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Marijuana-infused items at Julie's Natural Edibles in Denver, Colorado.

(Kristyna Wentz-Graff/Staff )

Oregon regulators trying to find a way to safely craft a recreational marijuana program have asked lawmakers for a delay of up to a year to figure out the best approach for pot-infused edibles: candy, cookies and other foods laced with THC. This would allow the Oregon Liquor Control Commission, charged with helping the Legislature implement and later regulate the voter-approved Measure 91, to focus on the equally gnarly challenges of making retail pot available in storefront settings by 2016 and in reconciling a recreational pot trade with Oregon's already mature medical marijuana program. It's a smart request, and the Legislature's joint committee on implementing Measure 91 should say yes to it. Oregonians can wait a bit for their magic brownies.

Mainly, the OLCC wants to know how to ensure the creation of food products with safe marijuana dosages and to demand edibles whose serving sizes are carefully metered and recognizable to consumers. It has wisely asked the Oregon Health Authority to convene a panel to determine whether the Colorado and Washington standard of 10 milligrams per serving has pharmacologic meaning and, if followed as a guide in consumption, ensures safety. Separately but significantly, the agency asks, in an April 1 memo: "How many servings should there be in one product?" It may seem like a simple arithmetic question, but it cuts to a potentially dangerous challenge in dosing: If you have in your hands what looks like a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup that is laced with five servings' worth of THC, you'll be in a world of pharmacologic hurt if you fail to note the instructions, break it into pieces and nibble on just one tidbit. Perhaps THC shouldn't be delivered in multiple doses at all in one food item.

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Editorial Agenda 2015



Make Portland a city that works

Get pot right

Smart choices for education

Help rural Oregon

Keep people and goods moving

Foster small business growth

Track health reforms

_______________________________

Noelle Crombie of The Oregonian/OregonLive filed a compelling report from Colorado, where edibles and dosing blur have caught state regulators off-guard and where the rules change mid-stream following several unfortunate consumer experiences, none worse than the death last year of a 19-year-old after eating a cookie with more than six servings of THC in it. If Oregon is to get pot right - in part by protecting young people - edibles need not only to be sanely dosed but properly tested for pesticides and other contaminants, legibly packaged and stored far away from the busy hands of children. The OLCC's April memo to lawmakers makes a persuasive case: "The rules drafted by both Colorado and Washington are possible models, but OLCC wishes to work with experts in children behavior to assure that products sold in OLCC licensed retail establishments cannot be confused with non-marijuana products."

A delay in allowing edibles will cost real money, however, by initially curbing recreational marijuana sales potential for growers, producers and retailers - and, in turn, reducing tax revenues from marijuana's sale. About 40 percent of recreational cannabis sales in Colorado last year went to marijuana-infused edibles, Crombie reported, and there is no reason to think edibles wouldn't claim a robust piece of the market in Oregon. The "price" in missing revenue, however, will have been worth it in ensuring the public's safety down the line.

In the months immediately ahead, Oregon must make peace with a not inconsiderable constituency that voted no to legal recreational marijuana in those neighborhoods and communities that may wish to have no part of it. In that sense Measure 91's implementation will be a civil test: of patience, tolerance and pluralistic democracy. A successful implementation, meanwhile, also means that Oregonians will find a way to embrace a recreational pot market while avoiding pitfalls already seen, and under correction, in Washington and Colorado. Ensuring that edibles are reliably safe and in the right hands - both essential for success - will simply take more time.