How to try edible cannabis without feeling like you want to die | Fresno Bee

One evening late last year I was on my computer at home when I heard a woman yelling. Well, not just yelling. More like screaming bloody murder.

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I ran outside and discovered the noise was coming from the house next door. I bounded in and found my neighbor in her bedroom, alternately curled on her bed, then sitting up screaming. Her dogs were cowering.

She had bitten off a chunk of a cannabis-infused caramel that contained a total of 100 milligrams of THC. She had probably consumed between 10 milligrams and 15 milligrams. A standard dose for experienced users is around 10 milligrams, but as a cannabis expert friend of mine says, “Your mileage may vary.”

Having spent the last couple of years learning about cannabis, I knew that she was not going to die. But she was in such distress that I suggested that her husband call 911.

“As a business owner, those are the nightmare scenarios that we have worked really hard to prevent over the years,” said Kristi Knoblich, who, along with her husband, Scott Palmer, own Kiva Confections, one of the largest edible cannabis companies in the state. “You may feel like you are going to die, but you are not going to die – that’s not great marketing language.”

As California enters the brave and complex world of cannabis legalization, it’s important that consumers who choose to experiment with pot understand how to avoid ending up like my neighbor. Inexperienced users who want to dabble, especially with edibles, owe it to themselves to get educated.

“Dosing and storage are the two areas we need to bring awareness to,” Knoblich said.

The state’s Bureau of Cannabis Control and the Department of Public Health have created rules and regulations designed to keep the public safe. But the public, obviously, has an obligation to keep itself safe too.

The rules cover all aspects of the manufacturing process, including product design (edibles cannot be packaged in a way that is attractive to children, nor can the product itself look like kids’ candy).

Honestly, Knoblich said, “parents need to lock this stuff up. Like their guns and their alcohol cabinet.”

The new law says that one serving of an edible can contain no more than 10 milligrams of THC, the psychoactive ingredient in cannabis, with no more than 100 mgs allowed in a single product package. (Think of a segmented chocolate bar.)

But for inexperienced users, 10 milligrams is probably way too much.

Knoblich and her husband are proponents of microdosing. Generally, a microdose is defined as an amount between 2.5 milligrams and 5 milligrams of THC.

“I try to use a glass of wine analogy,” Knoblich said. “A microdose of 2.5 milligrams may be like one glass of wine for someone, and 5 milligrams might be like two glasses of wine. The frustrating part about cannabis is that every amount affects everybody differently, so you run the risk of not feeling it, then getting frustrated. And then you want to take more, which can be a mistake.”

Indeed.

It can take up to two hours to feel the full effect of an edible. This is where so many people get into trouble.

Don’t ever eat homemade marijuana brownies. You have no idea how much THC you are getting, and you may end up feeling as if you are going to die.

Shortly after we called 911, the paramedics arrived.

By their demeanor, I could see there was nothing special about this “emergency.”

My neighbor’s vitals were fine, and she had calmed down. She declined an offer to be transported to the ER. But one of the paramedics said something that upset her, and she started screaming again, so they took her anyway. After a few hours of observation, she was sent home.

The next morning she was a little embarrassed but fine. She told me that she had hallucinated that her contractor was trying to steal her home out from under her.

As I told the story to Knoblich, I found myself chuckling.

“I don’t want to downplay the severity of feeling like you are out of control,” Knoblich said. “But a lot of people present these stories the way you did: ‘This happened to my neighbor, it was absolutely terrible,' and when you get to the end of the story, you’re kind of laughing.”