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A Goddamn Separate Thread: Maureen Dowd Fails At THC and Journalism Edition
ElJeffe
Registered User, ClubPA regular
Registered User, ClubPA regular
This discussion was created from comments split from: Versailles on the Potomac (and Hudson): The American Political Media.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/04/opinion/dowd-dont-harsh-our-mellow-dude.html?ref=opinion&_r=3
...guess that theory didn't pan out.
Well, there's a legitimate point buried under the usual Dowd stupid that edibles aren't being treated with the proper respect.
"I've never done pot before but I assume the legality of these items is now the equivalent to mcdonalds, so I wont ask any questions beforehand"
That kids need to start smoking early in life with crappy bags of shake, stems, and seeds before moving on to high grade products?
Yup. I especially liked the comparison to alcohol. Nowhere on a bottle of beer does it tell me how fucked up I'll get. It has the information I need to determine that only combined with the education on alcohol I was given in school. Well geez, clearly pot is totally different and bad! Nope, no missing steps in the comparison anywhere.
No, that the industry was initially built on regular users, so there wasn't as much thought about educating neophytes. Besides, the changes being suggested aren't unreasonable at all - limiting single serving sizes and requiring distinct packaging are not the end of the world.
I can see listing THC potency just like booze lists just how much hooch is in there, but it's too complex. What's the right dose, for what strain and what person? Besides it's not like pot is heroin or coke, taking too much just turns you into an idiot for a little bit.
pleasepaypreacher.net
17 years old
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
Good thing they didn't just legalize alcohol, or she would've drank herself to death.
edit: I look forward to her next story, in which she demonstrates the need for a crosswalk in a busy intersection by wandering into heavy traffic.
You just broke ever sarcasm meter ever.
pleasepaypreacher.net
Overdosing on thc can lead to paranoia, nausea and a whole bunch of other nasty side-effects. It's really not a fun experience and is something people really need to pay attention to.
It's a problem with edibles. The delay in uptake into the bloodstream frequently leads to inexperienced people taking way too much.
pleasepaypreacher.net
...that brings "blowing smoke up someone's ass" to a whole new and disturbing level.
That moreen dowd doesn't know how to source her source articles? Protip: none of the stuff she is saying happened happened except maybe for her bad trip.
It was my understanding, that high grade ones are so expensive, that you would question why you are speding $texas on something the size of a candy bar, and common sense would tell you its multiple doses in 1 package.
Like, I've never had it so I couldn't really say, but I've seen 'hidden treasures' sized nuggets of chocolate or a bit bigger be 20$ each. that might be the black market price though/that person got ripped off.
I mean, in an ABC store (state run lliquor store, if you are unfamiliar), I was stocking up a bar with several bottles for an upcoming large party, and the cashier gave me this look like 'jesus christ you aren't drinking all this tonight are you?'. It gave me a laugh and said it was actually to get a bar started and 12 people would be laying into them equally, and theill still last a while. I mean a clerk conversing with her about her purchase and making idle conversation would have been nice, but isn't absolutely necessary.
So does too much coffee, which I would say is worse for you. It's pot dude, it's not acid or cocaine, or even tequila.
The issue with eating pot is that it hits harder, lasts longer, and takes longer to reach you. So it's very easy to take "too much" compared to smoking it or say blowing lines of coke where you have a very clear idea how it will affect you within the next five minuets or so.
If you think too much pot is a bad experience, you really have no business consuming anything or even drinking.
High grade becomes dirt cheap once it's legal and all the low grade stuff straight vanishes from the market. Then you have an arms race for who can breed the most potent stuff. Hell once Colorado legalized it prices bottomed here on the east coast and we get stuff that's vastly better than ever before. A long with all sorts of crazy chemical THC extractions. Much stronger, much cheaper, and more than ever before.
Right, but when do we ever leave something with active ingredients to common sense? I can't think of a single example of something you can purchase that doesn't come plastered with warnings and a break down of the amount of active ingredient contained inside.
Read up on the herbal supplements industry, and be terrified. And you'll want to cuss out Utah, too.
"High person jumped out of a window" and "high person shot someone" are classics cited about nearly every drug. While the incidents mentioned did happen there is as of yet no reason to assume anything was due to too much pot turning you into some crazy psycho. Dowd seems to have just repeated the assertions in the article she linked.
I completely forgot about supplements. I would say that is probably not an industry we want to emulate with marijuana legalization though.
Beside which, I would assume most of the more legitimate supplements still come with recommended dosing instructions right? It just seems like a no brainer thing, and I don't understand why these edibles sellers would care about it getting implemented. You want your customers to have a good experience and come back after all.
When people who aren't well versed in taking drugs get really high they start repeating all the crazy horror stories they've heard about drugs in their head and get stuck in a panic loop where that's all they can think of. You don't think of cutting yourself because of the acid, you think of cutting yourself because idiots told you that people on acid like to peel their skin and cut themselves. Until you've done enough acid and had enough bad trips to realize that this is utter bullshit you won't get past it.
What I'm saying is we should strap Maureen Dowd to a table and dose her with a lot of acid.
Well, the guy getting high and shooting his wife kinda happened.
She just forgot to mention that he took way more than a recommended dosage and was also on prescription pain meds at the time.
So, you know, whoopsies.
Like someone said earlier, there's a cultural understanding of what "too much" means for alcohol. Most people understand that one beer might give you a light buzz, a six-pack might get you kinda drunk, and a case will get you shitfaced. They understand that a shot or two of tequila will get you buzzed, and an entire bottle will fuck you up. Not everyone understands this, or that you can literally kill yourself by drinking too much, but most people do, so it's less an issue.
Fewer people know how many pot brownies you can eat before you're buzzed versus way fucking stoned. I sure don't. Even if I saw the recommended dosage on the packaging, I have little frame of reference for how buzzed I should expect to get from that one dose.
The problem with Dowd's article isn't that she doesn't have a good point about better labeling and/or educational campaigning regarding edible THC. The problem is she's a fucking idiot for not doing any research before trying it, and winding up on a bad trip. That there are probably plenty of people who are that idiotic does not make Dowd any smarter.
lol?
'So, I've never had a drink before in my life, but yesterday I took a hit from a beer bong. Dear God, how can people drink this stuff???"
I suppose she has a fair point about labeling the product appropriately... but seriously. Make some use of that brain in your head before eating something that you know ahead of time is a narcotic, and that is captured in popular culture as a recreational hallucinogen.
Except just about everyone screws up when experimenting with alcohol. And even if you are an experienced drinker and know that "I can consume 12 drinks over X period of time and go from buzzed, to pretty damn drunk, and back down to buzzed and walk home" that means very little. The mood you are in, the amount of food in your stomach, how much you slept the night before, what time of day you started, the time period of your consumption all can alter these calculations. This is why you don't open up a night of drinking by chugging tequila straight from the bottle, and why you don't start an MDMA trip by pouring a molly powder straight into your mouth from the bag. I mean you can, but odds are in a few hours you're going to regret it.
With intoxicants you generally learn by screwing up and having a bad time. Swearing up and down you'll never do that again (you will and that's OK) and then reining in your behavior next time. Even still you will end up drinking on a empty stomach or after the flu at some point and landing back up swearing at your own idiocy all over again.
Dowd knows this, she drinks. Which makes her slamming of THC products all the funnier. Well, no shit it sucked. Go out and chug and entire box of wine and see how that feels.
...I'm not seeing an argument against some labeling in this post? Even if people screw-up regardless, it's still not a bad idea to warn them in advance that, yup, you might spend an entire afternoon thinking that your wallpaper is persecuting you if you eat this whole candy bar.
Some people will ignore the label and have a bad trip, and some people will read the label and either abstain from the product and / or eat a reasonable portion of the product and have a better experience. I'm failing to see the downside?
That was kind of my point. If you hand me a pot brownie and I get completely fucked up on it, how does that help me determine how much of this candy bar to consume? You can't accurately gauge effect if you don't know how much you're consuming or it's relative potency. That's where labeling helps.
It gives people a yardstick to measure their experiences against, and formulate expectations for future consumption. Over time, it gets embedded into the culture so that, without even trying it, you can have a rough idea of what a suitable amount is vs. way too much.
The only real danger from THC is pulling a methlab and destroying your house if you try a butane extraction on your own without knowing what you're doing.
Maybe.
Probably.
Kinda.
It's not very well studied.
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
I agree, but there are a lot of people out there that think it's not a health hazard to drink so much you pass out. We don't hold liqour stores or the bottle labeling responsible when someone buys a bottle on their 21st birthday and drinks the whole thing because of what they see in pop culture. There was a period where '21 shots on your 21st birthday' was actually a thing and people were dying(obviously).
I think the store has a 'common decency' thing to do with putting a sign up saying 'if you havent done this before, don't be embarassed to ask, were happy to help!', but not really a responsibility.
Too much pot is by definition a bad experience. Just because you can't die from pot doesn't mean it can't ever be unpleasant. Shit can still trigger psychosis or paranoia or anxiety attacks. It just usually doesn't since the traditional method of consumption has a nearly immediate effect and you can therefore limit your intake. But that goes for coke too.
The issue is not that pot is more dangerous than alcohol or heroin. It manifestly isn't. But that doesn't mean there aren't risks to it. Making sure people understand the risks and what dose to take is clearly a good thing even though people are still going to take too much.
take it from me you'll always want to do more even if your heart feels like it's going to explode
kicking that monkey from my back took -years-
edit: but yeah one of life's big rules is too much of anything can suck. including pot
Is what it's doing damaging? That is, does it leave permanent remnants of some sort? We don't know, but given what we do know about narcotics that play with your brain chemistry, I'd say that 'yes' is a pretty reasonable default assumption.
We need more research done, but in the meantime, you've only got one brain.