‘Just 2 Ounces Is Equivalent To 3 Joints’

On Friday, Minnesota State Senator Warren Limmer (R) made a claim that seemed a little out of joint to many on social media. Limmer was arguing against a bill that would permit adults 21 and older in Minnesota to purchase up to two ounces of cannabis flower, eight grams of concentrate or 800 milligrams of edible products. The bill under consideration in the Minnesota State Senate would also allow adults to grow “up to eight cannabis plants at home.” Limmer claim came right after he had said, “Now I’ve seen some of the videos of DEA raids, some of these plants are 8 and 10 feet tall, you can have eight of ’em, you can have a privacy fence made of these products in your backyard.” Presumably by DEA, Limmer meant the Drug Enforcement Administration and not the Dope Elite Assassins. Regardless, it’s what Limmer said right afterwards that got the joint kind of a rocking: “Two ounces, just two ounces is equivalent to three joints.”

Yep, that’s what Limmer said on the Minnesota State Senate floor as you can see in the following video tweeted by journalist Aaron Rupar:

What you can hear with Limmer’s statement is some laughter on the State Senate floor when Limmer didn’t seem to be making a joke.

Dude. It’s not clear what Limmer’s been smoking so to speak. Or if Limmer doesn’t smoke, it’s not clear what he’s been seeing other people smoking. After all, two ounces would be a “Holy Smokes” amount of marijuana to be putting into a joint.

Time to do some math. Two ounces equals about 56.7 grams. If that were to equal three joints, then you’d be packing approximately 18.9 grams of marijuana into a joint. That would be over 37 times the 0.5 grams average amount of marijuana per joint that the United States Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) uses—meaning that the ONDCP uses that as an average and not that the ONDCP is smoking that amount. That would be over 59 times the 0.32 gram average weight of marijuana in a joint determined by a study conducted by Greg Ridgeway, PhD, Professor and Chair of Criminology at the University of Pennsylvania, and Beau Kilmer, PhD, the McCauley Chair in Drug Policy Innovation at the RAND Corporation, and published in Drug and Alcohol Dependence.

To be it bluntly or in this case jointly, “two ounces is equivalent to three joints” would be sort of like saying, “37 frankfurters equals a hot dog” or asking for an extra 174 meatballs on your sub. So it’s not surprising that Twitter lit up with responses to the video that Rupar shared. For example, @travpete24 posted, “Those are some huge doobies but I would try it for science.” @Joey_Blogs wondered, “Imagine the munchies We need a joint committee to investigate this.” @WaltTheStalt indicated that Limmer’s statement wasn’t all Chong: “Even Cheech and Chong didn’t roll ’em that fat.” And @SarahBCalif rolled with Limmer’s comment by posting, “I’m rolling my joints wrong.”

Other saw pointed out various “potholes” in Limmer’s logic, such as @4a_of, who tweeted,”Tell me you know nothing about marijuana without telling me you know nothing about marijuana.” Yeah, maybe, just maybe Limmer want to check his numbers and circle back. Alternately, in the immortal words of the musical group Aqua, “Come on, Barbie, let’s go party.”

Whatever Limmer of hope he may have had in blocking the bill didn’t seem to work. The Minnesota State Senate did end up passing the marijuana legalization bill by a 34-33 vote that was completely split along party lines with all Democrats going “Yay” and all Republicans going “Nay,” as reported by Ryan Faircloth for the Star Tribune. The Minnesota House had passed its version of the marijuana bill several days earlier. Now, both bills will proceed to a conference committee that will try to reconcile into a final version the differences in the bills around the possession of marijuana at home and the taxation of marijuana products. The reconciled version will then go back to the Senate and House for votes going to the desk of Governor Tim Walz (DFL) for him to sign. Walz has indicated that he plans to sign the resulting bill.

Whether arguing either for or against marijuana legislation, you’ve got to use real facts and real science. The same should apply to anything that lawmakers say. Lawmakers are in the public eye. So what they say matters because many people are listening and potentially following whatever they may utter. Who knows what others made “weed” into a statement from a political leader. Imagine someone somewhere saying, “Oh, I’ve got to add another 18.5 grams to this joint, cause that’s what the State Senator should be in here.” Of course, people are not perfect and may make misstatements every now and then. But when that happens, regardless of how small the misstatement may appear to be, it will be important for political leaders to quickly acknowledge the error and clearly provide the real facts.

But how often does that occur? How often are lawmakers and other political leaders held accountable when they roll out misinformation or disinformation? Too often in politics, there’s way too much smokes and mirrors, way more than two joints-worth.