Billboard mocks Maureen Dowd's bad trip: 'Don’t let a candy bar ruin your vacation'

'With edibles, start low and go slow,' pro-marijuana group's ad warns

Dowd speaks during a taping of "Meet the Press." (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

A billboard mocking Maureen Dowd, The New York Times' Pulitzer Prize-winning op-ed columnist, over her infamously bad experience with edible marijuana was unveiled by a pro-pot group in Denver on Wednesday.

“Don’t let a candy bar ruin your vacation," the billboard, created by the Marijuana Policy Project, reads. "With edibles, start low and go slow.” The billboard — featuring a red-haired woman in a hotel room, her head in her hand — directs viewers to a website, ConsumeResponsibly.org, that cautions legal pot users on how to use recreational marijuana responsibly.

Earlier this year, the red-headed Dowd traveled to Colorado to report on the state's legalization of recreational marijuana, and decided to try a cannabis-infused candy bar.

A billboard mocking Dowd is seen in Denver, Sept. 17, 2014. (MPP)
A billboard mocking Dowd is seen in Denver, Sept. 17, 2014. (MPP)

"What could go wrong with a bite or two?" Dowd wrote in the June column (titled "Don't Harsh Our Mellow, Dude"). "Everything, as it turned out."

According to Dowd, she didn't feel anything at first. But an hour later, while the 62-year-old was relaxing in her hotel room with a glass of chardonnay, things began to deteriorate:

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.


A medical consultant at an edibles plant later informed Dowd that marijuana candy bars "are supposed to be cut into 16 pieces for novices."

“Like most Americans, Ms. Dowd has probably seen countless silly anti-marijuana ads on TV, but she never saw one that highlights the need to ‘start low and go slow’ when consuming marijuana edibles,” Mason Tvert, communications director for the Marijuana Policy Project, told the Washington Examiner. “Now that marijuana is a legal product like alcohol in some states — and on its way to becoming legal in others — it needs to be treated that way.”

For her part, Dowd says she doesn't mind her likeness being used in the pot ad.

“I love it,” Dowd told Buzzfeed. “I’m going to make it my Christmas card.”

Related video: