How to Use Edible Cannabis Products

If you are one of the millions of consumers who plans to purchase and consume cannabis edibles, you need to know how to use them. For example, are you aware of the common doses for sale in different products? What are the issues with consuming beer or wine along with weed-infused snacks? Do you know how long it takes for the drug to affect you after you eat it, compared to smoking it?

These questions and others are on the must-read list that follows. Make sure you learn about doses before anything else, because if you get that part wrong, the rest of the experience will not go well. However, once you turn yourself into an informed consumer, you’ll be able to enjoy cannabis edible snacks without fear. Here’s the least you need to know before taking that first bite.

Know Your Doses

All those weed you can eat items arrive on store shelves in varying doses, meaning they all have a different amount of THC, the psychoactive ingredient in the plant. Typical goods contain anywhere from 1 to 30 milligrams of THC. Doses up to and including 12 milligrams for first-time users are a wise choice. That will give your body an introduction to the special pathway that THC takes after eating, as opposed to smoking. Even after you get your medical marijuana card it’s still important to know exactly what doses you’re getting in any food item that contains cannabis. People who obtain their cards online, to avoid the longer in-person application process, usually understand how much of the substance they can tolerate.

Eat First

This warning is similar to ones you hear about alcohol, but carries another caveat which is don’t plan on driving at all for at least 24 hours after you consume any marijuana containing food item. That’s because, unlike beer, wine, whisky and smoked cannabis, edible items stay in your system for a very long time. They also take an hour or more to have any effect. If you have food in your stomach, you’ll not be as likely to eat too much of the cannabis infused snacks and your body will respond to the effects in a more balanced way.

Choose Carefully

Unless you regularly smoke or take marijuana in another way, be very careful because it’s easy to think the edible has no effect. It might take an hour or more. Everyone is different. The point is that you need to start out with a very low dose, perhaps between 1 and 4 milligrams, so that you know how your body will react. When you eat the substance, it is processed through your liver and produces a different kind of THC, one that can have a more profound psychological effect than expected.

Avoid Mixing It with Alcohol

Especially when you first experiment with edibles, don’t consume alcohol on the same day. Chemically, the two substances don’t mix well in your body and can cause all sorts of bad reactions. But another reason for not mixing is more subtle that if you have both of them in your system, you won’t know what dose of the edible to take next time. There’s no way you can tell how much of the effect is from one and how much is from the other.