Comments

1
I cannot know what happened, but I'm curious. Did Dan misspell the name of a colleague? Or did a copyeditor or proofreader or whoever posted it online "fix" it?

Whatever the case, it's Emily Yoffe, not Joffe.
2
There might NOT be a dosage that works. I've tried pot in many different forms, in many different dosages, many many many times and all I ever feel is nauseous and dizzy. Everyone keeps saying it takes a while or you have to try different types or whatever but I think I would have felt something different by now.

I think it's possible to feel only unpleasant effects from pot and not high. I'm sure I'm in a small minority. Maybe it's genetic.

Just sayin though... it doesn't work for everyone unfortunately.
3
How about a vaporiser? Take a puff, wait 10 minutes. If you're not feeling enough of the effects, take another puff, wait 10 more minutes, repeat. At some point you'll realise you're just as high as you want to be. Also, try it the Amsterdam way with a coffee, that should beat the sleepy feeling.
4
There are legal drugs whose therapeutic dose is close to doses that give undesirable side effects. Most of those are prescription-only.

Other drugs have a therapeutic dose well below their toxicity. Many of those are over-the-counter.

But, like Urgutha @2, one's individual sensitivity and metabolism might require a higher dose for the desired effect than the undesired drowsiness allows.

I've never imbibed (and I understand how smoking anything can be off-putting), but wouldn't smoking it give a much quicker feedback and ability to titrate to the appropriate level of uninhibitedness - if it's even possible for this person?

Marijuana causes fewer problems per user than alcohol, but for this LW, there's another recreational drug that been legal since 1933 (as it was before 1919).
5
I'm with @2. I've smoked enough to know that weed simply isn't for everyone. I'd say I sort of liked it about 25% of the time. The other 75%, I'd get nauseous, anxious, pissed that other people were getting chill...and when things were really bad my blood pressure would drop, I'd sweat profusely and get really close to passing out.

Anyway, I'm a booze guy. As I've gotten older, I wish I was a weed guy. imo, it can a lot healthier than alcohol. But again, it's just not for me.
6
Any chance the uninhibiting effects of booze and pot are additive? Booze and the lower oxygen at high elevation can make 3 drinks seem like 5. If so, two glasses of red wine and half a brownie might get her there while avoiding both the pot-drowsiness and the alcohol hang-over.

Any feedback from the vast recreational-drug experience of the commentators?
7
So I wondered why WEED isn't trying to make her own edibles at home. Dan is right, that WEED is experimenting at her own risk by doing so, but given what he already noted about commercial products, it appears she faces the same short-term issues, while long-term she could have far greater control over the amount of marijuana she would be ingesting.

Having said that, drugs affect everyone in different ways, so perhaps for WEED when she ingests therapeutic levels of marijuana, the affect on her is to make her drowsy and then hungover, rather than the relaxing high she desires.
8
That's sad, not getting the good vibes from dope. It's such a nice drug and all troubles just float away.
9
Weed is complicated. Unlike booze, there are several drugs (or cannabinoids). The big three are THC, CBD and CBN. There are others, but with just those three you have a lot of combinations that can make you feel high, sleepy, disoriented, paranoid, or some combination of those emotions.

There are differences between eating and smoking, too. Personally, I don't recommend eating for those unfamiliar with the drug. It is easy to eat too much or too little, and the former could easily freak you out. I agree with @3. I understand why you don't want to smoke -- lots of people hate smoking. But a vaporizer will have no smoke if done right, and a tiny amount if you press the button too long. Either way, you are smoking way, way, way less than single cigarette.

That is why I recommend going into a reputable shop and trying a mix of weed. Try different things and you may find the combination that works.

I also think @6 is on to something. Personally, I use high THC weed, and it tends to make me a little nervous. It's not too bad, but those who are unfamiliar with the feeling might freak out. The problem might be solved by getting weed with a little more CBD, but a beer or two does the trick as well. I have heard (anecdotally) that drinking does enhance the effects of eating weed. So if that edible doesn't quite do it for you, try it with a drink, and see if the combination works. I know for me, personally, it works quite well.

That all sounds like a lot of work, but the point is not to just give up because you had a bad experience and assume weed isn't for you. It might not be, but it also might be that you just haven't found the right weed (or the right method for taking it) that could make you very happy.
10
Didn't Schmader say that ingesting edible pot is the "knock you on your ass" method of doing pot? The kind that leads to couch lock? I think I remember him saying that the process it goes through during digestion causes a deeper slower high than smoking or vaping,

Anyways, try smoking/vaping. Or maybe pot isn't for you? But, if you've tried it twice, both with edibles, and only gotten high once, you should try one more time.
11
I'm another one who just doesn't do well with marijuana. Smoking it can be relaxing and fun, but then I get anxiety attacks later. Edibles, even with relatively small doses, may start out doing the same, but then everything descends into craziness. The downside definitely outweighs the upside for me.

Alcohol is better for me--I've always been a happy drunk, never a melancholy or angry one--but I'm reaching the age where hangovers really seem like too much of a hassle to deal with. I basically can't drink for two or three nights in a row with few ill effects anymore. I might go out once a month or so at most.

So what I take from these drug experiences, WEED, is that (1) not every drug is for everyone and (2) as we age, our bodies get less able to deal with the fallout from using. It's really not a bad thing if you're one of those people who just can't enjoy weed like others do.

@9 I take it as fairly axiomatic that if you have to take multiple drugs to get things to work out well, you're probably better off not taking anything at all.
12
Yep, I'm with @3, @9, and @10. Buy one of those disposable vape pens and take a puff until it feels right. Edibles make everyone couch-locked.
13
Ross @9: "I have heard (anecdotally) that drinking does enhance the effects of eating weed. So if that edible doesn't quite do it for you, try it with a drink, and see if the combination works."

I was thinking of each adding its own effect as a drug, but maybe alcohol also serves as a solvent for some of the active compounds in weed? TMI, but while I can enjoy any kind of seafood almost to excess, a few glasses of wine plus modest amounts of seafood does not lead to a happy result. I theorize that whatever I'm allergic to in the seafood is more efficiently extracted by the alcohol, sooner in the GI tract. Hence absorbed before being degraded/digested.

So, yeah: try half an edible with a glass or two of wine.

And can we pat the LW and her spouse on the back for working to find a solution? Definitely worth a few hole punches on their GGG card (20 punches and you go shopping together for a new sex toy).
14
@9 I take it as fairly axiomatic that if you have to take multiple drugs to get things to work out well, you're probably better off not taking anything at all.

Oh please. There is such a thing as an acquired taste. It is pretty rare that anyone likes their first taste of beer, whiskey or coffee. Why should weed be any different?

The writer basically ate some no-doze, and is ready to swear off coffee. Fair enough. But as @10 said, that isn't the whole story. Maybe just try sipping a nice mellow cup of coffee instead. Oh, except that you might have to try several brands before you find something you like (oh, the horror!).
15
@13 maybe alcohol also serves as a solvent for some of the active compounds in weed?

Yeah, that is basically the theory. Again, no evidence, pure speculation, but it stands to reason. Either way, as long as you keep the dosage low (of both weed and booze) I think things will work out well.
16
I'm with the others in that edibles are... just... too... much... However in legal states, Weed Lite (TM) is an amazing thing. Just shop for some different buds or vapes with a lower THC and higher CBD percentage, (but not too much of either). Two or 3 puffs of the non wackadoodle variety can set the mood just right.
17
In the late 60s I helped pay my tuition for med school by driving from Salt Lake City to Tucson (780 miles each way) to load and transport a pickup load of red cellophane wrapped bricks of keys. 600 kilos topped off with a layer of wet alfalfa hay bales (strong smell) and a tarp.
Oh gawd I was SO clean cut--even wore a cowgirl skirt and pearl button blouse, armadillo boots and a stetson...and make up!

Iā€™d actually motion for highway patrol to pull over and ask for directions to a motel/restaurant. Smile, flirt,(That was ALL!) told them I was visiting the Mormon Temple in Tucson to see my brother the bishop. There were four patrolman that I got to know well. Told ā€˜em that I was bringing up hay from my brotherā€™s farm for my barrel racing pony-Shenandoah!
Completely made up! NOT A Mormon and still a virgin in college! Sad! Also an atheist.

Lived in a house up by the ā€œUā€ (Univ of Utah)with nine guys. We would take an entire weekend dividing up the weed in nickel and dime bags. $5 a full oz and $10 for 3 oz. Really. They would bogart the buds for themselves, used an Osterizer for the stems. 5 to 15 guys sitting around a huge table rolling a blunt--the size of Cuban cigars.

Tuition/books/ for med school was $1,600 a YEAR! Rent/food was free as I cleaned the house for the nine guys--donā€™t ask! Four round-trips each year paid for school.

Iā€™m saying all this as I helped smoke one joint (through a ā€œcarburetorā€), shared a bowl of hash in a bong, and ate 1/4 of a brownie (I made all the ā€œbaked goods too)
THAT WAS ALL AND NEVER AGAIN.

Why? B/C of seeing patients I needed 100% clarity. Youā€™re always on call for delivering babies and Mormons have LOTSA babies. Some moms had 16-17 kids! (Brood cows). And on call for trauma. Did I miss it? Sure! But patients came first in family practice.

No alcohol, tobacco, or drugs. Yet had a rip-roaring life--skiing, FINALLY a lot of very good sex, hiking--moved to Hawaiā€™i , lived on a sailboat, scuba, surf, fish, worked full time.

I am NOT any holier than though witch. Never saw the use?
18
Fun times Helen. I didn't fuss much with dope in the 70s. I remember buying a Buddha stick (?) it costs $12Aus and I never finished it. It went mildew. Then I moved from Sydney to the Nth coast of NSW and cause the hippies were there, it was social currency and I got to enjoy it. On and off over the years, until last couple of years and well. What can I say? Getting older sure feels better stoned some of the time.
19
And since the writer specifically asked how to make the most of her limited opportunities, vaping makes a lot of sense over edibles because it's so much quicker to dose. You can feel it almost immediately (then give it fifteen minutes to explore the level, unless you're getting nothing), and dose higher to step up to where you want to be. With edibles after hours of ramp up who has the stamina to add on more?
20
Wanted to pop by to say that it should be pointed out that coconut oil should NOT be used as a lubricant with condoms. Also, it is highly comedogenic, so also a no-no if you are at all prone to body acne/ingrown hairs.

Don't really have much advice regarding weed...I tried really, really hard to be a pothead back in the early 90s, but it just wasn't my thing. Mostly made me paranoid and agitated, although maybe 1 out of 10 times, it did actually work for sex. I have no idea why or what was different, although less was always more for me.

21
David @6: Actually, I would have made the opposite suggestion. If WEED felt comatose after a cookie, perhaps it was because she did also have a glass or two of wine. They do tend to "square" instead of doubling each other's downer properties. I have to be very careful sharing joints with people who've been drinking (I don't) lest I send them horizontal.

Agree with those who say it's not for everyone. No drug is -- including alcohol.
22
Patient comes to doctor with symptom. Doctor prescribes medication. Medication doesn't work. Doctor now has 2 possibilities. Doctor can adjust dosage and particulars of medicine to find a way to make it work, or Doctor can go back to the beginning to find out reasons for symptoms and consider other possible treatments. Me, I'd go with the latter option. Why does WEED need to be loosened up sexually? What other possibilities would help? What are the variables here? Maybe WEED needs a different/better/more compatible partner. The way it sounds now, WEED is being squeezed on all sides. She's being made to "fit" a medicine that doesn't agree with her, and if that doesn't work, she's being made to fit some sexual something that's not her either. I do like the idea of trying other chemical compositions of marijuana, but if that doesn't work, try something else.
23
Lava @ 18 - "Getting older sure feels better stoned some of the time"

True words of wisdom, Lava!

Still reading you all, by the way, just too busy with work most days (and I do mean "most") to take the time to comment.
24
I vastly prefer smoking weed; I don't like eating weed. The best part of the (particularly initial) high of smoking is missing for me when eaten. And when eaten, there's the risk (particularly for a beginner) of what is for me an unbearably miserable horrible-feeling experience of eating too much.

Remember, often beginners don't feel it at first. Which makes it a not so good idea for them to be engaging in 'trials' picking self-dosages of edibles.
25
Personally I think edibles are overrated. They make you feel happy for a bit but the crash is extremely unpleasant and long lasting. Just smoke it.
26
Weed has different effects on everyone. Try ecstasy.
27
I think a lot of the commenters missed that she said:

"I have had fun highs before, so I know it's possible for me, but that was when it was illegal, so I have no idea what strains/dosage it was."

So she knows weed can work for her; she can have an enjoyable high, and is looking to recreate that. Isn't one benefit of living in a state where it's legal, that you can buy it from a shop wehre I presume the staff are knowledgable about the strains and can maybe help with this exact question? (It's not yet legal where I am so this is a legitimate question.)
28
@10 a buddy gave me some homemade brownies once. I had to take a nap. I got a text message, and my phone was resting on my pillow next to my head. "It's too far," I thought.
29
I'm really surprised no one in Seattle offered this person the suggestion of trying a 'sativa' versus an 'indica' strain of marijuana to try. People did focus on vaping instead of edibles, which was good advice. But, picking the correct strain of bud is critical. Indica strains will knock you back and make you feel dulled and relaxed. While Sativa strains will bring you up and active, probably where you want to be for this activity. Just be careful not to overindulge. Small hits on a vape pen until you get the feeling you're looking for provide immediate response versus waiting an hour or more for an edible to kick in.
30
Ricardo @23, Hi. good to see you. Yes, wisdom comes with dope, it's a wonder drug. Least I tell myself that.
31
I may be the odd one, but weed in any form causes horrible anxiety for me. Smoke a joint, and i want to jump out a window. After years (not jumping out of windows) of trying to have fun, I realized it will not happen for me.
Sex after just smoking was fun, but then I'd spend the rest of the night spinning in terror.
32
@9,13,etc. Please be careful mixing marijuana and alcohol - depending on dosage and your physiology, you can easily become over-intoxicated or just end up vomiting. Not sexy.

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