There are a few possible outcomes upon consuming cannabis edibles:
1) You have a wonderful time. Everybody has a wonderful time. You love everybody and everybody loves you.
2) You fall asleep.
3) You completely freak out. Dark shadows consume the happy places of your soul formerly occupied by Smurfs and kittens. You sweat like the proverbial whore in church. No amount of water can fix your cottonmouth. Your heart beats in your ears until you can no longer hear your friends attempt to comfort you. The evil forces of the universe open a million-watt channel directly in the center of your brain. You become certain that you will never recover. Everything is bad; like, bad, bad, bad, bad bad.
Now, let’s ignore outcomes 1 and 2 because, realistically, those are what happen roughly 99.32367489 percent of the time. I have never had a negative experience with cannabis edibles. I have taken brownies from strangers; I have bought cookies at concerts; I have been given lollipops and lozenges from friends who have been growing since an ounce would result in hard time; I have walked into shops and bought candy bars (the only places where anyone who wants to know what they’re taking has an employee obligated by law available to advise them on dosage).
I don’t want to go all “Get Off My Lawn!!!” on you here, but what in the name of Peter, Paul, and Mary has become of personal responsibility? Let me backtrack for a moment here. I have never had a bad experience with cannabis edibles because I have never put myself in a situation where a negative outcome was the most likely outcome; I’m no superman, but I have the sense the Good Evolutionary Process gave a cat; when it rains, I get out of the rain, and when someone is available to advise me, I generally take advice.
Now I’m going to bore you with a little story:
The first time I wandered into a shop to buy a chocolate bar, I held it up and asked the smiling friendly budtender, “What’s the dose?”(There was, I suppose, a moment in there somewhere when I unconsciously planned to open that wrapper and mash that bar straight to my face.) He smilingly replied, “10 milligrams. There are 10 squares in the bar, 10 mg each.” I said, “Thank you, sir.” Then I went to my friend’s house and three of us split four squares as we waited for our ride to bring us to hear some music. About an hour later, I knew that approximately one-and-a-half squares was a nice dose for being out in public, some light conversation, a little dancing. There was no rocket science involved. I even smoked a joint in an alley with two friends and one relative stranger. I woke up at 10 O’clock the next morning and went swimming. I told you this story was boring.
Before weed shops and consistent potencies, I had a technique called the Eat Half technique (which I’d still recommend now if you’re not familiar with edible dosages); it involves eating half of an edible. There is an important second step, one that you ignore at your own peril: Wait 90 minutes. That’s it. When the 90-minute mark rolls around, you’ll be underbuzzed, half muckled, or just right, ala Goldilocks. This is, also, not rocket science. You might even adapt a similar mindframe when you go to the bar and order one or two superhoppy triple double quadruple IPAs.
Good luck, DGO, and for the sake of avoiding being the subject of an embarrassing video that any good friend will surely post should you decide to ignore my advice, eat weed sensibly.
Christopher Gallagher lives with his wife and their four dogs and two horses. Life is pretty darn good. Contact him at [email protected]
