Two days after her column was published, Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd’s experience with edible marijuana is still a hot topic on the web. Dowd has reacted to the huge response her original column got. Meanwhile, the Colorado tour guide that worked with her back in January has said that she was warned about the risks.
As previously reported, Dowd wrote Tuesday about an experience in Colorado in January. She tried a caramel-chocolate flavored bar of edible marijuana and had a disastrous experience, writing that she became paranoid and, at one point, she felt convinced she was dead.
After the story went viral, My 420 Tours co-founder Matt Brown told The Cannabist that Dowd was warned about the effects of edible marijuana.
“She got the warning,” Brown told the site. “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.”
They spoke with Dowd about the differences between hatter and bubble hash and their effects. Brown later said that Dowd asked her to roll a joint for her, but she had to run off to see the Mitt Romney documentary Mitt, so they did not meet again.
On Thursday, Dowd sent a statement to The Cannabist, stating that she takes responsibility for “not knowing enough about what I was doing.” She continued, “I was focused more on the fun than the risks. In that sense, I’m probably like many other people descending on Denver.”
Colorado is one of two states where recreational marijuana is legal. Washington state is the other.