THIS HIGH WAS PRETTY LOW, WOMAN GIVEN POT BROWNIE SAYS

In the movies or on TV, it's always funny. People unwittingly eat
brownies laced with marijuana, and hilarity ensues.

Last week, I talked to a 50-year-old Town of Waukesha woman who
experienced this in real life, but with a much different outcome.

"I thought I was dying. It was very scary," Jane said. She didn't
want me to use her last name.

The Waukesha County district attorney's office is still pondering
charges against the man who gave the brownies to co-workers Jane and
two other employees at Heaven City Restaurant in Mukwonago last month.

Jane said she liked and admired the 25-year-old Mukwonago guy until
he pulled this stunt. He has apologized and said it was a mistake.
It's not clear which part - the putting drugs in the brownies part or
the handing them out part.

What I mainly wanted to know is what it's like to suddenly find
yourself stoned beyond belief and have no idea why.

Jane, a bar worker, said it was a quiet Wednesday night at work,
probably because the roads were snowy and slippery. So she and the
77-year-old coat check guy went home at 7:15, just after accepting
the co-worker's offer of a heart-shaped brownie with whipped cream on top.

She and the older gentleman split one. It tasted a bit unusual.
"Almost like cinnamon," he said to her. A 27-year-old hostess who had
stopped to pick up her check ate a whole brownie. No customers were
given the dessert.

Jane drove home, ate a little dinner and dozed off briefly on the couch.

"When I woke up, I thought, gosh, this is funny. My left arm is numb.
When I sat up, I realized my whole left side was numb. I stood up and
when I went to move my head, everything was just very distorted and
not right. When you don't know you have anything in your system, it's
very scary. I looked in the mirror and thought: What is happening?"

Jane admits knowing from her younger days what a marijuana buzz feels
like. "This was completely different," she said, and not the least
bit euphoric, even in the beginning. Maybe if she knew what she was
getting, her expectations and experience would have been different.

Her husband became concerned and noticed her skin was cold and
clammy. Jane got the shakes and found it was difficult to speak.
"Something's not right," she told him. "I feel like I'm having a stroke."

He drove her to Waukesha Memorial Hospital. She soon learned that
both her co-workers were there. The hostess who had eaten the most
was in intensive care and unconscious. The coat-checker thought he
was having a heart attack.

"The doctor came in and said, 'Do you smoke pot?' " Jane said. "They
did urine tests on all of us, and there were just super-high levels
in our system. He said, 'A lot of people would pay a lot of money for
what's in your system.' "

"I'm looking at the nurse and I said, 'We have been drugged!' I was
spacey. I didn't know where hours of the night even went."

Sheriff's Department detectives told her they found remaining
brownies in the trash and learned that marijuana had been cooked down
into a potent oil and put in the recipe.

It was 5 a.m. before Jane got home, and two more days before she felt
normal again. She has not returned to work at the restaurant.

And it might be a while, she said, before she accepts any more brownies.