The New York Times columnist was in Colorado reporting on the state’s first months of legalized marijuana use when she decided to take what she later learned was too much of a bite from a “caramel-chocolate flavored (marijuana) candy bar.” Dowd wrote in a column Tuesday that the treat didn’t affect her at first, but after an hour or so, she felt like she was dying:
But then I felt a scary shudder go through my body and brain. I barely made it from the desk to the bed, where I lay curled up in a hallucinatory state for the next eight hours. I was thirsty but couldn’t move to get water. Or even turn off the lights. I was panting and paranoid, sure that when the room-service waiter knocked and I didn’t answer, he’d call the police and have me arrested for being unable to handle my candy.
I strained to remember where I was or even what I was wearing, touching my green corduroy jeans and staring at the exposed-brick wall. As my paranoia deepened, I became convinced that I had died and no one was telling me.