  We reexamine the large quantum gravity effects discovered by Ashtekar in the
context of 2+1 dimensional gravity coupled to matter. We study an alternative
one-parameter family of coherent states of the theory in which the large
quantum gravity effects on the metric can be diminished, at the expense of
losing coherence in the matter sector. Which set of states is the one that
occurs in nature will determine if the large quantum gravity effects are
actually observable as wild fluctuations of the metric or rapid loss of
coherence of matter fields.
