GOT THE MUNCHIES?

Baker Says She's A 'Good Girl,' Only Sells Cannabis Cookies To Those With A
Doctor's Note

To the marijuana grow-op underground that police say is dominated by gangs,
guns and booby traps, she brings baking trays, butter and chocolate chips.

And if "Joey" is the only name she'll provide the National Post, it's
because this cannabis cookie-maker knows sprinkling her not-so-secret
baking ingredient into the mix is a crime.

Still, Joey, a 34-year-old Toronto woman who discovered cooking with
cannabis a decade ago, represents something of the flip side of the grow-op
phenomenon, highlighted so grotesquely this month by the massacre of four
RCMP officers at James Roszko's Alberta farm, where police uncovered 20 pot
plants.

While in the wake of those slayings police described grow-ops as rife with
firearms and violent gangs, Joey, who doesn't grow herself but gathers her
main ingredient from half a dozen Toronto operations, says there are
different kinds of grow-ops. Yes, some are gang-driven, grown in mass
quantities for the U.S. market. But then there are the hobby farmers, who
can be compared more to home brewers. Except it's illegal.

She says she's never seen a gun or an operation with more than 20 plants.

"I think stealth is your best precaution," she says.

And while police say grow-ops are the money engines of organized crime,
Joey distributes most of her illicit cookies to "compassion centres,"
illegal clubs where membership hinges on a doctor's note and pot is used
not to intoxicate but to ease chronic pain and quiet muscle spasms.

"I've been a good girl and I've only sold to people who've got their
doctor' s notes," says Joey, a diminutive woman who keeps her hair in
pigtails. "I'm a good girl, and my lawyer's happy."

Joey can bake upward of a couple of thousand cookies a month, both the
high-powered, cannabis variety and the benign hemp treats she sells to the
able-bodied at festivals.

It's a home business she says makes her just enough money to pay her rent
and groceries; this year, she'll even start paying taxes on her cookie income.

At the compassion clubs, the locations of which are kept secret, Joey's
cookies sell for about $15 for a package of three.

The effects of her cookies, which come in flavours such as rainbow
sprinkle, chocolate chip and peanut butter, can last as long as eight hours
and allow users to enjoy what they see as the benefits of the drug without
smoking.

"It's food, it's organic and it's home-cooked," says one of Joey's best
customers, Kevin, who eats about 14 cookies a week to treat his chronic
pain and says he has a doctor's note to prove it.

"It's like grandma made it," Kevin, 41, says.

As innocent as it sounds, however, Joseph Neuberger, a Toronto criminal
lawyer familiar with Joey, says the business is illegal -- even if
unearthing the cookies probably would not allow police to charge her.

"I don't think those cookies test very well," he said. "So, in fact, they
may be legal."

In a similar B.C. case, Mary Jean Dunsdon, the nudist baker of
cannabis-laced gingersnaps better known as "Watermelon," beat
marijuana-related charges three times in court, with a final charge dropped
this month.

Joey's greatest fear, then, isn't being caught -- "I used to be a lot more
paranoid than I am now," she says -- it's being "typecast" as a gang member
or a character out of the well-known propaganda film Reefer Madness.

"I want to present a character profile and say, 'Look, this is who we are:
We're mothers, fathers, sons, daughters. We're doctors, lawyers. We're
everybody."

THE RECIPE:

This is how Joey makes her cannabis butter, which replaces ordinary butter
in traditional cookie recipes:

- - 1 lb unsalted butter

- - dried cannabis ground up with a coffee grinder (the amount used depends
on the marijuana's potency and which part of the plant is used: for mild,
smokeable bud, use 14 to 28 grams)

- - 4 to 5 litres of water

- - 1 stock pot

- - a large bowl

- - a colander

- - cheesecloth

- - one large spoon and one potato masher

1. Put all the ingredients in the stock pot and place on very low heat.

2. Simmer the mixture for six to eight hours, stirring every 30 minutes or so.

3. Next, place the cheesecloth-lined colander over the large bowl and
slowly pour the mixture through.

4. Tightly wrap the mixture in the cheesecloth and squeeze out all the
liquid. Use the potato masher to squeeze the juice from between the leaves.

5. Throw out the contents of the cheesecloth and refrigerate the liquid in
the pot. The "butter" and water in the bowl will soon separate, with all
the THC (the active ingredient in marijuana) now in the butter. Store the
butter in the fridge or freeze it if you don't plan to use it within a week.