Maureen Dowd Meets Willie Nelson, Her Marijuana “Miyagi”

When journalist Maureen Dowd had her famous marijuana mishap this past year, she became the subject of much criticism and ridicule. Her lack of knowledge and proper research led to a harrowing edibles experience which could have otherwise been avoided.

Personally, I felt a little bad for Dowd. While her story was perhaps tinged with some reefer madness and misguided comments, I couldn’t help but feel that her experience was merely the inevitable product of ignorance meets legalization. Without proper labeling and instructions, people like Dowd who have lived their whole lives outside of cannabis culture are surely prone to this type of unfortunate experience. Hell, I know people who have lived their whole lives in cannabis culture and have still had an uncomfortable experience with edibles.

Edibles truly are in their own class and require special caution and attention to dosage to avoid unpleasant experiences.

This is why I was mildly amused to see that Dowd had a chance to redeem herself, when none other than the “patron saint” of pot himself, Willie Nelson, invited Dowd to join him for a toke on his tour bus. Hip enough to understand that refusing such an offer would be downright foolish, Dowd accepted and met Nelson, who as she wrote, hoped would be her “Marijuana Miyagi.”

Nelson extended the invitation via a Rolling Stones article, after reading Dowd’s story detailing her bad trip. “Maybe she’ll read the label now!” he reportedly said with a laugh, before saying she was welcome to get high on his bus “anytime.” 

Well, Maureen took him up on that, and sat down with Nelson himself to talk pot. Sadly, she does not confess to toking up with Nelson in her article, but nevertheless the conversation produced some great insight.

“The same thing that happened to you happened to me one or two times when I was not aware of how much strength was in whatever I was eating,” Nelson confided to Dowd.“One time, I ate a bunch of cookies that, I knew they were laced but I didn’t worry about it. I just wanted to see what it would do, and I overdid it, naturally, and I was laying there, and it felt like the flesh was falling off my bones.

“Honestly, I don’t do edibles… I’d rather do it the old-fashioned way, because I don’t enjoy the high that the body gets. Although I realize there’s a lot of other people who have to have it that way, like the children that they’re bringing to Colorado right now for medical treatments. Those kids can’t smoke. So for those people, God bless ’em, we’re for it.”

Dowd writes that Nelson showed her his vaporizer, and though she doesn’t admit it, I like to think she wasn’t so dowdy as to pass up the opportunity to share a toke with Willie Nelson himself.

All in all, I have to hand it to Dowd for maintaining a good sense of humor about the entire fiasco. Despite becoming the literal poster child for bad edibles trips, she looks to the positive discussion that has emerged as a result of her unpleasant experience.

The image pictured above, an obvious reference to Dowd, was released as a billboard by the Marijuana Policy Project as part of their “Consume Responsibly” campaign. The educational campaign aims to inform and teach people how to safely consume cannabis edibles.

A quote from Jack Healy of The Times in Dowd’s original article put it well, “The whole industry was set up for people who smoked frequently. It needs to learn how to educate new users in the market. We have to create a culture of responsibility around edibles, so people know what to expect to feel.”

That culture of responsibility is emerging, and I feel confident in giving some credit to Dowd for speeding up the process. Mason Tvert, the director of communications for MPP seems to agree.

“Her column has raised awareness around the issue of marijuana consumer safety… It brought this issue to the attention of a lot of people who had not heard of it previously.” Tvert was quoted as saying about Dowd’s article. 

He went on to say, “Quite frankly she strikes me as a sensible person. This is the type of thing where people like this should want to talk about it—and she did. The mistake she made is very common and while she made a few comments that were off-base in her column, the overarching message of it was very important.”

Dowd also reported that, “Now… Colorado and Washington State have passed emergency rules to get better labeling and portion control on edibles, whose highs kick in more slowly and can be more intense than when the drug is smoked. Activists are also pushing to make sure there are stamps or shapes to distinguish pot snacks — which had, heretofore, been designed to mimic regular snacks — so that children don’t mistakenly ingest them.”

Although Dowd’s first experience with cannabis was a negative one, the NY Times journalist has not jumped on the anti-cannabis bandwagon, and for that I give her credit. She has approached the response light-heartedly, even saying she “loved” the billboard that references her bad trip, and would like to make it her “Christmas cards.”

Additionally, she hasn’t ruled out the possibility of trying cannabis again, writing that she went to Willie Nelson himself with the question, “So, Sensei, if I ever decide to give legal pot a whirl again, what do I need to know?”

And perhaps most importantly, it turns out that Dowd is on our side when it comes to the biggest question of all — legalization. “I’m in favor of legalization,” she told one reporter, “But, they needed some better warnings and portion control for edibles, with all the neophytes rushing to Denver.”

Only time will tell if Willie Nelson was able to convince Maureen Dowd to give cannabis another try, but we can say that thanks to her edibles mishap, the topic of responsible consumption was propelled into mainstream discussion full force and had a hand in speeding up education and labeling reform — a positive outcome from the bad trip of a redheaded stranger to marijuana.