"marijuana" news and stories

Just last weekend, a friend was telling me about soaking marijuana in vodka for three days before making what he described as "fabulous cocktails." (Well, no kidding.) Now I discover in The Australian that he wasn't so off base. In fact, you can build a whole meal around cannabis. The newspaper reports that ice cream, cake and beer made with pot have been cleared on health grounds by the country's top food watchdog, "despite fears the 'marijuana munchies' could trigger positive drug tests."

The decision results from an appeal by Andrew Katelaris, a former doctor in Sydney who was de-registered for supplying medical marijuana to patients, who said, "Our vision is that anything you can do with soy beans or dairy you can do better with hemp seed." In fact, Food Standards Australia New Zealand found that industrial hemp contained such low levels of the psychedelic ingredient known as THC that no one eating food containing it would feel the effect. (Oh, yeah. They should try my friend's brownies, which I always thought paired nicely with vodka-and now I know why.) FSZNZ even went as far as to say that "hemp seed is nutritious food containing sizeable amounts of protein, polyunsaturated fats and dietary fiber." So maybe now hemp advocates will stop making those ugly macrame bags and turn their attention to the dinner table instead.

• Pot for grandma? Read about how middle-aged adults are buying marijuana for their ailing parents at ParentDish.com.

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Forget White Castle, Harold and Kumar. It's time for a munchie makeover.

Buddy's Cannabis Patient Collective in Mountain View, California, appears to have taken the concept of the munchies to a whole different level.

Here are some of the goodies off the menu board, as reported by a (no doubt stoked) reporter for the San Jose Mercury News: macaroni and cheese with truffles, roasted sun-dried tomato soup and cheddar jalapeño muffins. They've even elevated the notion of the pot brownie beyond our wildest imagination: three different types of Ghiradelli chocolate with a hint of lavender.

The gourmet edibles are all created by an award-winning Bay Area chef who prefers to remain anonymous, and most contain "cannabutter," which, according to the Mercury News, is made by cooking butter, water and ground marijuana then letting it cool. Buddy's provides their secret chef with the high-grade hemp, and in return, he (or she) sends back things like pissaliere topped with sun-dried tomatoes, basil and braised onions.

• Chefs 'fess up to cooking with marijuana -- and we're not talking brownies.
• The guy responsible for almost all urban agriculture projects in New York City retired in March.
• Bordeaux has fallen out favor with the young and hip. Why?
• Mia Dona on East 58th Street is chef-less. And the result is still solidly satisfactory.
• You want good pizza? As with so many other things, you gotta take it slow.

• More acidic oceans, a consequence of rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, can produce jumbo-size shelled marine species, including lobsters, crabs, and shrimp.
• In other CO2 news, Max Burger restaurant in central Stockholm claims to be the first restaurant chain in the world to publish carbon dioxide emissions on its menu.
• Congress will get a school lunch next week when the USDA will serve them chicken fajita strips, sliced ham and canned green beans, the same products the agency gives schools across the country.
• Woman caught on a hidden camera sneaking into a New York apartment by coming in through a crawlspace and raiding the pantry. Resident believes she had been secretly living there for weeks.
• Ganja Gourmet becomes first marijuana restaurant to open. It's located in Colorado, where medicinal marijuana is legal.
• Memorabilia from the bankrupt restaurant Tavern on the Green will be auctioned Jan. 13-14. Items will include the Central Park restaurant's crystal chandeliers, silver candelabras, stone sculptures and other decorative items.
• Finally, Food & Wine has compiled lists of the best airport dining spots and the best places to dine out during the holidays, including Pizzeria Bianco in Phoenix.

McDonald's bag. Photo: brutal, Flickr.

Would you like some drugs with that?

A Charleston, S.C., teen says he was given a loaded handgun and bags of marijuana in his McDonald's drive-thru order, WCSC-TV reports. The 18-year-old and his cousin received the .45-caliber handgun and the pot on Aug. 29 at a McDonald's on Savannah Highway.

"The gun and the marijuana was inside of a brown bag sitting inside of a McDonald's bag," said Kathy Rivera, the mother of the teen. "And they noticed they had three bags, and there were only two people in the car, so when he opened it, he noticed it."

The gun and drugs were meant for the car behind theirs in the drive-thru line, police said. The car followed the young men to a gas station, where one man approached the teen and demanded he give them the McDonald's bags, which the teen did. He told his mother about the incident the next day, and she contacted the restaurant.

A police report was filed. Charleston police tell Slashfood they're still investigating, though no arrests have been made.

Have you ever received something you didn't order at the drive-thru? Tell us about it in the comments below!

[Via WCSC-TV]