Choosing cannabis edibles can be overwhelming. We’re here to help you get started and tell you what you need to know about using cannabis edibles.
Many people are interested in cannabis, yet are hesitant to smoke flower or invest in vaping. This is where cannabis edibles come in. We will walk you through how to start using edibles wisely.
Cannabis edibles is no longer just that space cake in Amsterdam or that pot brownie your stoner friend made in college. It is so much more. Edibles now come in a number of different products, including every imaginable type of baked good, to candies, breath mints, chips, nuts, sublingual drops, sprays, a myriad of chocolates, infused oils for cooking, the list for edibles just goes on.
The Basics
Visiting cannabis dispensaries can often resemble entering a candy shop with a proliferation of brightly-colored packaged products that are various types of cannabis edibles. There is often a lot of information about the cannabis edible, but it can be hard to make sense of all of it, and your budtender may not have tried everything the dispensary carries on its shelves, things can be even more confusing.
We recommend a serving size of 5mg of THC, these delicious chocolate covered espresso bean edible by Kiva is enough for you to feel wavy. There are products with even less, like these Petra Mints. Serving sizes of edibles require careful breaking up of a single product. Pay close attention to the cannabis content, usually expressed in milligrams (mg), and number of servings per package.
Everyone has a story of eating too much of cannabis edibles and being too high (check out our article on what to do if you get too high) and that, unfortunately, has put many people off of edibles entirely. This is a shame, because it is one of the healthiest ways to experience cannabis. Here are a few tips to getting started (or getting started again after that past bad experience) with cannabis edibles, as it takes some planning.
Step-by-step guide for using cannabis edibles:
- Clear your schedule. The high from eating cannabis edibles normally lasts longer than from smoking. Be sure you don’t have anything you need to do for at least 6 hours.
- Location. Make sure you’re somewhere comfortable with some water and snacks on hand.
- CBD. Make sure you have some fast-acting, low or no THC, high-CBD cannabis products to counteract the THC if you get too high. We recommend a CBD oral spray or water.
- Dosage (5mg at a time). This is critical. Read the packaging of edibles products. We recommend starting with no more than 5mg of THC. Sometimes you may have to careful cut up the edible into manageable doses. A 5’5″ averaged sized female can feel the effects, but can still function after 5mg. If you’re a big brawny individual, you can start with 10mg.
- Take your time. After taking your first 5mg, wait at least an hour. An hour and a half would be better.
- Scale slowly. If you don’t feel anything after an hour and a half, take some more. Do not more than 3-5mg of THC at a time.
- Have fun. If you’re starting to feel it, sit back and relax, cause that’s the whole point of cannabis edibles.