Ben and Jerry's Is Considering Making Cannabis Ice Cream

While More Than Half Baked and Chocolate Fudge Potbrownie will not be appearing on store shelves anytime soon, Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s, is officially on board with the idea of making cannabis ice cream. “Makes sense to me,” he recently told HuffPost Live.

But partner Jerry Greenfield may not be entirely sold just yet. So what is there to think about?

Why Cannabis Ice Cream Could Be Good

For one, it would mean that marijuana had been legalized. It has suffered under the thumb of Big Pharma for far too long, and so have we. Despite what we’ve been told, the medicinal benefits and uses of cannabis are undeniable.

Cannabis outperforms prescription drugs in treating cancer, fibromyalgia, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, and ADHD/ADD. Though more research needs to be done, it could be highly effective at treating any number of other illnesses.

Not to mention the fact that it is far less harmful than other already legalized drugs. Tobacco, alcohol, and prescription painkillers continue to take lives every day, while those attributed to marijuana remain firmly at zero.

The fact is we’ve been fed lies about drugs by Big Pharma for decades, so having a bite of Ben & Jerry’s cannabis ice cream would mark a welcome change of pace.

Moreover, Ben & Jerry’s is one of the few big-name ice cream brands that is free of rBGH, a growth hormone that can cause your body to build a resistance to antibiotics and that is linked to a number of different cancers.

Why It Might Still Be a Rocky Road

Of course, there are still far healthier alternatives. You can easily make your own vegan ice cream at home with a blender and an ice cream maker by following this simple recipe. Or to reap many of the health benefits without the high, you can easily juice raw marijuana.

While prominent members of the medical community, notably Dr. Sanjay Gupta, have been coming around to marijuana’s many uses, few are entirely sold on regularly using the drug recreationally.

It may not be physically addictive, but it is habit-forming and combined with Ben & Jerry’s could very well be too difficult to resist. Especially for younger people, who are particularly at risk to some of the adverse health effects of habitual marijuana use.

Is it Worth Breaking Up With Ben and Jerry’s?

At the end of the day, cannabis ice cream is not something you would want to be eating regularly, from a dietary perspective or otherwise. Since the effects from ingesting marijuana typically take a while to set in, the idea may not make as much “sense” as Ben thinks.

The best part of the ice cream hitting the shelves is that it would mean marijuana had been legalized, and that it could finally be medicinally used more rigorously and begin to shed its tarnished reputation. Ultimately, though, Jerry’s scepticism may be well founded and either way, the idea is simply not worth them no longer being Ben & Jerry.