
As the Associated Press reports, “Colorado regulators have drafted an emergency rule”—expected to take effect in November—requiring sellers of edible marijuana to sell products with clearly marked “”servings’ of 10 milligrams of THC.” I agree it’s a very good idea for sellers to let their customers know the levels of THC they’re ingesting. But the goal hardly requires government regulations. Most consumers want to know doses, creating a market for sellers to provide the doses. Sellers who misrepresent the dosages of their products may be sued. So government should be involved only at the judicial level, not the regulatory level. The regulations will inevitably have harmful consequences for some consumers. As the AP reports, “stronger-dosed edibles are holdovers from the medical pot marketplace, where sellers say consumers who have built up strong tolerances won’t buy anything that has a dosage less than 100 milligrams of THC.” Cancer patients shouldn’t have to eat ten brownies to get the dosages they need. People have a moral right to seek higher-dosage “servings” if they want, and sellers have a moral right to offer them (but not to fraudulently or negligently mislabel them).