Getting The Correct Dosage For Marijuana Edibles

Getting The Correct Dosage For Marijuana Edibles

By Robert Bergman, ILoveGrowingMarijuana.com

If you have ever eaten or baked marijuana edibles before, you are likely well aware of the difficulty that comes with figuring out your proper dose. Time and time again people either have too little marijuana (leading to no high at all) or far too much (resulting in an uncomfortable high), and they can’t seem to get it right even after some major trial and error. Luckily, this article will give you some of the most important tips for getting the right dose in your next batch of marijuana edibles.

Benefits of marijuana edibles

Marijuana edibles can be a great thing to do, especially if you are someone who prefers not to smoke. They are perfect for people who need to consume marijuana for medicinal properties and don’t want to inhale smoke into their lungs (thus leading to more or furthering existing health problems).

Marijuana edibles are also more secure for public consumption than smoking pot is. It is going to be rather obvious when you are smoking marijuana outside or in a public area, but eating a cookie or a brownie is an entirely normal and inconspicuous activity for you to be doing. It is unlikely a police officer is going to stop you and ask about your “stash” of cookies. This also works well for medicinal users, as they often need to take marijuana during the middle of the day. Edibles provide a tool for doing that.

Of course, eating marijuana edibles is a completely different science than smoking pot. If you don’t already have much experience with it, it can lead to some disappointing or unpleasant experiences if improperly done. Read on for tips on how to dose safely and correctly.

The feeling takes time

If you are someone who is used to smoking marijuana, then this is an important tip for you. Smoking or vaporizing causes you to feel high practically instantly, and you can, therefore, make informed decisions about when to stop and how much to keep going. This is not so with marijuana edibles. When you eat a marijuana edible, you are not going to feel the effects right away. You don’t have the signals to protect you from having more than you prefer, so the risk of consuming much more than you meant to is higher.

This is simply because your body needs to go through the entire digestion and metabolization process before the THC enters your bloodstream. The liver will take part in processing the food before your brain feels anything. This can vary from person to person, as everyone has different metabolism speed. While your friend might not feel the effects for two or three hours, you might already be high as a kite after just one hour.

Start off slow
Because the effects take so long to hit when eating marijuana edibles, it is always important to remember to go slow. There is always time for eating more, but it is not possible to un-eat what you have already consumed. Regret runs rampant with people who refuse to go slow for their first time eating marijuana edibles — don’t be one of them.

Start off with just one brownie, or perhaps one-half of a brownie, and then simply observe how it is affecting you. Most likely, you will be eating marijuana edibles that you did not purchase or make yourself so you won’t know the exact specifications of how many milligrams of marijuana there are per brownie. For that reason, have a little bit and then wait for at least an hour.

Whether you are trying to get high for fun or are eating marijuana for its medicinal benefits, the same tactic applies. Even consuming medicinal marijuana can lead to an unpleasantly strong high if you don’t do it correctly and slowly. Often the person who made the brownies can tell you exactly what they added, so if that is an option, then you should try asking them for more information before taking your first bite.

Marijuana edibles are stronger than smoking

It’s important to remember that, with the process of making marijuana edibles, marijuana is turned into an incredibly concentrated form. This form is in cooking oil, marijuana butter, or other types, but in any case, it will be a higher concentration than something you would smoke. Because of this, ingesting more marijuana than you want is very easy to do. This further complicates the task of dosing your edibles correctly.

It helps some people to think about marijuana as if it were alcohol. About 10mg is one dose, just like one beer is one “drink.” The amount affects everyone differently, but generally, you can have a good idea of how many “drinks” you should have within a certain amount of time. When in doubt, take it slow and take your time until you can confidently dose it correctly.

One good aspect of marijuana is that you can’t die from an “overdose.” That being said, it is extremely unpleasant to have too much marijuana all at once. Sometimes one brownie or one cookie is actually packing two or three doses of marijuana, so even starting off by eating just a partial one can be a good idea.

Just like with drinking alcohol, your body’s response to eating a marijuana edible is going to vary according to how much you have recently eaten. If you just had a meal, the effects of the marijuana edible will not have such a strong impact on you. If your stomach is empty, however, you will be hit much harder. It is better to go for the former route: try eating a meal and then trying an edible, not having an edible and then eating a meal. This is because, unlike with alcohol, eating after consuming a marijuana edible can actually strengthen the effects rather than easing them.

Read the label

If you have purchased a marijuana edible, it should have packaging and an informative label on it. However, because marijuana remains illegal in most of the world, there is a certain lack of standardization and consistency as well as auditing of these products and how they affect people. This makes correct dosing even harder for the consumer.

Download my free marijuana grow guide at this link and learn to grow marijuana for your own edibles

Therefore, always read the label carefully to figure out how much marijuana is contained in that brownie or cookie, and then determine how much of it you should actually eat. Of course, not all labels are going to have this clearly indicated, given the fact that the marijuana industry is still so young. For that reason, you should opt for purchasing edibles that have clear labels and good packaging — this indicates a certain amount of commitment of the company to strive for quality and consistency, and that means it is probably a better product anyway.

Ignore your friends and listen to your body

We don’t mean that you should not speak to your friends or hang out with them. Rather, don’t give in to peer pressure when it comes to eating marijuana edibles. If you have a friend who is bragging about being able to eat four pot brownies, don’t take that as an invitation to compete.

Instead, stick with what you know about your own body and what makes the consumption of marijuana fun for you. While your friend is likely going to end up unpleasantly high and miserable, you will get to enjoy the perfect level of high that makes you love marijuana so much to begin with. Ultimately, isn’t this better than trying to compete with someone else?

What you shouldn’t ignore is what your body is telling you. If something doesn’t feel good, remember what and how much you ate for next time — even writing it down in your phone can be a good idea — so that you don’t make the same mistake twice. Keep in mind that differences in your experience versus your friends’ experience can even depend on the strain. Different strains affect people differently, so all you have to know is what is right for you.

Keep in mind that even certain aspects such as gender, age, and weight can make a difference in how your body is affected by marijuana edibles, and how fast you start feeling the effects. Gender aside, these body differences will even change over the course of your life, so you won’t always have the same effect from eating a marijuana edible.

Milligrams are important

As stated above, about 10 milligrams is roughly one “dose” of marijuana, much like one “drink” of alcohol. Once you know exactly how many milligrams affect your body, you will be better able to make informed decisions. Keep track of how many milligrams you have consumed so that you don’t have too many all at once. If there is a delicious dessert such as a chocolate bar that has 100 milligrams of marijuana in it, you should break it up into ten pieces and dose it that way. Use this logic for all aspects of eating marijuana edibles.

Remember, even taking your first dose of 10 milligrams can be too much for some people – especially if you haven’t eaten recently and therefore have an empty stomach. Sometimes if you have a smaller body mass, or if you are simply completely new to the marijuana edibles scene that can do it as well.

A good option for beginners, or those who simply don’t know how much one dose of 10 milligrams will affect them, is to choose a brand or product that comes in 5-milligram doses. Often, they are specifically created for newcomers as well as people who just happen to have a low tolerance.

Remember, you can always start with 5 milligrams and work your way up from there, but you can never take back the extra milligrams that you shouldn’t have eaten in the first place.

The type of edible can make a difference

If you are eating a chocolate bar infused with marijuana, you might have an entirely different experience than if you were eating a gummy treat infused with marijuana. Reactions to the various types of marijuana edibles will also vary from person to person. For that reason, milligrams aren’t the only thing you need to pay attention to — you should also remember what kind of marijuana edibles you have consumed in the past, and how that affected you.

Download my free marijuana grow guide at this link and learn to grow marijuana for your own edibles

Many people will discover one kind of edible that becomes their brand or product of choice. If you know that a chocolate bar with 10 milligrams of marijuana in it is perfect for you, then why not keep going with that all the time? This way you can rest assured in the knowledge that you truly know what you’re doing and how it will affect you.

Your smoking tolerance is not your edible tolerance

If you are someone who has been smoking marijuana consistently for years, then you might consider yourself a “seasoned” veteran in the marijuana world and will be unafraid in the face of trying marijuana edibles for the first time. Your high tolerance of smoking marijuana will not translate into a high tolerance for eating marijuana, however. It is a vital lesson to learn.

No matter who you are, if it is your first time having marijuana, start out small and slow. Remember that your tolerance for smoking marijuana comes from your lungs, and edibles won’t even touch your lungs because they depend completely on your stomach. The stomach lining does not have the high number of membranes that the lungs do, meaning the high (when it hits you) will be far more intense than a high from smoking marijuana.

If you are planning on going anywhere after you eat a marijuana edible for the first time, plan on getting a ride from someone or taking a taxi, because it would not be safe.

Try your first edible in a safe, comfortable environment

When you are trying out a marijuana edible for the first time, being alone is likely not a good choice. Keep a close friend or family member with you, in case of an “overdose”. That way they can help you through it more comfortably. They can also help you remember exactly how many gummy bears, cookies, or chocolate bars you had eaten and how it affected you so you will have more accurate information for the next time around.

The location of your first edible is also important for you to have a positive experience. If you are trying a larger dose, being home is probably your best bet as it will allow you to simply go to bed when you need to. Besides, even if you use the perfect dose, what is more perfect than enjoying the happy and relaxed feelings of marijuana with your friends and family in a beloved, safe, and comfortable setting?

The more knowledgeable and comfortable you become with eating marijuana edibles, the more you will enjoy it. Once you have reached a point of feeling like you know what you are doing, consuming edibles in a more social environment or among strangers can be a safer thing to do. You certainly won’t want to be eating with strangers for your first time in case you have too much.

Help, I’ve eaten too much!

This is a typical cry for help from a newbie marijuana eater. This has happened to us all at some point, so try not to panic. Luckily, no one has ever died from a marijuana overdose, and neither will you. All you can do at this point is to keep breathing normally and stay relaxed as much as possible. Take note of precisely how much you ate and what you ate this time around so that you can avoid feeling this miserable next time. In the end, this could be a valuable lesson for you.

It’s all worth it in the end
Ultimately, the struggle to find the perfect dose for you is worth it when looking at marijuana edibles. They can offer a wide variety of benefits and enjoyment without some of the negative aspects of other forms of marijuana. Some people simply don’t like the smoking experience, while other people can’t smoke and need marijuana for medicinal purposes. In either of these cases or any of the other many examples out there, marijuana edibles make for the perfect compromise. As long as they are eaten safely and smartly, you can end up having developed an entirely better lifestyle simply through the safe consumption and use of marijuana edibles.

So what are you waiting for? Go out there, buy some marijuana edibles or find a recipe to make your own. You can see what all the hype is about –, and we’re sure you will be just as hooked as everyone else.

Thanks for reading. Please leave comments or questions below and don’t forget to download my free grow bible. For any grow related question please visit the marijuana support page.