I’m 66. I quite enjoyed marijuana in my teens and very occasionally as late as my early 30s, perhaps as recently as 1990, all of which was illegal. But in about a week it’s going to become legal for recreational use in my home state. I’m contemplating trying it again, as edibles (I have chronic bronchitis and couldn’t smoke or vape it). What I’m wondering about, a factual question I think, are the issues to consider. Are there age related risks? Are modern forms much more powerful than 30+ years ago? I’m alcoholic and dry since 1986 and I think I get addicted easily, so, is the conventional wisdom that marijuana is or is not addictive (or is it in the large gray area covered by the blanket concept of “addiction”)?
Not sure I’m going to try this. Just getting some facts before making a choice. It’s not important to me to try it, so it’s not worth much risk.
Edibles produce a very different effect than smoking/vaping. Many people enjoy both. I still enjoy the occasional toke but never liked edibles.
As to the strength issue, weed is much stronger now but that is a lot less of an issue with edibles because you know what you’re getting, at least to the extent that the producers are being accurate.
A big cookie might have 100mg of THC. That is WAY too much for you to try for the first time. Start slow. You could get, for example, a tin of mints where each one is 2.5 or 5.0 mg. Start off with one mint and see how it works.
Keep in mind that it can take an hour for the effects to come on, it’s not instantaneous like a puff on a joint. Eat a mint and see how it affects you. If it’s unpleasant, more won’t be better. If you don’t feel much of anything, try two mints the next day. Consider having someone with you in case you get anxious but it shouldn’t be a problem. The effects wear off after not too long.
IANAD, but as I understand it, marijuana is not chemically addictive in the way that nicotine and caffeine are, but it can still become psychologically addictive. Which is not a surprise, given that almost any sort of pleasant (or even unpleasant) experience can become psychologically addictive.
I am a total MJ neophyte; zero experience in my long-ago youth. I too am approaching the point in my life where trying this stuff is both practically / legally possible and interesting to me.
Like the OP, in general I expect I’d be doing the edibles then perhaps branching into vaping, but most likely not.
So with that, a question:
Is “not too long” like minutes, a couple hours, a whole afternoon, or tomorrow? Obviously it’s not a precise thing, but even some order of magnitude guestimate would greatly increase my near-zero knowledge.
Yes, actually, this is a point I meant to ask about particularly. A long time ago I read that there’s sort of a safety valve in marijuana smoking, because you get too stoned to manage smoking, and it happens well before a dangerous dose. Probably 95% of my experience was smoking it. And if it weren’t for the respiratory illness, I’d prefer the manageability of smoking.
Actually, this is reminding me of a very bad experience in about 1978. We were college students sharing apartments. One of us had brownies. For whatever reason, I didn’t have any, I think because my partner and I were going to drive out to a restaurant for dinner. My partner had half a brownie. She was pretty big, maybe 180 pounds or so. As we got to the restaurant she told me she was getting really high, too high. We sat down and she said she needed me to order for her and otherwise take care of her. It was way too much.
Well, another roomate was very slight. She might have weighed 90 pounds, so, half my partner’s body weight. But she ate two brownies. She had four times the dose, eight times the dose per body weight, that partially incapacitated my partner. She got so high she had heart palpitations and panic (she had some kind of heart condition anyway, though it usually didn’t effect her in any way that we could see). She wound up in the emergency room (I’m not sure the details as we weren’t there). She came back changed somehow. She was the person on the lease, and she left the area and we all had to move out. I never did hear if she eventually got over this. I’m not sure how to make sense of all this. It does give me pause, but I do like the idea that a modern regulated commercial supply would make it easier to manage dose accurately.
If you believe people actual freak out as a physiological result of consuming small amounts of THC then it could happen to you. People have fainted from the belief that they had incidental contact with fentanyl. Your worry is not about what’s in the brownies, it’s about what’s in your mind.
When I visited Amsterdam with a few friends about 15 years ago one of the most deadly and potent strains was called White Widow. We had been regular cannabis smokers and we found it to be very strong.
So one of my friends went bak last month and he went into a cafe. He spoke to the guy behind the counter: “look, it’s been a very long time before I last smoked so can you just give me your weakest most gentle strain please?”. What did the guy offer him? White Widow.
As an aside a friend of mine that has trouble sleeping has found edibles to be a vastly better solution (for him) than prescription meds to help with sleep. A gummy 30 minutes before bed and he sleeps just fine and no foggy head when waking like he’d get from a prescription sleep aid.
Be sure to ask the staff at the marijuana store any questions you might have. They are almost always very knowledgeable about their products and honestly answer any questions you might have about it.
Do you want to stay sober? Don’t use THC. I do know several alcoholics who replaced alcohol with marijuana because they couldn’t function in life on booze but can with THC. Some people delude themselves into thinking this is “California Sober.” Personally I wouldn’t change anything after being sober for so long but it’s your choice.
Why is this an argument against THC? If we take these “several people” at their word, they made a good choice. I am definitely not advocating that everyone start consuming THC but there are many people who have issues with booze but none at all with mj use and vice versa. And exactly how is California Sober a “delusion”? OP said that they had no problem with weed in the past so there probably won’t be Reefer Madness hell scape.
I was in almost your position when it became legal in my state (actually, when it became legal in a neighboring one, but that’s not relevant here). I had smoked it recreationally in my youth, not daily but fairly regularly, so I wasn’t exactly a stoner, but I wasn’t a complete lightweight either. Once we decided to have kids, I put it behind me aside from very rare occasions when we were away and someone else was looking after them.
I also use only edibles, since I now find it unpleasant to inhale smoke (or vape). It can be difficult to find lower-dose edibles, so I get the 10 mg THC ones and take a quarter to a half at a time. It usually takes about half an hour to begin feeling the effects (it can be more like an hour on a full stomach), and it’s often another half hour or so before I feel the full effect, so I don’t try to top up by taking more before that.
My main reason for using marijuana nowadays is arthritis pain relief and help with sleep. For me, 2.5 mg has a mild analgesic effect, 5 mg will make me feel a bit high while easing pain more, and 10 mg puts me to sleep as effectively as an Ambien without the residual effects on waking. The effects, for me, tend to last about 4 - 6 hours. Some people swear by CBD and prefer to get edibles that include it, but I’ve never noticed any effect from it myself.
Presumably, you do know yourself and your reaction to mind-altering drugs. I’ve never had a problem with addiction, so it’s not something I’ve worried about personally, but I could see where the inhibition-lowering effects might lead to slipping back into addictive behaviors. On the other hand, I know someone who’s an alcoholic in recovery, and he swears by marijuana as something that helps him stay off alcohol. YM, as always, MV.
If someone has had a problem with alcohol or any similar addiction in the past then it’s important to consider the following absolutely solid advice.
As a matter of fact, it’s impossible to use THC and stay sober.
OTOH, the OP is 66 years old. He probably has a good idea that he can handle trying it now since he is asking, and I assume his life won’t be going down the drain even if he started using THC to excess now. I hope he can consume it responsibly and disastrous consequences don’t seem likely.
It’s not an argument against THC. It’s a choice. It can be a good choice for some. California Sober is a delusion because intoxication is not sober regardless of the substance. That’s not a value judgment. For some not having alcohol is the only outcome they are looking for. Some believe sobriety must be maintained at all costs. You have to know yourself which is something that addicts are often not good at.
I think I see the disconnect here. No one thinks that California Sober means actual sobriety because it clearly is not. It’s an ironic term used to describe someone whose only drug of choice is weed.
More on the alcoholism thing: I haven’t had a drink since 1986. I did use marijuana a few times after that, without a problem. I have also had prescription narcotics also without problem, but never used those for anything other than what they were prescribed for (surgical pain, kidney stones, chronic cough). The great majority of the past 37 years I’ve been sober with respect to all recreational intoxicants.
But that doesn’t make it trivial.
Other than the first several years, I’ve found it very workable to stay dry. I don’t think using marijuana again would threaten that, but I am questioning it. And that alone may be all the influence I need to decide against it. Obviously, I’m afraid of something here.