Just as America's stash of black-market Four Loko dwindles, a new form
of intoxicating soda has risen like a phoenix from its ashes: pot-laced
soda. But while Four Loko has been recalled amid reports of alcohol poisoning and accidental deaths, the worst side effect of overdoing it with marijuana soda might just be a really bad tummy ache.
California-based entrepreneur Clay Butler has developed a line of cannabis soft drinks that will hit the shelves of medical marijuana
dispensaries in Colorado in February and California in the spring. Each
12-ounce beverage — which will come in such varieties as Canna Cola,
Doc Weed and Orange Kush — will contain 35 to 65 milligrams of the
psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC).
But
how much is that compared with, say, the amount of the drug in a
marijuana joint? And how does Canna Cola's intoxicating effects stand up
to Four Loko?
According to a report by the World Health
Organization, a typical marijuana joint may contain anywhere from 5 to
150 mg of THC, and only a fraction of that — “2 or 3 mg — is required to
produce a brief, pleasurable high
for the occasional user." On the other hand, "heavy users in Jamaica,
for example, may consume up to 420 mg of THC per day." This means the
drug content of a Canna Cola, though a mere mid-morning snack for a
Rastafarian, is 10 to 30 times that required to get most people high.
Joshua
Lile, a pharmacologist in the department of behavioral science at the
University of Kentucky who studies drug addiction, said the dosage in a
Canna Cola is indeed quite high, and that it might be even higher than
it seems when compared to a joint.
"When you ingest THC orally,
it's much more potent than when you smoke it," Lile told Life's Little
Mysteries. "Active metabolites such as 11-hydroxy-delta-9 THC get
produced in the liver and intestines when you metabolize the drug, and
these add to the effects it has on the brain." Few studies have ever
used more than 30 mg of orally administered THC, making the 35-65 mg in a
Canna Cola "a pretty high dose for a single beverage."
However,
Lile explained that this doesn't necessarily mean the pot sodas are
dangerous: "THC exhibits what's known as a 'flat dose effect curve'.
Once you hit a peak dose you don't see much change in how high people
become. For example, I've administered up to 90 mg of THC to study
subjects. Some get sick to their stomachs at around 30 mg, but
experienced marijuana users can handle much more."
Rather than
becoming super high, then, a Canna Cola-drinker may just be in danger of
becoming really sick to his stomach. "The effects of orally ingested
marijuana take a while to set in," Lile said. "You may drink one, then
be sitting around waiting for something to happen and then decide to
drink another one. Depending on your absorption level (which varies a
lot between people), you could feel really nauseated."
This is
not the worst-case scenario, however, that results from drinking too
much of the alcoholic energy drink Four Loko. Until its manufacturers
decided to re-formulate the drink last November in response to an FDA
warning, each 23.5-ounce can of Four Loko contained 12 percent alcohol
by volume and 135 mg of caffeine. That made drinking one can roughly the
equivalent of downing four regular beers and a large coffee, all hidden
behind a fruity taste. Several states banned sales of the beverage
after its frequent involvement in cases of alcohol poisoning and death on college campuses.
Lile
said, "In general, if you're going to compare the two, performance
impairments are less severe from cannabis than they are from alcohol."
Follow Natalie Wolchover on Twitter @nattyover
