Health & Welfare | Daily Report

Marijuana growers are taking admirable steps to self-regulate and be sure that their products are free of mold or other toxins, the Sacramento Bee’s marijuana writer, Peter Hecht, reported Monday.

The story notes that the marijuana growers are being particularly conscientious to self-police, as the Food and Drug Administration does not regulate marijuana.

Flickr photo by Neeta Lind

But what if it did?

News of the FDA’s recent look at cigarettes raises interesting questions for the future of medical marijuana. The FDA focused last week on whether menthol cigarettes are more enticing and addicting than regular cigarettes, Reuters reported.

Experts testified on the mint flavor’s appeal to children and minorities. A panel listened intently. A report is due in a year. 

The jaundiced eye on menthol comes just on the heels of the FDA’s ban on clove, chocolate and vanilla cigarettes. 

Similar regulatory scrutiny has come down on “alco-pop,” or sweet and fruity drinks favored by 17-year-old women. California regulators passed a law in 2007 to boost taxes on the drinks and another to warn would-be drinkers that they contain alcohol.

For anyone who has been to a medical-marijuana dispensary (it was for work, I swear), this seems to be a sign that legalization and what comes with it – regulation – may have one implication that perhaps only Cheech, Chong, myself (and maybe Peter Hecht, the Bee’s ganja scribe) have thought of: The array of flavored marijuana is not long for this world.

For the uninitiated, I learned while writing about Bush-era crackdowns on Sacramento medical-marijuana dispensaries that the weed comes in an array of flavors that would make a 6-year-old in a candy store jealous. We’re talking pumpkin, blueberry, cherry, grape, sour apple and the like.

These easy-smoking flavors are for easing the pain of those with glaucoma and back pain, of course. But if menthol cigarettes are any indication, the drumbeat toward legalization, and inevitably regulation of marijuana, will more than likely mean an end to Willy Wonka’s world of weed.