Do Edibles Make Your Eyes Red?
It’s common knowledge that smoking marijuana, especially when new to the plant or smoking large amounts, your eyes turn red. And sometimes not just a little red, but very red. But what about marijuana edibles? Do they also stripe your eyes red, or does the smokeless nature of them lead to little or even no changes in your eyes?
Do Edibles Make Your Eyes Red?
In short, yes.
Like smoking marijuana, consuming marijuana edibles can, and almost surely will (unless consuming very small amounts) lead to red eyes.
Will your eyes be as red as if you smoked marijuana? Probably not, but it’ll be close.
There isn’t a lot of science surrounding this question, but anecdotally it’s quite clear that the answer to the question “do marijuana edibles make your eyes red?” is “yes”.
Why Does Consuming Marijuana Make Your Eyes Red?
Typically when first smoking marijuana it leads to a slight increase in both blood pressure and heart rate. After just a few minutes, blood pressure begins to decrease, which causes dilation of blood vessels as well as capillaries, which causes increased blood flow to the eyes. This causes redness.
How Long Do Red Eyes Last After Consuming Marijuana?
- When smoking marijuana, red eyes typically go mostly back to normal after a few hours – at most five hours.
- When consuming marijuana edibles, red eyes typically go back mostly to normal after four to six hours
- When consuming edibles with very large amounts of THC, red eyes can last as long as six to eight hours.
What Can You Do to Reduce the Time Your Eyes Are Red?
Although there’s no absolute fool-proof way to reduce the time your eyes are red after consuming marijuana (or stop it entirely), here are a few tips:
- Carry with you and use eye drops like Visine. These are probably the best way to rapidly reduce red-eyes, though it doesn’t solve the problem entirely.
- Be patient. As mentioned above, typically a few hours after smoking marijuana, or four to six hours after consuming marijuana edibles, the red eyes will fade away back to normal
- Drink plenty of liquid, which can help to reduce eye dryness and thus eye redness