Marijuana edibles are becoming more and more popular everyday. This is especially true in Colorado, where recreational marijuana edibles are legal. Marijuana edibles are legal in Washington State as well, but due to slow licensing, availability is much lower there. Marijuana edibles were brought into the media spotlight when New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd visited Colorado, didn’t know her limit, and ate edibles that were clearly too strong for her. Marijuana opponents tried to use it as an opportunity to throw the entire marijuana edible industry under the bus, but in fact, it was just a single case of a rookie not knowing what she was doing.
Maureen Dowd’s experience has led to the Marijuana Policy Project launching a new website that provides information about eating marijuana edibles. If you are a veteran marijuana consumer, the information isn’t that relevant because chances are you know your limit, and your limit is high enough that you shouldn’t have any issues. Personally, I have never met a marijuana edible that I couldn’t handle. I will not only gladly try every edible that is on the market, but I’ll eat way more than people think I can, and still be able to function quite well and can still beat most sober prohibitionists at any activity that requires brain power. But for those of you that are new to the marijuana world, or don’t have much experience with edibles, you should check out Marijuana Policy Project’s new website.
The main takeaways from their website, is to know the law, know your limit, and know your responsibilities. The ‘know the law’ part is very straightforward. As I stated previously in this article, recreational marijuana edibles are only legal in Colorado and Washington, and they are only widely available (and affordable I’d add) in Colorado right now. With Oregon, Alaska, and Washington D.C. voting on marijuana legalization this November, legal recreational edibles could be coming to those areas too.
As far as the ‘know your limit’ part, the main thing to realize is that the effects from marijuana are much stronger when eaten as opposed to smoking or vaporizing it. When someone eats marijuana in the form of a brownie, cookie, candy, etc, it goes through the bloodstream. It takes longer to kick in compared to smoking or vaporizing because smoking or vaporizing goes into the nervous system, which makes the effects kick in much faster. When marijuana is eaten and goes into the bloodstream, it takes about 45 minutes to an hour to kick in, but once it does, the effects can last many hours longer than it does when inhaled. Start slow, and let time go by, and eat more as needed. After you have eaten edibles a few times, you will then have a good idea of how much you can handle.
Lastly, the ‘know your responsibilities’ part gives a great overview of how to be a responsible marijuana consumer. The overwhelming majority of marijuana consumers are very responsible, so this part of the website seems like stuff that is common knowledge. But if you are dumb, and there are certainly dumb people out there, marijuana consumer or otherwise, read that section very carefully. Good luck on your marijuana edible experiences, and remember, if you have a bad experience, don’t go around throwing the marijuana industry under the bus. Take personal responsibility and recognize that maybe you can’t handle edibles, and stick to a different form of marijuana consumption that you can handle.
