Edibles

Most people are shocked when I tell them that when they eat an edible, at best they are actually only getting up to 30% of the THC they just ate. When your cookie or gummy goes straight down the hatch, it is run through the gauntlet of our digestive system and loses its punch as it is being absorbed along the way. To top it off, THC (Delta-9) is completely changed at the chemical compound level once it hits the liver. (1)

Stay with me here folks.

We have a liver enzyme called P450, and according to the Mayo Clinic, “The human body uses cytochrome P450 enzymes to process medications. Because of inherited (genetic) traits that cause variations in these enzymes, medications may affect each person differently.” (2) This enzyme can actually make our medications more or less potent, depending on the drug. Our nonintoxicating friend CBD is well known for blocking the

potency of drugs metabolized by this enzyme. (3)

P450 is the magician that changes the THC that we started with into 11-Hydroxy

THC, and therefore alters the effects. Many people report that eating something

infused with THC and smoking THC result in very different highs. I have to

agree, because no matter how many chances I give 11-Hydroxy THC, we just don’t

get along.

Ingesting cannabis can take anywhere from 30 minutes to a full two hours to

kick in. This is when people tend to lose their patience and add more edibles into

the mix, thinking that it’s not working. Rookie mistake. Your metabolism, whether

you took them on a full stomach, and/or your tolerances have everything to do

with your projected launch time.

We have all heard the term “low and slow” when it comes to taking edibles,

and I stress this point again for those of you in the cheap seats.

These little nuggets of extraction covered in sugar can last for hours on end,

and if you hit the boxing ring too hard, too fast, well . . . down goes Frazier. What

also happens is that you are not any closer to figuring out what your milligram

“sweet spot” really is. In the long run, you’ll end up spending way more money on

finding the right dose and product line.

Someone who works behind a cannabis counter long enough will eventually

get to know the regular customers. There was a young man who was attending

classes at the university up the road, and like clockwork he would come in every

Thursday after school for his treasured flower. One day Jack cheerfully bounced

into the med room and asked for 25 Rice Krispy treats for a skiing trip he was

taking with his fraternity brothers. The wise old elder in me rose up, and warnings

of how edibles are different came spilling out of my mouth; the 50mg treat would

pack a punch in a way that he was not accustomed to. He humored me with a nod and then a request for the total, so I began to bag up the treats. I wished him luck and sent him on his way to tackle the mountain.

The following week, he returned to the counter via crutches. “Wasn’t wrong, was I Jack?” I scolded. Bashfully he told me the backstory of how they ate the edibles about an hour before getting on the chairlift, and found that once up there they couldn’t get down. They were so high that they just laid around at the lift drop off point for hours until they began to come down. Jack wasn’t over his buzz as much as he thought he was before making the trip down the hill and misjudged the girth of a lone pine tree. He snapped his femur in two places and would need corrective surgery in the very near future. Still shaking my head at him, I sent him on his way with some flower to help with the pain.

Note: If you have chosen to eat your cannabis and are a very new-to-cannabis user,

I’m still going to keep urging you to take it oh so slow. And by slow, I mean start with

a product that has 5mg pieces you can cut in half, take the 2.5mgs and give it a full

two hours before consuming any more. One of the differences between smoking and

eating your weed is that even if you overdo it when smoking a joint, the buzz should

pass in under two hours. But as mentioned above, if you consume too many milligrams

in a sitting you could be saddled with an uncomfortable buzz for up to 8 hours.

1. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/4729039/

2. https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/cyp450-test/about/pac-20393711

3. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26651971/