Last fall I received a media invitation to a cooking demonstration. Nothing strange there: A charismatic chef advocated using the best locally grown ingredients to an enthusiastic audience reaching for samples of tomato soup, grilled cheese sandwiches, and truffle popcorn.

But this demo came with a uniformed police officer ensuring that samplers had a government-issued card allowing patient access to the medical marijuana program. That’s because every dish contained marijuana’s intoxicating compound, THC, extracted from the cannabis plant and heat-infused into butter and oil using a straightforward, precise kitchen technology appliance. (More on that later.)

This is the story of an ingredient and its power to turn any food, from Bolognese to béarnaise, into a marijuana “edible.” Edibles have similar effects to