PHOENIX - Three police officers in Phoenix are under investigation after making a 19-year-old man eat marijuana found in his car.
All three resigned, and their supervising lieutenant was demoted to sergeant.
According to Phoenix PD Chief Joe Yahner, the man ate a gram of marijuana, which made us ask: How much would someone have to eat before they got sick? What about before they got high?
The consensus from a search of marijuana blogs is that yes, eating raw marijuana raw produce a high, but it's not a great idea.
Several articles estimated that an eighth of an ounce eaten raw would likely produce a high, but the authors all noted that would be an inefficient use of money and marijuana if the eater wanted a high.
It takes more raw marijuana to get high because it hasn't been exposed to heat, which converts THCA (non-psychoactive) to THC (psychoactive).
But according to Kari Franson, a PharmD and associate professor at the University of Colorado's Skaggs School of Pharmacy, it's not just lighting a joint that would activate the THC -- that's why baking with marijuana is effective for users. Even age without heat will cause change.
"It will start to age and that age leads to the chemical process that will turn that THC acid to the THC that is active," Franson said.
She also noted that if the marijuana was left in the man's car during the day and sat in the hot Arizona sun, its psychoactive effects would likely have been increased.
The question of how much pot someone would have to eat to get sick may have a simpler answer.
"The biggest change from an acute ingestion is in the brain," Franson said, noting that decreased awareness and motor stability, as well as feelings of high, are all brain-related changes.
Franson said that one physical change from ingesting marijuana could be a decrease in inflammation on a person's gastrointestinal tract, but it's not likely that someone would be made sick beyond mental effects simply by eating marijuana.
