It looks like a joint.
It smells like hash.
But it is not approved to be smoked, eaten or consumed in any other way. And it is then also marketed as a fragrance and decoration for the home and called potpourri.
It is a cannabis product that is sold legally because the active substance, i.e. the thing that makes people weird, has been removed.
The product is sold online and in 189 kiosks across the country, says the company behind it, Sense Organics.
– We are in a gray area when it comes to our marketing, says founder and co-owner of Sense Organics Ludvig Boas Pausgaard Jensen.
But when it’s not to be smoked, why does it look like a joint?
– It was just the most practical way for us to wrap it up.
– Of course, we must not sell these products for consumption. But if it were to become legal one day, we will consider it.
But isn’t it implicit that a joint is something you smoke?
– It’s an incense stick.
Which looks like a joint?
– Yes, unfortunately it does.
Experts warn
Several experts warn against legal cannabis products that can be bought online or in kiosks. Of course, the active substance has been extracted from the cannabis, but on the other hand, you often see that the products have added synthetic cannabinoids, which can cause intoxication and be harmful to health. The experts we have spoken to cannot say whether this applies to the products from Sense Organics.
– We can see that it is sold as, among other things, incense. But if you decide to smoke it, you actually become crooked, says Henrik Vigh, who is head of the Center for Global Criminology at the University of Copenhagen.
At the Poison Line, which provides telephone advice and help on poisonings, they also know about the products.
– We have seen examples where people have bought a legal product and yet they have had a bad experience. This meant that a young person had to be admitted to a hospital ward, says senior doctor Dorte Fris Palmqvist.
And products that look like joints almost invite you to smoke them, says Clemens Plickert, senior physician at the Center for Alcohol and Drug Treatment in Copenhagen.
– They are designed to be smoked when sold as a joint with a mouthpiece. Of course people put it in their mouths, turn it on and get high, he says.
Don’t know what products are used for
Ludvig Boas Pausgaard Jensen can neither confirm nor deny whether there are substances in his cannabis products that can cause intoxication.
– Whether it has a psychoactive effect, or whether it has absolutely zero effect, we must not write about it.
So you can’t deny that some of your products can be psychoactive?
– I do not know. We have not tested them, I do not smoke and we must not encourage consumption. So I don’t know what people use the products for.
– But I know that you can also go a little crazy in the head from eating rat poison or smoking car tires. There are also stories about that, but that does not mean that it is forbidden to sell rat poison or car tyres, he says.
‘I do not want to interfere’
On the Sense Organics website, the company advises against consuming and heating the products.
But on the company’s profile on Instagram, you can see that the company likes, comments and shares photos and videos of people smoking their products.
– It is fantastic that people are happy with our products, regardless of how they choose to use them. I am only happy about that. They can be used for anything, but we do not encourage burning them, smoking them or consuming them, says Ludvig Boas Pausgaard Jensen.
– If people choose to smoke them, that’s fair enough. I don’t want to get involved because once they buy it, it has nothing to do with me anymore.
– It’s not because if I made a knife that was used to stab someone, it would be my fault, says Ludvig Boas Pausgaard Jensen.
Right now, the Danish Health Authority is working to ban a larger group of synthetic cannabinoids that have been found in legal cannabis products.
Ludvig Boas Pausgaard Jensen says the company will remove the products from the market immediately if they are banned.
