Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

The GOP couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

The GOP is a fucking disgrace.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Second rate reporter says what?

This blog will pay for itself.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

The willow is too close to the house.

Consistently wrong since 2002

I was promised a recession.

White supremacy is terrorism.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

You are here: Home / Politics / War On Drugs / The War on Your Neighbor, aka the War on Drugs / Getting Better All the Time

Getting Better All the Time

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Apparently MoDo did do research before she ate the demon weed, and just chose to ignore the advice she was given:

So given Dowd’s awful experience with her overdose — which was so potent that she wrote in her June 3 column, “As my paranoia deepened, I became convinced that I had died and no one was telling me” — had Brown or anyone else warned the columnist about the unpredictable and potentially problematic nature of marijuana-infused edibles?

“She got the warning,” Brown said. “She did what all the reporters did. She listened. She bought some samples — I don’t remember what exactly. Me and the owner of the dispensary we were at and the assistant manager and the budtender talked with her for 45 minutes at the shop.

“It wasn’t all, ‘Be careful of edibles.’ We talked about the difference between shatter and bubble hash. We talked about edibles and how they affect everyone differently. In the context of covering all the bases with a customer, we really went into depth to tell this reporter, who would then tell the world, about marijuana in Colorado.

“She got some bud, some edibles and when we got back to the hotel she had to run off to a Mitt Romney documentary screening. She asked me, ‘Will you roll a joint for me? I don’t know how to do it.’ But she had to run really quickly to the screening, and I was going to catch a flight the next day, and we were going to connect a few nights later but it never worked out.”

Dowd did not respond to an email inquiry sent early Wednesday afternoon.

Such an asshole.

Reader Interactions

124Comments

  2. 2.

    Belafon

    Someone needs to go tell her she’s actually dead, and that everything that has happened for the past 20 years is just purgatory.

  3. 3.

    beth

    She was right about one thing – high is probably the best way to watch a Mitt Romney documentary.

  4. 4.

    srv

    I wonder if Noonan really drinks old bottles of Absinthe.

    That might explain things.

  5. 5.

    The Republic of Stupidity

    Somewhere the ghost of Hunter Thompson is laughing itself silly…

  6. 6.

    Olivia

    I am pretty sure she was describing her experience viewing the Mittens documentary. Unfortunately, she waited to write about it until after she stuffed her face with the edible and omitted that piece of vital information.

  9. 9.

    scav

    What other possible connection between information presented and ‘gathered’ (meaning in theory potentially witnessed) and the resulting text smeared across the page did anyone really expect? The journalistic “opinionating” function is like a combined anonymizing and sterilization procedure, all tethers to original reality are severed.

  10. 10.

    c u n d gulag

    Maybe NOW the NY Times can fire this sorry and stupid @$$hole!

    Followed by Friedman, Bobo, Douchehat, etc.

    Keep Krugman – and maybe Collins and Blow, and let the rest go!!!

  11. 11.

    Alexandra

    Reporter goes to Colorado, gets high, chills and enjoys herself. That’s not a story worth reading, let alone clicking.

    From the start, there never was any incentive to do a balanced piece.

  12. 12.

    Villago Delenda Est

    It really is a crying shame that you can’t fatally OD from eating happy brownies, because if anyone needed to do so, it’s that vile harpy MoDo.

  13. 13.

    cthulhu

    Oh, kids these days…

    In her defense, I do hear that if you if you turn off the sound, “Mitt” perfectly syncs with Nickelback’s “Silver Side Up” album.

  14. 14.

    Punchy

    the budtender

    No way, is this fo’ rizzle? Some guy’s got “Budtender” on his resume? This is what goes on one’s 1040?

    Pure genius.

  17. 17.

    Interrobang

    I can’t help but read this as the Establishment trying to discredit legal weed. I’m biased in that I’m pro-legalisation for a bunch of reasons, but still, this stinks on ice.

    I also can’t help but think she was subconsciously expecting horrible things to happen, so, lo and behold, horrible things happened. I’ve never tried pot edibles, so I really personally don’t know what the effects are, but actually, part of me is surprised she had as much effect as she did. I have met a ton of naive pot users (“naive” in the sense of “never used it before”) who don’t have anything much happen to them until they use it several times.

    The whole thing is just weird, even for MoDoJoJo.

  18. 18.

    Dee Loralei

    Ellizabelle and other DC denizens, I’ll be staying in Alexandria on King Street near the King Street Station and Old Town Alexandria. Where do y’all want to meet? 6/11 and 6/12

  19. 19.

    Suffern ACE

    My guess is that she missed a deadline for a column on the mitt Documentary and had to write this when she explained why to her editors.

  20. 20.

    Long Tooth

    Apparently this internet thing-a-majigger-doo-hicky is something that Dowd will never quite draw a bead on.

  22. 22.

    LanceThruster

    Back when LSD was legal, there was a study done that showed creative types (artists, actors, etc.) generally had a positive experience whereas more rigid personalities (cops, clergy, etc.) often had a frightening one.

    I believe actor James Coburn talked about taking part.

    MoDoJoJo (love that moniker!) is certainly no “Our Man Flint.”

  24. 24.

    D.N. Nation

    @Interrobang:

    I’ve never tried pot edibles, so I really personally don’t know what the effects are

    From experience, far, far more targeted than just smoking, but nothing you can’t handle as long as you aren’t a rookie or a schmuck. MoDo is both, natch.

  25. 25.

    Jacel

    You’d think, with her having been around Aaron Sorkin, that she’d have absorbed some “don’t do that” lessons on How To Drug.

    Sorkin: “I had a window where I could fly to Vegas on a Friday, get high all night, and then return to L.A. the next day. I’d do this three times a year, and it was amazing I never got caught. I was the worst criminal. I had a four-dollar pipe, and the bowl was made of metal. It showed up on the monitor at Burbank airport and they asked to search my bag.”

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/22/aaron-sorkin-the-hardest-_n_734967.html

  28. 28.

    Ash Can

    Oh good grief, what a moron. I could almost, kinda-sorta believe she had something of a point with her lack-of-information/labeling/warning/etc. complaint. Almost. But now, seeing this, I know that the only point she’ll ever have is the one no one will see when she’s wearing a hat.

  31. 31.

    CONGRATULATIONS!

    Same with the NYT reporting about how their Tesla ran out of juice when they took it for a test drive.

    @Calouste: That is no more or less than what they’ve done with this utterly ridiculous hit piece. Yeah, if you haven’t smoked since the 60s, or whenever Dowd was last relevant, then yeah, you’re going to have a freakfit if you eat an entire bag of edibles!

    Shit, way back in my misspent youth (actually spent in a fashion that I’m ridiculously proud of) I ignored my drummer buddy’s admonition to “only eat one” of his delicious Special Rice Krispie treats. Given the magnitude of weed this gentleman consumed on a daily basis, ignoring his warning was one of the more stupid things I’ve ever done in my life.

    It was not a pleasant experience. Why? Because of the demon weed? No, it was because I acted like a total dumbfuck and disregarded warnings from someone who knew better.

    JUST LIKE DOWD DID.

  32. 32.

    GregB

    Maureen Dowd is Bizarro Hunter S. Thompson.

    She’s working on her new book Cheer and Groveling on the Campaign Trail.

  33. 33.

    ultraviolet thunder

    Also, too: “This is a bottle of liquor. Don’t drink the whole thing.”

  34. 34.

    J R in WV

    What a marroon! Lying is second nature with her, never gave a thought that someone might follow up on her stupidity and catch her out.

    They have been caught several times with reporters copying others’ stories or making things up, here’s a lead opinion writer making up important details in order to slant a piece her particular way, will she get disciplined?

    I doubt it. Lost all respect for the NY Times some time ago.

  35. 35.

    Pogonip

    Someone her age, who attended college in the ’60’s, doesn’t know how to roll a joint? I can’t believe that, and that whopper of a lie makes the whole rest of the story suspect.

  38. 38.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @GregB: Mrs Grundy with subscriptions to People, US and Entertainment Weekly, trying (and failing) to be the Hunter S Thompson of her book club

    she had to run off to a Mitt Romney documentary screening.

    “had to run off”? I suspect she could have somehow obtained a copy. That especially confused me because it happened in Denver (no?), who was there to see her being seen on the scene?

  39. 39.

    jl

    @eric:

    ” someone should tell her not to eat the yellow snow. ”

    But that is the problem. It would not do any good.

  40. 40.

    CONGRATULATIONS!

    I can’t help but read this as the Establishment trying to discredit legal weed. I’m biased in that I’m pro-legalisation for a bunch of reasons, but still, this stinks on ice.

    @Interrobang: This one little article is the tip of a very large iceberg that has been in motion for over a year now. They are frantically clutching at straws, tossing everything bad they can find in an attempt to discredit/stop the movement.

    I do not think they will succeed, but this is not a done deal. Not yet.

  41. 41.

    Betty Cracker

    I must undertake a junket to Colorado, test that ultra-potent weed and live-blog my experience. For science, of course. Who will crowd-fund me?

  42. 42.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    From the article: When Matt Brown, co-founder of tourism company My 420 Tours, landed the January phone call from Dowd’s assistant he jumped at the opportunity to show her around. He picked up Dowd and her friend at the Four Seasons Hotel and spent three-to-four hours with them
    Wasn’t one of the hooks in her article that she was alone and scared and confused (not for the first time, I suspect)? Did her friend ditch her? Hook up with one of the Mittlets at the Willard screening and go out for ice cream?

    “She got some bud, some edibles and when we got back to the hotel she had to run off to a Mitt Romney documentary screening. She asked me, ‘Will you roll a joint for me? I don’t know how to do it.’
    I’m sure she wanted to bring the joint back to Georgetown so she and Michiko and Alessandra could pass it around one night after Gossip Girl and giggle at how wild and crazy they are, and tell stories about that time they got wild in college

  46. 46.

    Betty Cracker

    PS: Is there another Mittens documentary? Or was Dowd screening the one that ran on Netflix?

  47. 47.

    MattR

    @Betty Cracker: If we make it a Balloon Juice meet up, will we have a large enough sample size to make it a legitimate study?

    (EDIT: Pretty sure it is the same documentary based on the Jan 2014 time frame)

    (EDIT 2: More proof that marijuana creates lazy slackers? It took MoDo more than 4 months to write that column after trying pot just once. )

  49. 49.

    lamh36

    Bergdahl Walked Away Before, Military Report Says

    A classified military report detailing the Army’s investigation into the disappearance of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl in June 2009 says that he had wandered away from assigned areas before — both at a training range in California and at his remote outpost in Afghanistan — and then returned, according to people briefed on it.

    The roughly 35-page report, completed two months after Sergeant Bergdahl left his unit, concludes that he most likely walked away of his own free will from his outpost in the darkness of night, and it criticized lax security practices and poor discipline within his unit. But it stops short of concluding that there is solid evidence that Sergeant Bergdahl intended to permanently desert.

  53. 53.

    Mnemosyne

    @lamh36:

    I’ve seen a couple of the lawyers and/or ex-military on here say that that report basically blows any desertion case out of the water, because a legal charge of “desertion” under the UCMJ requires proof that the person was not planning to come back. If he had wandered away before and come back, the worst they can charge him with would be AWOL (absent without leave).

  56. 56.

    lamh36

    Obama answer today when asked at joint press conference today deserves reading and possible front paging.

    PRESIDENT OBAMA: I’m never surprised by controversies that are whipped up in Washington, all right? That’s — that’s par for the course. But I’ll repeat what I said two days ago. We have a basic principle. We do not leave anybody wearing the American uniform behind. We had a prisoner of war whose health had deteriorated and we were deeply concerned about. And we saw an opportunity and we seized it. And I make no apologies for that.

    We had discussed with Congress the possibility that something like this might occur. But because of the nature of the folks that we were dealing with and the fragile nature of these negotiations, we felt it was important to go ahead and do what we did. And we’re now explaining to Congress the details of how we moved forward.

    But this basic principle that we don’t leave anybody behind and this basic recognition that often means prisoner exchanges with enemies is not unique to my administration. It dates back to the beginning of our republic, and with respect to how we announced it, I think it was important for people to understand that this is not some abstraction. This is not a political football. You have a couple of parents whose kid volunteered to fight in a distant land who they hadn’t seen in five years and weren’t sure whether they’d ever see again.

    And as commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces, I am responsible for those kids, and I get letters from parents who say, if you are, in fact, sending my child into war, make sure that that child is being taken care of. And I write too many letters to folks who, unfortunately, don’t see their children again after fighting a war. I make absolutely no apologies for making sure that we get back a young man to his parents and that the American people understand that this is somebody’s child and that we don’t condition whether or not we make the effort to try to get them back.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/transcript-obama-defends-bergdahl-prisoner-swap/2014/06/05/2cdc88cc-ecbb-11e3-b98c-72cef4a00499_story.html?Post+generic=%3Ftid%3Dsm_twitter_washingtonpost

  58. 58.

    Belafon

    @lamh36: The fact that he did this before, and returned, will probably keep him from being charged with desertion. The fact that the unit he was part of was essentially leaderless will keep the trial really short.

  59. 59.

    jl

    @Betty Cracker:
    @Anoniminous:

    Need a dose response study first. Can get that started with one person.
    Betty, I’d like a limo with a blonde chauffeur. I need to arrive in CO rested and in a good mood for the study.

  60. 60.

    jl

    @beth:

    ” Oh for fuck’s sake – what if it was their kid? What the hell is wrong with these people? ”

    The god of media savvy is a demanding and jealous god.

  61. 61.

    MattR

    @lamh36: The amazing/pathetic thing is that if the Obama administration had leaked rumors of Bergdhal’s desertion in response to previous pressure (including by right wing politicians and pundits) to make a deal for his release, the same right wing assholes now calling for Bergdhal’s head for desertion or treason would instead be calling for Obama’s impeachment for slandering one of our troops while he is captured and unable to defend his reputation.

  64. 64.

    Roger Moore

    @beth:

    what if it was their kid? What the hell is wrong with these people?

    It isn’t their kid, and they lack empathy to consider or care what they would think if it were.

  65. 65.

    aimai

    @lamh36: Right–he walked away from the post and came back before. What is the evidence that he didn’t intend to come back this time? People leave their bases all the time and come back. Its not the same as desertion.

  66. 66.

    MattR

    @Certified Mutant Enemy: Isn’t everthing?

    @lamh36:

    The Obama administration has told senators it didn’t notify Congress about the pending swap of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl for five Taliban officials because the Taliban had threatened to kill him if the deal was made public before it happened.

    And Obama smartly realized that informing Congress was the same thing as making it public. If those fuckers ever did anything to engender trust, Obama wouldn’t have had to keep them in the dark. I can only imagine if these idiots were around for the Cuban Missle Crisis.

  67. 67.

    Ash Can

    WASHINGTON (AP) – The Obama administration has told senators it didn’t notify Congress about the pending swap of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl for five Taliban officials because the Taliban had threatened to kill him if the deal was made public, three congressional officials have told The Associated Press.

    Now, why on earth would administration officials not want to place an American serviceman’s life in the hands of a bunch of prima donnas whose number-one priority in life is getting television face time? I just don’t understand it.

  68. 68.

    NorthLeft12

    “And this type of insightful commentary can be yours for merely pennies per day!” – Publisher NY Times

  69. 69.

    Thymezone

    We are measured by the things we talk about as if important.

    Do you really want to sit around talking about Maureen Fucking Dowd?

  70. 70.

    lamh36

    FUCK Joe Scarborough.
    I hope twitter lit his Ass up. When Chuck fuckin Todd is the voice of reason you GOP have officially jumped the shark!

    Scarborough And Todd Get Into On-Air Shouting Match Over Bergdahl’s Dad

    MSNBC’s Chuck Todd and Joe Scarborough got into a shouting match Thursday on “Morning Joe” over Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl’s father in a heated debate that ultimately centered around the host’s own parenting skills.

    The exchange began with Scarborough talking about a photo of President Obama with Bergdahl’s parents.

    Todd tried to steer the conversation away from from the father, Bob Bergdahl, contending that the POW’s parents shouldn’t be subjected to a pundit’s scrutiny, but Scarborough wasn’t having that.

    So when Todd objected to Scarborough’s characterization of the elder Bergdahl as a “man who’s reaching out to pro-Taliban forces [and] talking about killing Americans,” the show’s namesake reacted the way he usually does when he’s interrupted.

    “Wait,” Todd pleaded.

    “Who wants to wait me here?” a visibly angry Scarborough shot back.

    Todd held firm, but so did Scarborough. Crosstalk ensued.

    “No, but Joe, Joe, let’s not — don’t criticize the parents. Don’t criticize the parents in here,” Todd said.

    Scarborough doesn’t see it that way and he went on to give a noisy lecture about what he would have done had his own son grown as disillusioned with the military as Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl apparently did prior to his 2009 disappearance.

    Todd considered this “backseat driving how someone parents,” but Scarborough said he’s qualified to weigh-in.

    “No, that is not backseat driving,” he scolded Todd. “I am a father!”

    Todd was rendered speechless, shaking his head and mustering an exasperated “wow.” His involvement in the discussion was over, but Scarborough wasn’t finished. He continued to relate his own experiences as a father to the Bergdahl saga and at one point he appeared to ask his usually obsequious panelists for some support.

  71. 71.

    Origuy

    Sarah Jeong of the Guardian asks what would happen if other NYT columnists got high:

    Thomas L Friedman eats weed brownies with his daughter’s roommate at Yale and has a bad time

    Reminds me of the last time I visited Thailand. What a country! What a place! Full of life, and moisture, like this brownie. Kids these days don’t eat brownies like we used to in the old days. The brownies of our time were unicycles. These brownies are tricycles. But tricycles are obsolete. Or are they?

  72. 72.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @lamh36:

    Obama answer today when asked at joint press conference today deserves reading and possible front paging.

    I second this, and for my money, I’d kind of like the FP to be Soonergrunt. Anyone could put it up, of course, and several would provide useful commentary, but Sooner always brings an exceptionally clear-eyed and thoughtful analysis of military-related topics.

  74. 74.

    jl

    @lamh36:

    I think many of these serious daddy media pundits are mentally or emotionally disturbed. I’m thinking O’Reilly, Mornin’, Matthews, Hannity. One of these days one of them will have a melt down on air.Mornin’ might punch some one out some day on the set. I hope not, but sometimes I wonder.

    Matthews has started to melt down many times on air, but someday… he won’t be able to pull back from the abyss.

  75. 75.

    Belafon

    @lamh36:

    “man who’s reaching out to pro-Taliban forces [and] talking about killing Americans,”

    My parents were bringing this up yesterday. Does anyone know exactly why he was saying that they are referencing?

  79. 79.

    rikyrah

    Good Afternoon, Everyone :)

    Today was Peanut’s graduation from Kindergarten.

    So, we went to that. Then took her to a graduation breakfast.

    Her class had arranged for a picnic in the park this afternoon, and we went there. Just returned from that. It was nice. Peanut and a few of her classmates parked themselves in the sand of the volleyball courts, and I helped her make sand castles.

    It was a good day :)

  80. 80.

    exurbanmom

    I’m gonna use her story next time I teach a class on false generalizations. “I had a bad trip ergo it should be illegal” is an excellent example of poor writing.

  81. 81.

    Ash Can

    @SiubhanDuinne: I’m thinking Soonergrunt might not be able to get through the first paragraph of his discussion without kicking a hole in something.

  82. 82.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @J R in WV:

    Lying is second nature with her,

    As it is with all Villager vermin.

    Wipe them out. All of them. To include their spawn.

  84. 84.

    Mandalay

    @lamh36: From the video on your link, Joe Scarborough says of Bowe Bergdahl’s father:
    “Barack Obama has his arm around a man who is reaching out to pro-Taliban forces, talking about killing Americans…”.

    There may be better examples of why cable news ratings are in the sewer, but I haven’t seen them.

  86. 86.

    the Conster

    @Belafon:

    I’ve come to the conclusion that there are only two kinds of people in the world – those that have run themselves off the rails and over the cliff in their own personal crazy train because of Obama’s election, and the rest of us that watch the mounting pileup at the bottom of the cliff in wonder at the bugfuck insanity of it all.

  87. 87.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @exurbanmom: It’s a typical sample of MoDo’s writing.

    Tells you a great deal about the standards of the Village, though. As long as the Village narrative is supported on any given topic, they do not care how shitty the writing is.

  88. 88.

    Belafon

    @the Conster: Agree, but I’m the person who keeps them at least from going over the edge. I was trying to find out if anyone knew exactly what the dad actually said so I can update them. The don’t watch FOX, but a lot of the people they talk to do, and so I have to balance that.

  89. 89.

    Suffern ACE

    @lamh36: Yes, Joe. When you kid is a soldier, spanking them until they think rightthought is really an option.

  90. 90.

    Barbara

    So Maureen is an idiot, but I have to protest a little bit because it is the job of regulators to protect idiots from themselves when it comes to ingesting drugs that might not be adequately labeled. So her experience shows her to be really careless, maybe even reckless, but it does seem to me that marijuana advocates are living in an alternative universe or at least trying to be judged by alternative standards. A pharma company that puts a powerful pain reliever in the form of a lollipop is shocking and should really be prohibited, but yet, a company can put marijuana in cookies and candy and that’s no cause for concern? Marijuana is certainly no worse than alcohol, but that’s not really saying anything positive.

    Just say that I feel conflicted about this debate.

  91. 91.

    Mnemosyne

    @Belafon:

    As I understand it, Bob Bergdahl essentially said “Thank you” in Pashtun, but (as one should imagine in a language where most speakers are Muslim), it included thanks to God, aka “Allah,” which caused the ‘wingers heads to fucking explode.

  93. 93.

    pseudonymous in nc

    @Interrobang:

    I can’t help but read this as the Establishment trying to discredit legal weed.

    Nah. I think there’s substance to the belief that the initial regulations were shaped more towards High Times subscribers than weed-curious neophytes.

    Colorado will fuck up a bit; Washington state will fuck up a bit; whichever states come next will fuck up a bit; eventually there’ll be a set of regulations that more or less work.

  94. 94.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Mnemosyne: Like I said in a previous thread, if you’re going to say “God is Great” don’t say it in Arabic, or the wingtards will think you’re an atheist.

    “Gott is Gross” will probably freak them out, too, because Scheisskopfen are just that.

  95. 95.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @pseudonymous in nc: This is how things work. The first take will fuck it up a bit, and then you fine tune to unfuck it. It never ceases to amaze me how some people (particularly Village vermin) don’t seem to grasp this concept.

  97. 97.

    Helen

    @the Conster: That tweet was sent out three days before his son was rescued. Did it ever occur to the wingers that he was LYING, you know, to get what he wanted?

    Do the wingers know anything about, LYING, you know, to get what they want?

  98. 98.

    J R in WV

    So Dowd had a connection to a pot tourism entrepreneur before she even landed!

    All Alone and I Got So Scared!

    All she had to do is stick with her minders and she would have had a great time – or at least would have had a much harder time writing a negative story about pot. Obviously that was the whole point of the trip!

    One more fallacious Reefer Madness story – this time from the N Y Times!!

    Barbara, I agree that anything containing THC or related compounds should be fully labeled, and dosage level recommendations per unit of consumable should be clear and specific. But edibles using pot have been traditional for a very long time, decades at least, if not centuries.

    No one should be using these kinds of things alone, especially as a novice. Since I was 18 (45 years ago) it was common knowledge that you didn’t leave a drunk passed out friend alone because they might drown on their own vomit. You also didn’t need to be a user to know that you didn’t try anything new and different by yourself.

    Ms Dowd blew it on all these levels, and published a misleading piece about her own ill-advised adventure, without disclosing that she had been given professional advice as to how to go about her big legal pot adventure and didn’t follow it at all. Unethical on several levels.

    If it were a more responsible publication than the NY Times (and I can’t believe I need to write this sentence, but I do!) she would be discharged immediately. Just like Judith Miller!

  99. 99.

    WaterGirl

    @lamh36: If that’s the cover of TIME, they are more stupid than dirt and whoever made that decision should be take out and shot.

    Edit: That is an unbelievably offensive cover.

  100. 100.

    cmorenc

    You folks claiming MoDo made up a fictional account are way off-base here: it’s highly likely it happened pretty much the way she claimed it did, except she left out some key details about the precautions her tourguide and the shop manager warned her about regarding the edibles. Nor was she deliberately trying to do any sort of negative “hit piece” about legal marijuana in Colorado. Even three squares of a very small mj chocolate bar can put many folks into zombie couch-lock for hours – been there, done that and I’ve eaten space cakes in Amsterdam before and remained functional. Her experiene with the Colo mj chocolate bar pretty much parallels mine, except I didn’t have any paranoid fears (I understood what was happening).

    THAT SAID: what her account DOES reveal is what can happen when someone who is a recklessly inexperienced idiot ingests the edibles alone in a hotel room. A rough (though imperfect) analogy is someone who is a very inexperienced drinker begins gulping pina coladas fueled by everclear (i.e. the alcohol taste is hidden by the strong citrus flavor)…alone in a hotel room, and has no concept of how drunk they’re getting until the room starts spinning and they collapse on the bed drunk on their ass and starts feeling a bit sick. For sure, the effects of mj and alcohol are quite different, but the similarity is the disconnect between sufficient real-time feedback between amount injested and ability to perceive the eventual strength of effect of what they’ve injested until too late.

    She reveals herself to be a reckless idiot in her column, rather than a liar (except for leaving out the parts about cautions given by her tourguide and shop manager).

  102. 102.

    J R in WV

    @cmorenc:

    Leaving out the professional advice she received turned the whole article into a big fat fabrication, Reefer Madness revisited. She should be ashamed. They told her not to eat the whole thing, that it was 16 doses, and she ate nearly 4. Much like drinking two bottles of champaign at once!

    Cutting that one detail is what changed her experience from her own irresponsibility to how dangerous pot is. She changed the article from shedding light on the subject to shrouding the subject in darkness with one omitted sentence about her experience as it really was.

    Shameless!

  103. 103.

    MattR

    @cmorenc:

    She reveals herself to be a reckless idiot in her column, rather than a liar (except for leaving out the parts about cautions given by her tourguide and shop manager).

    IMO, the problem with using that distinction to excuse MoDo is that the only reason you recognize it is because you already understand enough about the drug. If she was writing about a comparable experimentation with alcohol, pretty much everyone has enough experience to recognize the foolishness of downing half a bottle of vodka as your initiation into that world (EDIT: or downing pina coladas as in your example – not sure how I missed your second paragraph the first time through). But if you are not familiar enough with marijuana, you would think she was being at least semi-reasonable rather than a reckless idiot which leads to the conclusion that the drug is much more dangerous than it is.

  104. 104.

    WaterGirl

    @lamh36: Un-fucking-believable!

    What’s the first thing these whiny bastards in congress do – when they are basically told that they weren’t told ahead of time because the Taliban would kill the soldier if news got out, with the implication that they wouldn’t keep the secret? They fucking leak to the press about their latest briefing!

    Am I the only one who sees the irony in this?

    Edit: sorry, I don’t usually swear unless I’m really upset. I guess this is one of those times.

  105. 105.

    MattR

    @WaterGirl:

    Am I the only one who sees the irony in this?

    Depends on who the unnamed sources are. If they are Democrats trying to counter the attacks on Obama, not so much. Otherwise, heap loads of it. (EDIT: History says the latter is a better bet)

  106. 106.

    Barbara

    MattR, not defending Dowd, but there is a real problem with the notion that the drug is in FOOD, because maybe her real problem is she can’t resist candy or cookies. There are a lot of people like that — now, if they are planning to use mj treats to get high they should definitely have on hand a full complement of non-mj treats, but you see the problem. This is one reason why gummi bear vitamins don’t have iron — because it is actually possible for some little kid (or even a few adults) to like them so much they eat enough to give themselves iron poisoning. ERs have seen this with regular vitamins. Same issue with baby aspirin. Manufacturers of drugs are actually supposed to take these sorts of things into account in devising their products. Maybe the answer here is to have less concentrated formulas. But I can tell you that I rarely stop at 1/8 or 1/16 of any sweet thing. If I were knowingly experimenting with mj, which I don’t plan to do, I would not do what MoDo did, but I still think there is a bit of a problem here.

  107. 107.

    WaterGirl

    @MattR: Ah, I hadn’t considered that. As far as I recall, there was only one person in the article who commented for attribution, and that was Angus King. He supported Obama’s decision.

    The rest of these rat fuckers can start marching into the sea.

  108. 108.

    Mnemosyne

    @Barbara:

    I’ve been on Weight Watchers for years and, yes, people binging on candy/cookies/sweets is really, really common. Putting single doses into individual bags or wrappers (like they do for those “100 Calorie Snacks”) would probably be a good first step.

    We already know that people ignore the posted “serving size” on regular food, so why would we expect them to automatically honor the stated serving size just because it also has an active ingredient?

  110. 110.

    MattR

    @Barbara: I don’t disagree with you. I definitely think better labelling and smaller package sizes make sense. But I also think there is some validity to one of the points raised in the article linked in the OP. The guy was basically arguing that because pot is an underground drug, people aren’t as familiar with it and therefore aren’t as good at figuring out how to experiment/ease into it. When you are surrounded by alcohol growing up you know that downing several pina coladas or some other sweet mixed drink right away on your first time is going to lead to a bad ending. You might do it anyway and you might be more likely to overdo it initially when drinking sweet mixed drinks instead of beer or wine but for the most part you have a rough idea of the risk you are taking, the consequences that might entail and some suggestions for getting through it as painlessly as possible. The point I was trying to make in my previous comment was that by leaving out the details of the warnings she received and ignored, MoDo is trying to twist people’s inexperience with pot into fear of it.

  112. 112.

    Ripley

    If you play a Mitt Romney documentary backwards, a voice keeps repeating “(Ron) Paul is dead…”.

  113. 113.

    WaterGirl

    @chopper: McCain is an embarrassment to our country. Seriously, does he not know there’s this thing called the internet?

  114. 114.

    the Conster

    @Helen:

    Maybe he wasn’t lying. Maybe he was saying what he really meant to get what he wanted, which was for his son to come home. So fucking what? Any parent that wouldn’t do that, like Joe fucking Scarborough, isn’t a good parent. Fuck Joe Scarborough and his judgments from his armchair, for principles that he’ll never have to test.

  116. 116.

    Thymezone

    @lamh36:

    Morning Joe has sunk to its lowest low ever. Joe and his demonic elves are hopped up on the Bergdahl Amphetamine and letting it all hang out. Not just disgusting, but forever … forever .. disqualifies Joe and his idiot woman sidekick ever being taken seriously on any subject again. Ever, no do-overs, no forgiveness, no quarter.

    Absolutely the most fucked up week of television I have ever seen on that show, and as you all know, we have seen a lot. Fuck Scarborough and everything he stands for.

  117. 117.

    ixnay

    She should have watched the Barney Miller episode where Wojo’s new girlfriend sends him with brownies and the squad room gets baked. Jack Soo, “mooshy, mooshy…” One the most hysterical half-hours of any sitcom.

  118. 118.

    LanceThruster

    @Ben Cisco:

    Oh, I’m a Powerpuff ‘Bronie’ alright.

    Mojo Jojo: That’s all just well enough, because in reality there is only room enough in this world for one Mojo Jojo. One shall be the number of Mojo Jojos in the world, and the number of Mojo Jojos in the world shall be one. Two Mojo Jojos is too many, and three is right out. So the only Mojo Jojo there is room for in the world shall be me.

    Mojo Jojo: [hearing Bubbles speak like him] I do not talk like that! The way I communicate is much different! I do not reiterate, repeat, reinstate the same thing over and over again! I am clear, concise, to the point!

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