DENVER – The haze surrounding marijuana edibles and their dosing eased a bit last week when state regulators adopted an emergency rule that aims to curb overdoses and offer certainty for inexperienced users.
Concerns were raised after a string of incidents, one of which included a Denver man who allegedly shot and killed his wife in April under the influence of both cannabis edibles and prescription pain medication.
Another incident that stole headlines involved a college student visiting Denver in April who jumped to his death from a hotel balcony after eating marijuana-infused cookies.
The debate intensified in June when Pulitzer-winning New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd wrote in a column of her “hallucinatory” experience on edibles.
“As my paranoia deepened, I became convinced that I had died and no one was telling me,” Dowd wrote.
It’s been widely reported that Dowd might have ignored instructions about how much to eat, but the column still damaged a budding industry that continues to grapple with demonstrating its responsibility to the world.
The new rules limit the potency of servings in marijuana edibles as well as address packaging requirements.
The guidelines come as retail marijuana is expected to go on sale in Durango sometime this fall.
“The Marijuana Enforcement Division’s primary concern is to ensure public safety. Regulation of the marijuana industry is a matter of utmost public concern,” said Natriece Bryant, spokeswoman for the Department of Revenue, which oversees marijuana enforcement. “The Marijuana Enforcement Division feels that clear serving-size requirements within the industry is a vital part of responsible regulation.”
Specifically, the rules clarify that edible manufacturers must keep servings to 10 milligrams of THC, the active psychoactive property in marijuana. Product units could climb to as high as 100 milligrams , but each serving in the unit must be kept to 10 milligrams .
By November, each demarked serving in the unit must be easily separable, similar to a KitKat bar. If the unit is too difficult to break into servings – like a cookie or a brownie – then the unit must be limited to 10 milligrams .
Regulators also addressed infused drinks, mandating that containers or bottles should be marked with dividing lines to indicate how much a person has drunk, similar to a cough-syrup bottle.
“These new rules are an important step forward in Colorado’s trailblazing work to regulate the adult marijuana market,” said Jordan Wellington, director of compliance for Denver-based marijuana legal firm Vicente Sederberg. “The state has identified an issue of concern, specifically the accidental overconsumption of marijuana-infused products, and has addressed it through regulation.”
Wellington pointed out that the rule also offers incentives in the form of reduced testing burdens for businesses that produce individual edible units limited to 10 milligrams. Those manufacturers could seek to validate potency for single-serving products, which would reduce their testing burden. Multiple-serving edibles, however, are not eligible.
Joe Hodas, spokesman for Denver-based Dixie Elixirs & Edibles, one of the state’s largest manufacturers of marijuana-infused drinks and edibles, said he would rather have seen the free market dictate production.
“I don’t know that mandating a cap on everything the way that the rules read was the only answer, but I think it will get us the same end result, which is that the consumer will have more of a choice in their products,” he said.
Hodas is a bit concerned with the November compliance date, but he is hopeful that his company will be able to make the costly changes in packaging and production in time.
“We are all in agreement that we want to be a safe and a prosperous and a good industry,” he said.
Regulators still have much work ahead of them for edibles and marijuana concentrates. Concentrates are made through an extraction process that uses a solvent, such as butane, to eliminate all plant matter, leaving users with a product that is high in potency.
Additional concerns about children getting their hands on edibles and extreme potency levels associated with concentrates continue to raise fears.
Lawmakers passed two bills this year to address the issue.
House Bill 1366 mandated that edible marijuana products be readily identifiable as containing THC. A working group began meeting Friday to establish a standard symbol. A rule must be adopted by January 2016.
House Bill 1361 addressed the concentrate side by requiring regulators to establish a concentrate equivalency to flower marijuana by January 2016. One ounce is the legal amount allowed in Colorado, though an ounce of concentrate contains a much higher potency.
“Our only remaining concern is that with the way the rules exist, they still allow multiserving products,” said Rachel O’Bryan, an attorney who co-founded Smart Colorado, a group dedicated to protecting children from marijuana. “But, overall, it’s a great step.”
pmarcus@durangoherald.com
