Marijuana edibles and infused products such as snack bars, olive oils and tinctures have flourished into a gourmet market of chocolate truffles, whoopie pies and hard candies as Colorado and Washington states legalized the recreational use of pot in the past year.
The proliferation of marijuana edibles for both medical and recreational purposes is giving rise to a cottage industry of baked goods, candies, infused oils, cookbooks and classes that promises a slow burn as more states legalize the practice and awareness spreads about the best ways to deliver the drug.
“You’re seeing a lot of these types of products like cannabis cookbooks,” said Erik Altieri, spokesman for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.
Photo: AFP
“They’ve always been popular among a subset of marijuana, but with the fact that more and more people from the mainstream are able to consume, there’s a lot more interest,” Altieri said.
Many pot users turn to edibles because they don’t like to inhale or smell the smoke or just want variety. For many people who are sick or in pain, controlled doses of edibles or tinctures can deliver a longer-lasting therapeutic dose that doesn’t give them the high.
And there’s money to be made.
BlueKudu, in Denver, started producing marijuana chocolate bars for medicinal purposes three years ago. Since recreational use became legal this year in Colorado, owner Andrew Schrot said, the wholesale business has more than doubled its sales from several hundred chocolate bars sold a day through dispensaries to more than 1,000, at US$9 to US$17 a piece.
“There seems to be quite a bit of intrigue about the infused products from the general public and consumer, especially tourists,” Schrot said.
POT COOKING CLASSES
Cooking classes have sprung up. One in Denver — led by a chef who has turned out chocolate-covered bacon and Swedish meatballs with a marijuana-infused glaze — has grown so popular that it will be offered every week in August. It’s also part of a vacation package that provides pot tourists with a stay at a cannabis-friendly hotel (vaporizer and private smoke deck included), a visit to dispensaries and growing operations, and the cooking class.
Students are advised not to smoke before they come to class because there’s a lot to learn about the dosing and they will be sampling foods along the way.
“By the end of the class, everybody’s pretty stoned,” said founder J.J. Walker.
Mountain High Suckers in Denver sells lollipops and lozenges for medical marijuana users and plans to release treats for recreational users at the end of August. The company hopes they will take off.
“People are turning the corner and making lots of money in the rec department, and we expect to almost double the business in a year,” said Chad Tribble, co-owner of Mountain High Suckers in Denver.
It’s not just a hobby or business; there’s a science involved.
THC, marijuana’s psychoactive chemical, must be smoked or heated — as in cooked — to be activated. When ingested rather than inhaled, it provides a longer-lasting and often more intense feeling.
Users of pot edibles, such as cookies, are often advised to eat only a portion so they don’t get too high. Education about proper dosing has become a priority after at least one death and a handful of hospital visits were linked to consuming too much of an edible.
The concept isn’t new. High Times, a 40-year-old monthly magazine based in New York, has always featured a cooking column with a recipe. At least 40,000 people attended its Cannabis Cup in Denver in April, a sort of trade show that includes judging of marijuana edibles, said editor-in-chief Chris Simunek. The magazine said its Official High Times Cannabis Cookbook is the top-selling title of the five it offers.
“Like everything else in marijuana at the moment, it’s sort of experiencing a renaissance where the more people get interested, the more experiments they do with it,” Simunek said.
Growing up in a rural, religious community in western Canada, Kyle McCarthy loved hockey, but once he came out at 19, he quit, convinced being openly gay and an active player was untenable. So the 32-year-old says he is “very surprised” by the runaway success of Heated Rivalry, a Canadian-made series about the romance between two closeted gay players in a sport that has historically made gay men feel unwelcome. Ben Baby, the 43-year-old commissioner of the Toronto Gay Hockey Association (TGHA), calls the success of the show — which has catapulted its young lead actors to stardom -- “shocking,” and says
The 2018 nine-in-one local elections were a wild ride that no one saw coming. Entering that year, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) was demoralized and in disarray — and fearing an existential crisis. By the end of the year, the party was riding high and swept most of the country in a landslide, including toppling the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in their Kaohsiung stronghold. Could something like that happen again on the DPP side in this year’s nine-in-one elections? The short answer is not exactly; the conditions were very specific. However, it does illustrate how swiftly every assumption early in an
Inside an ordinary-looking townhouse on a narrow road in central Kaohsiung, Tsai A-li (蔡阿李) raised her three children alone for 15 years. As far as the children knew, their father was away working in the US. They were kept in the dark for as long as possible by their mother, for the truth was perhaps too sad and unjust for their young minds to bear. The family home of White Terror victim Ko Chi-hua (柯旗化) is now open to the public. Admission is free and it is just a short walk from the Kaohsiung train station. Walk two blocks south along Jhongshan
Jan. 19 to Jan. 25 In 1933, an all-star team of musicians and lyricists began shaping a new sound. The person who brought them together was Chen Chun-yu (陳君玉), head of Columbia Records’ arts department. Tasked with creating Taiwanese “pop music,” they released hit after hit that year, with Chen contributing lyrics to several of the songs himself. Many figures from that group, including composer Teng Yu-hsien (鄧雨賢), vocalist Chun-chun (純純, Sun-sun in Taiwanese) and lyricist Lee Lin-chiu (李臨秋) remain well-known today, particularly for the famous classic Longing for the Spring Breeze (望春風). Chen, however, is not a name
RSS