DON’T BE A DOWD! Educate Yourself On Marijuana Before Experimenting With It

DowdDowdUPDATE: It has been confirmed that Maureen Dowd ignored safety warnings!

Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times Op-Ed columnist Maureen Dowd recently traveled to Colorado to cover the legal marijuana scene. While alone in a hotel room and drinking a bottle of Chardonnay she ate a marijuana edible—a candy bar that she claims she learned the next day was supposed to be cut into 16 pieces for a rookie like herself. She experienced a bad trip and went on to blame the marijuana industry for her bad judgement in yesterday’s column; Don’t Harsh Our Mellow, Dude.

“What could go wrong with a bite or two,” she writes. “Everything, as it turned out.” But, Dowd never reveals how much she really ate. (UPDATE: Dowd now admits to eating one quarter of the candy bar) If Dowd would have stuck to just a bite or two, nothing probably would have gone wrong except that she wouldn’t have this dramatic story to blog about. She should at least go back and amend her post—maybe change that line to something more realistic like; “What could go wrong with a bite or 16?”

She also claims the edible she consumed had no recommended dosage on its label. We bet the bottle of Chardonnay she was also consuming didn’t have any recommended dosages on its label either. Did she consume the whole thing? Who knows. What we do know is that after consuming some wine and some weed she: “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.”

She also writes, “sitting in my hotel room in Denver, I nibbled off the end and then, when nothing happened, nibbled some more.” Dowd never mentions the length of time in between nibbles. She can’t think that she’d immediately feel the effects of weed right after taking a single bite, can she? This is where a little research would have helped this reporter. We’re not talking about the research on the “darker side” Dowd found to chastise the industry in her article, but useful research on the actual physical effects of the drug she chose to consume. Educating herself would have probably saved Dowd from her bad trip.

DON’T BE A DOWD! Educate yourself on marijuana before you start experimenting with it. And just so everybody knows, it takes about an hour before you start to feel the effects of an edible. If you don’t feel anything, eat some more. If at some point you start feeling like you’ve taken too much, eat something else.

Think it’s lame that Dowd takes no responsibility for her actions? Leave a comment and let us know.



One Response to “DON’T BE A DOWD! Educate Yourself On Marijuana Before Experimenting With It”

  1. vapenation

    I appreciate Ms. Dowd’s writing but agree that cannabis is a wide and diverse plant and a single experiment without much research isn’t a very good subject for an article.

    Times reporting is usually very-well researched and objective, but this piece was in the opinion section so we should consider it as such.

    Always ask the person you’re buying from about dosage! The cannabis vendors will know what stuff is strong and what stuff is good for beginners. Listen and ask questions. Talk with others before just jumping into some serious dosage of medicine.

    Cannabis is a strong drug, but it’s not so strong to be scared of it. Smoking and vaporizing is much easier to regulate than eating, so I always recommend people start there first and graduate to edibles.

    Cheers.

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