By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
The 5 Point Café, a popular and landmark café near the Space Needle in Seattle wishes to add a new spice to their selection—marijuana.
Restaurant owner David Meinert hopes to cash in on the recent legalization of weed to add a new edge and definition to high quality dining.
He hopes that existing laws and licensing can be changed to facilitate the service of marijuana infused products on an on-premise basis. Current state law does not allow consumption of marijuana in businesses licensed to sell the commodity. Further complicating his goal is that administrative law forbids liquor licensees selling marijuana or marijuana products. This will likely be a long term campaign by similar minded businesses due to resistance from the state Liquor and Cannabis Board.
Mr. Meinert believes the lack of inclusion for on-premise in Initiative 502, which legalized and regulated marijuana in the state, provided a fatal flaw in the purpose of the measure.
In an interview with KOMO News, he stated:
“I think we should start pushing the issue now. It’s a real thing. Customers want it. If lawmakers don’t do something about, I’ll look into running an initiative like they are doing in Denver.”
While I personally believe marijuana legalization is beneficial I have concerns with licensed on-premise consumption. I believe unlike consumption in non-public places, permitting consumption in bars in restaurants will increase significantly DUI arrests and collisions.
The vast majority of alcohol related DUI arrests and collisions results from alcohol consumption at on-premise licensees such as bars, taverns, and restaurants. Consuming THC laden strain of marijuana at bars and restaurants will likely, though to a lesser degree, mirror that of alcohol.
Further complicating the issue is the amount of absorbed dosage in the body. THC marijuana edibles often take fifteen minutes or more to be absorbed into the body before the high is achieved. Moreover, the customer is not likely to know the amount of marijuana infused into the food or beverage product, whereas with alcoholic beverages, the public is aware of the approximate effects of a particular beverage and the quantity consumed. This provides the ability to roughly gauge a limit to be consumed. With a THC food product made without quality controls this might be more difficult. Edible products in marijuana retailers are required to submit to quality control levels for THC content and provide labeling of THC of percentages just as alcoholic beverages are on the federal and state levels.
Individuals are not required to adhere to marijuana food product regulations for making edibles for private consumption.
A mitigating factor statistically is the number of marijuana DUI arrests is small but the ability to consume at licensed retailers is presently illegal. With the delayed effect of consumables this might increase; though the same can be said of alcohol.
Of course, very low THC strains of marijuana could be a middle ground. But, unless used for medicinal purposes, realistically would most customers buy marijuana cookies if they couldn’t get stoned?
By Darren Smith
Sources:
The 5 Point Café (Photo Credit)
KOMO News
The views expressed in this posting are the author’s alone and not those of the blog, the host, or other weekend bloggers. As an open forum, weekend bloggers post independently without pre-approval or review. Content and any displays or art are solely their decision and responsibility.
This is total BS. Another meat-head given an inch (quasi-legal to sell mother nature…still illegal by federal law) now wants the whole mile… “consumption” to be legal on the sales property. Sorry, the local law prohibits that, but he’s gonna try anyway. All the while no one has the guts in the federal government to either enforce federal law or change it. Personally, I have no use for weed (and I smoked a bunch back in the day, here and in Asia) but know a couple people who have benefited dramatically from medicinal use. So medical use is fine by me. Sales by some latter day hippie do-wop-diddie hipster with no skills or chemical knowledge in a store front, no thank you. Never mind that the effects of combustion of leafy stuff is bad for you just like cigarettes. My two bouts with lung cancer after 55 years of smoking informs me on that one. You have a legitimate Rx for marijuana then buy the THC in solution with glycol and use a vape-e-cig device like the Aspire Nautilus. No need to smoke anything…or eat it either.
No matter….the small guys won’t last long in the marijuana business anyway, the big tobacco companies will crush them …. as they are all trying to do now with vapor cigarettes … lobbying FDA hard for “controls”…e.g. monopoly.
Full disclosure: Weed never did anything positive for me, only made me sleepy. That’s it…weed effects everyone differently. Call me not a fan of the stuff.
Challenge any denial of its freedoms or rights.
If there are some medicinal benefits found in marijuana, which will help to alleviate or minimize certain conditions and ailments, fantastic; however, the effort to dumb-down individuals, where this itshay (as Barkindog would say) is now creeping into our food at restaurants, needs to be curtailed. What possible purpose could the introduction of this drug, into the general population’s diet, serve? We are moving closer and closer to a population consisting of robots– loaded with both recreational and prescription drugs aimed, primarily, at numbing the senses. If a government wants a country full of doped-up, complacent and zoned-out citizens, who are too frail and compromised to muster the strength to challenge any of its freedoms and rights, this is a perfect way to go about doing it. Shortsighted individuals will often declare that allowing these drugs free reign is a sign of freedom–an acknowledgement that we may choose our own paths. In reality, the opposite is true, as more and more people succumb to entering into a state of drug-induced ambivalence and complacency. Just my take.
People itchBay about this but they allow tobacco sales in every state in the U.S. It is our Way. The John Wayne Way. Smoke em if ya gottem. Population control. Die young so there is more room for the younger one’s. Knock off your neighbors with your second hand smoke. Divert attention to things like pot. Tobacco companies thrive. E smokers for the young dopers of the future. They dont call em dopers for nuthin.
[music]
Roper dopers need love too stickers and its up against the wall redneck mothers.
Do you need a prescription to eat there?
This was the predictable outcome. The main reason given for legalization of pot was medicinal purposes and compassionate use, but the majority of those actually using it are for recreation.
I think pot has great value as a medicine. For most applications, the useful compounds like THC would have to be isolated and put into a liquid or pill form for consistent dosage. And I would not be surprised if we discover that smoking it causes health problems, as most smokes contain carcinogens. For cases where an exact dosage is not needed, then there could be other delivery systems using the herb itself.
I am concerned at the exponential increase in THC in today’s pot compared with the 1970’s. The last time I checked, pot was 7 times more potent than it used to be. If that trend continued, pot could eventually be bred into a drug that could do a great deal more harm than the strong herbal sedative than it is now. To prevent people from completely ruining the relatively benign nature of pot, I urge them to stop the race to make pot more potent.
On another note, it’s cousin, hemp, is the closest thing to a panacea that there is in the plant world. It has almost no THC, so it will never get you high, be abused, or get you arrested for DUI. It is high protein, a rarity in the plant world, has lots of vitamins and a nice, nutty taste. It’s healthful for people and animals to eat, including horses (because you just knew I had to bring them up.) Its fiber has been used for centuries to make excellent rope, paper, and clothing.
This is by no means an exhaustive list. For more uses for hemp (building houses!) see below:
http://www.hempbasics.com/shop/hemp-information
And yet, it is illegal to grow hemp in the US. It’s leaves look exactly like that of marijuana, so the logistics would be a nightmare for law enforcement to determine if a field of hemp has any marijuana in it.
The Canadians figured it out, though. We get a lot of our hemp products from Canada. It is perfectly legal to sell products made from or containing hemp; we just can’t grow it here. This could be the boon that agriculture needs.
CNN, June 15, 2015:
.
These tests were performed against drinking drivers that had consumed to less than .08 peak BAC. In other words, a legal amount of alcohol produced more driving problems than smoking marijuana.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/24/politics/marijuana-study-drivers-impact/
If you were a cop giving d.u.i. tests for pot heads then there eventually would be a pot head with a rifle on his balcony.
That is why God made rifles.
But at the restaurant: Give me a coke if ya know what I mean jellie bean.
Reblogged this on Newtunisia Tv.
Paul C. Schulte….and if you happen to find yourself as the defendant in a few lawsuits by engaging in a general fishing expedition, like ISP Trooper Justin Klitch, don’t worry about it .
Idaho’s Gov. Otter/Weasel and the head of ISP have your back.
Paul C. Schulte………No need to park around the corner; you can just park in Idahoe, then look for any Washington state license plates. Your “trained eye”, ” instincts”, and “knowing what to look for” (Idaho ISP quotes) will lead to ambushing and capturing outlaws like Darien Roseen.
Dope flavored cuisine…beats heroin flavored bananas…
David B Benson, Uber and Lyft save lives, but Dem politicians want to put them out of business.
Whatever happened to “designated driver”?
If I were a cop behind on my ticket quota (of course I know they don’t have quotas, silly) I would park right around the corner and start giving DUI tests. The learning curve is going to be steep. And expensive.
I bet his dessert sales skyrocket…
@bams
LOL!
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
The only meal where you are more hungry after you have eaten dinner. 🙂
I wonder if he will cook it in “Stoned Ware” crockery??? But seriously, just what we need, more f–ked up people on the highway.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
I called pot “Legalization” total BS when it happened…..
Now we have business’s, in the anything but a free market USA, begging to exercise basic their natural/inalienable/God-given rights.
Anything more from the Useful Idiots about the lie called “Legalization” ?
http://jonathanturley.org/2015/07/11/seattle-restaurant-hopes-to-serve-marijuana-seasoned-cuisine/
He should not sell cannabis infused food. He should GIVE AWAY cannabis appetizers in the bar. He’ll then double his sale of entrees.