know.
dubo
So what if her nightmare scenario happens and some terrible parent leaves out a pot brownie and THE KID EATS IT?!?!?!?!?!?
Well…. the kid might get pretty sick for a short time
Not that I’m pro-“kids getting sick” but that is so, so, so far below the level of harm required for government regulation and intervention.
How about a new media guideline: if you’re so worried about this that you’re going to write a column fainting about how a toddler might accidentally get ahold of some demon weed, throw it in the garbage and write a column trashing the anti-vax movement instead.
Ramalama
This should be the new saying on your masthead.
kc
Read the column. She’s talking about the state’s efforts to regulate the product. I fail to see the problem.
I’m not a MoDo dan, but I don’t know why this column has your boxers in a wad. Maybe you should smoke a joint . . .
evodevo
@Comrade Mary: #1 – daddy longlegs are NOT spiders – they are in their own order, i.e. not venomous – they can pinch you with their jaws, however; #2 – they are scavengers, not predators – they eat anything not moving fast enough, i.e. dead stuff, plant material, fungus, etc.
Pick it up by a couple of back legs and throw it out the window/door/whatever. They are an outdoor organism. Don’t worry if a leg or two falls off. They evolved that way to distract predators.
Mart
@cmorenc: Been to Amsterdam and Denver. Space cakes had little effect on me. Had more than the maximum squares of a strong Denver product. The sales lady gave a strong warning of eat one, wait a couple hours and eat another if desired. I thought that must mean eat two, and then two more. I had a nice strong buzz, really enjoyed the experience, but I am a regular smoker of the new weapons grade weed. My wife and daughter, who are not regulars, followed directions and were wiped out, but having fun. I too call MoDo on her bullshit story. What a crock.
kc
@John (MCCARTHY) Cole:
I missed the part where she said she took the “strongest dose she could find.” What paragraph was that in?
Comrade Mary
@evodevo: Thanks! I just checked and she’s gone, daddy, gone, so I can’t rescue her until she shows up again. Sounds like she should be able to chow down sufficiently for a while, though.
democommie
“Except Friedman makes up everything that he claims came from the cab drivers on his laptop while he watches TV in his hotel room. ”
It’s prolly not just any TV.
Back in 1973, I was bartending in a trendy little eatery in Omaha (yes, they have them) and at about 12:00 Noon, I got a headache.The headache swiftly morphed into toothache from hell–worse than any I’ve ever had–and I started doing shots of Johnny Walker about every 15 minutes till around 2:30 when I went to the dentist (a friend’s father) who informed me that one of my molars had BROKEN IN HALF!
He didn’t do extractions but he set me up with some Oral/Maxillo practice for the next morning and gave me a scrip for 25mg codeine. I took a bunch of them, drank a bunch more scotch and went out on a date. After doing decidedly stupid shit for about six hours I went home with my date and slept for several hours. When I woke up to take her home, I felt like the left side of my head had been hit with a sledgehammer. I took the rest of the codeine and went to the O/M place where they took me ahead of other people because I was whimpering and curled up like a nautilus.
The oral surgeon had the offending tooth out in ten minutes–with instantaneous lessening of the pain. But, he said, it would hurt later so he wrote me a scrip for the biggest dose he could give me (I remember it being 75, but I can find no current dosage higher than 60mg) and I took about four of them within a few hours. I was feeling somewhat melllllllllllllllllllow at that point.
One of my roommates said he was going to score some drugs from a trio we nicknamed the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, because they were just like the Zap characters. When we got there they asked if we wanted to smoke some weed. I said I couldn’t because I had a bleeding socket (not because I was already stoned and drunk, mind you). So, he went out in the kitchen and brought back a brownie the size of a saucer and said, “Here, this’ll help with the post-op pain.”–or words to that effect.
I then went to WORK at the bar and drank lots more scotch, dropped a tray with 8 Irish Coffees on the way to a table and had a HELLACIOUS evening, winding up back at my house with a lady who took advantage of me–for which I thank her, still.
MoDull, yur, duin it rong.
Paul in KY
@Joel Hanes: Good point. I have some sympathy for her now.
Paul in KY
@cmorenc: Have heard that the edibles can really fuck you up. The ‘butter’ I have tried (BHO) is very, very strong.
Paul in KY
@TG Chicago: Would not surprise me in the least.
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
I think she did this and they gave her some acid. I’m sure they framed the column and hung it on the wall so they can laught their asses off when they’re feeling sad.
Paul in KY
@Diana: ‘Daddy Long Legs’ are not spiders. They are completely harmless & you are cruel to suggest killing it.
WaterGirl
This is one of my favorite sentences ever:
I always try to read the comments before I comment, but I love this sentence so much that I can’t imagine reading 155 comments before I can say that.
Ramalama
@WaterGirl: I did almost the same exact thing. Love getting in touch with my inner 40something truant.
Garm
Colorado state leg passed a bill to improve labeling on marijuana products. Just waiting on Hick to sign it into law.
http://openstates.org/co/bills/2014A/HB14-1361/
Patricia Kayden
I’m glad MoDo survived her ordeal.
As Mrs. Reagan said so aptly when it comes to drugs, “Just say no”. Remember that next time, Maureen.
th
really……? she’s a “moran.” she’s lying her ass off. anybody encouraging her sob story isn’t helping anybody. only the experienced know the reality. “full stop.”
LongHairedWeirdo
They don’t write warning messages to MoDo on Everclear because they’re trying to think of the appropriate infographic to stop “butt chugging”.
(The notion that an alcoholic enema was a hard hit and fast and *DANGEROUS* was well known in certain circles – if you don’t know, you probably don’t want to – which reminds me of the famous Duke line from Doonesbury – “Stay off the hard stuff! The drug world is no place for amateurs!”)
SteveM
Had a great meal in Telluride once at a restaurant at the top of the tram, while a thunderstorm was developing….
No, wait — maybe that wouldn’t have been the best pot experience for MoDo.
SteveM
Had a great meal in Telluride once at a restaurant at the top of the tram up the mountain, while a thunderstorm was developing….
No, wait — maybe that wouldn’t have been the best pot experience for MoDo.
Persia
@Anne Laurie: I also remember, back in the day, people telling me that some people, not everyone, would get paranoid if they smoked pot. Because, you know, pot is a drug and some people will have bad reactions. (That’s the biggest reason I never used pot, actually, I’m paranoid enough already.)
I assume that’s what happened to MoDowd. She took too much because a) it was poorly labeled and b) she’s too stupid to check up on these things and also it was more sensational that way, and she then got paranoid because some people do when they use pot.
pseudonymous in nc
@Goblue72:
Michael Pollan wrote about this in ‘The Botany of Desire’, and it predates medical MJ. He makes the point that when cultivation was driven indoors to avoid detection, you got hydroponics and growlamps and hybridisation of indica and sativa and a push to get from seed to harvest as fast as possible. It was illegality, not legality, that started the push towards higher THC levels.
AndoChronic
Poor no tolerance, uncultured and socially unaware kid. I hope at least her trip helped her a little going forward… as much as it could I suppose.
Kerry Reid
I thought this was what MoDo called “Tuesday.”
Steve Skubinna
According to Violet:
“But the column is dumb. Typical Republican framing–”I had X experience so that should be the basis of every decision made about this issue.” No sense that other people and other experiences even exist. ”
So in the alternate universe you inhabit, MoDo is some sort of Republican, huh? Fascinating. Do you have a newsletter? I’d love to subscribe.