The man who co-invented liquid methadone in the 1970s is now betting his retirement on a new line of medical cannabis products in Michigan.

Among them is Parachute: a pure-CBD pill that dissolves underneath the tongue and is effective within five minutes -- meant to help rescue someone who has gotten too high.

"People take edibles and then they get too high -- it can be pretty dreadful," said Steve Goldner, founder of Pure Green. "CBD is a tremendous ameliorator."

The experience of being too high from an edible has been famously -- and almost infamously -- chronicled by Maureen Dowd in a 2014 column for the New York Times. Dowd was in Colorado reporting on the cannabis industry -- and decided to sample a medicated chocolate bar. The encounter, she wrote, left her in a hallucinatory state for the next eight hours.

Steve Goldner (Courtesy | Eileen Lee)

While Goldner’s career has spanned both science and the law, it began in the New York Medical Examiner’s office. He was tasked with developing techniques to detect different drugs -- like marijuana and LSD -- during autopsies.

At the time, his friends were returning from the Vietnam War with serious heroin addictions. He wanted to help them recover. Shortly after starting his own lab in Long Island, he helped create the liquid formulation of methadone. It’s now the most common way to consume methadone.

Much of the latter part of career was spent as a Michigan-based consultant and lawyer, helping companies with health care products gain the approval of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. More recently he launched Pinnacle Labs in Troy to help establish testing standards for medical cannabis.

As Michigan laws prevent safety compliance facility owners from participating in any other aspect of the medical marijuana business, Goldner closed his lab and focused on starting Pure Green -- a medical marijuana processing company.

Unlike edible gummy candies or cookies infused with marijuana -- which can take several hours to be fully effective and have varying dosage recommendations -- Goldner has developed a line of medical marijuana products that are consumed more like traditional medication.

At his Inkster-based Pure Green facility, Goldner has created a line of mint-flavored tablets that dissolve under the tongue and promise to deliver effects within minutes.

“The advantage is that it gets absorbed like nitroglycerin,” Goldner said.

Goldner said he wanted to create medical marijuana products that were consumed more like traditional medication.

“For guys that want to take Viagra, we don’t tell them to roll it in a joint and smoke it,” Goldner said. “We don’t ask them to put it on a part of their anatomy and set their genitals on fire. That’s not how you dispense product.”

Goldner received his processing license from the state in September 2018 and since has made six different products at a facility in Inkster. This June Pure Green launched Parachute -- the rescue medication -- which Goldner said already has received strong interest.

Pure Green is also licensed to grow up to 6,000 medical marijuana plants at a location in Au Gres.

-- Amy Biolchini is the marijuana beat reporter for MLive. Contact her with questions, tips or comments at abiolch1@mlive.com. Read more from MLive about medical and recreational marijuana.