The Progressive Zone

Yesterday I learned that I can’t overdose on marijuana when I ate ten doses of marijuana in one bite. No, I did not do it intentionally but the story of how it happened is amusing. As it turned out, no harm came from the adventure but it still makes a good cautionary tale about edible marijuana.

When I visited my dispensary last week, they were offering a big sales promotion. I bought an eighth of an ounce of marijuana flowers, which is my preferred form of cannabis consumption. The budtender offered me a marijuana jelly candy for less than a dollar more. Although I enjoy edible marijuana, I rarely buy it because it’s more expensive than in flower form. But at the promotion price, I had her add the jelly candy to my order.

Bear in mind that the writing seems much smaller and more difficult to read on the package than it does in these photographs to me. Even with my reading glasses on, I had a hard time reading the fine print. Since jellies (or gummies) are usually packaged with ten candies, each candy having ten milligrams of THC, I was surprised to find just one jelly inside this package ─ albeit more than double the size of the gummies I’ve had in the past. So I tried to read the package to find out what I was getting into but the back of the package was even harder for me to read.

From what little I was able to read on the front of the package, it looked like it said that it was a “Jelly Single” with ten milligrams of THC. On the back of the package, I was able to make out the word “SAMPLE”. Inside the package, there was only one jelly and it didn’t look like the producer intended it to be broken apart into ten separate doses. So putting all that information together with the under one dollar price, I assumed it was a single dose jelly packaged as a promotional sample.

Since it’s a lazy, rainy weekend, I figured what better way to kick it off than to wake & bake with a mild edible marijuana buzz. I usually eat two or three ten-milligram gummies (an average of 25 mg THC) on the occasions that I eat cannabis rather than vaporizing it. Therefore, I expected to barely feel the jelly I ate yesterday morning since I thought it only had ten milligrams of THC.

Almost an hour later, I was giving up on the idea of feeling the jelly I ate at all. But then I started getting very lightheaded about twenty minutes after that. Since I don’t normally get very lightheaded when I vaporize or eat marijuana, it didn’t occur to me that the jelly could be causing it. Half an hour after that, I started getting very sleepy. Subsequently, I spent the entire day either napping or watching TV and in a complete lethargy until after sunset.

Late in the afternoon, I remembered the jelly I had eaten and put two & two together. I realized that it was probably a much higher dosage of THC than I initially thought it was and was probably also the cause of the unusual feelings I was experiencing. When I finally summoned the energy, I got photographs of my jelly’s package and zoomed in tight enough to clearly read the fine print. That’s when I discovered that the one jelly I had eaten actually had 100 milligrams of THC in it ─ ten times the amount I thought that I had consumed.

The moral of this story is to be cautious when consuming edible marijuana because it’s easy to unknowingly overdose. Overdosing on marijuana will not cause any long-term damage but it will make you useless for the day. And it could freak you out if you didn’t realize that you had consumed a large amount of THC or if you have very little experience with marijuana.

For those who are not familiar with their tolerance of edible marijuana, start with only a ten milligram dose. Regular marijuana users can start with twenty milligrams. But remember that it takes your body far longer to absorb THC you’ve eaten than it does THC that you’ve smoked or vaporized. Allow yourself at least an hour after you eat the first ten-milligram jelly (or two) before considering whether or not you want to eat another. And if you do, allow at least another hour after that before you eat yet another. If you ever do eat thirty milligrams, expect to have a solid buzz for a few hours during which you will not likely get much accomplished.

The lesson I learned yesterday is to also be certain that you know how much THC is in the marijuana you eat. Make sure that you can and do read the entire label clearly. Do not do like I did yesterday and make assumptions about how much THC you’re eating based on a few scattered clues. Lastly, do not drive while you’re intoxicated from marijuana. If you follow these simple rules, enjoying a moderate buzz from edible marijuana can be a pleasant experience.