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Law

Pot consultant: Size of joint matters in gauging pot usage

Predicting marijuana usage rates in Washington might come down to a test Cheech and Chong would appreciate: the size of the joint. That’s according to one of the state’s new pot legalization consultants.  

There’s a classic Cheech and Chong scene where they smoke a massive joint while driving down the road.”

“Looks like a quarter-pounder, man," says Cheech. 

Turns out the amount of marijuana rolled into a joint is critical to determining pot usage rates. Just ask Dr. Beau Kilmer with the RAND Corporation. He’s one of Washington’s new pot consultants. His first task: to get a baseline on current marijuana use in Washington. At a press conference in Olympia, Kilmer said he did similar work recently in the EU using a web-based survey. 

“But it actually included pictures of unrolled joints of different sizes with a ruler and with credit cards with the idea being able to ask people ‘okay think about the last time that you consumed, how big was that joint?’ You laugh about it, but it’s a very important way of obtaining this information," he says. 

Kilmer is part of a team that includes a Nobel Laureate, the first White House Drug Czar, and experts in testing and growing medical marijuana on an industrial scale.

Law
Since January 2004, Austin Jenkins has been the Olympia-based political reporter for the Northwest News Network. In that position, Austin covers Northwest politics and public policy as well as the Washington State legislature. You can also see Austin on television as host of TVW's (the C–SPAN of Washington State) Emmy-nominated public affairs program "Inside Olympia." Prior to joining the Northwest News Network, Austin worked as a television reporter in Seattle, Portland and Boise. Austin is a graduate of Garfield High School in Seattle and Connecticut College in New London, Connecticut. Austin’s reporting has been recognized with awards from the Association of Capitol Reporters and Editors, Public Radio News Directors Incorporated and the Society of Professional Journalists.