After her column detailing her nightmare experience with a chocolate bar made from the devil weed gave the entire Internet a good 24 hours of chuckles, the Colorado cannabis tour guide who advised Maureen Dowd now tells the Cannabist that the New York Times columnist has really only one person to blame for her bad experience: herself.
"She got the warning," says Matt Brown, co-founder of My 420 Tours. Claiming he spent a good three-to-four hours giving Dowd the lowdown on how to be a responsible marijuana user in Colorado, where the drug is now legal for recreational consumption.
“She did what all the reporters did. She listened. She bought some samples — I don’t remember what exactly," Brown continued. "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."
"We talked about edibles and how they affect everyone differently," Brown recalled. "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."
Brown also says that, at one point, Dowd asked him to roll a joint for her. She didn't know how and was in a rush to see "Mitt."
While Brown holds no ill will against Dowd for writing about her unpleasant experience, the pot tour guide says he wishes she had treated her ingestion of the substance a bit more responsibly — like she would if she were drinking alcohol.
"All of the problems that happened in her hotel room as she’s breaking off pieces of the infused candy bar," Brown said, "there’s something missing. When she was learning how to drink alcohol she could have seen other adults using moderation and other adults in bars puking and making an ass out of themselves — because it’s enjoyed communally and legally in bars."
Still, he's not too worried that Dowd's piece has irrevocably harmed the movement to keep pot legal in Colorado. "[T]he column wasn’t viewed as all that serious," Brown says.
"I don’t see too many people making a serious point in the statehouse next session citing Maureen Dowd’s column. It’ll be a bubble. It’ll go away, and in the future we won’t look to Maureen Dowd for in-depth journalism on the Colorado marijuana industry."
[h/t TPM]
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