April Pride: This podcast discusses cannabis and is intended for audiences 21 and over.

Kate Miller: I am Kate Miller, co-founder and CEO of Miss Grass. I’m on a cannabis safari with edibles currently.

Raeven Duckett: My name is Raeven Duckett. I am a founder of Community Gardens. We have a delivery and distribution license. Edibles are something that I try now. I used to be very scared of them.

Vanessa Lavorato: I’m Vanessa Lavorato, the founder of Marigold Sweets and co-host on Vicelands Bong Appetit. I like edibles.

Verena Von Pfetten: I’m Verena Von Pfetten and I’m the co-founder of Gossamer. I usually prefer a low dose edible.

Lisa Snyder: My name is Lisa Snyder. I am the founder of Tokeativity. I’m always looking for balance.

April Pride: Sophie Saint Thomas writes for Playboy, GQ, Glamor, Allure, Vice, Harper’s Bazaar.

Sophie Saint Thomas: I find that of all the consumption methods, that edibles affect my body the most.

Lizzie Post: Hi, I’m Lizzie Post and I co-run the Emily Post Institute. I never thought of myself as a shy cannabis consumer, I was always really proud to smoke pot.

April Pride: And last week, we heard from women who, like Lizzie, prefer to smoke. What’s the difference in smoking and eating weed?

Vanessa Lavorato: The main difference between smoking and eating is that your liver is metabolizing the cannabinoids. It’s a different way into your body. That just has a drastically different effect. It lasts longer. I’ve found that if I eat more milligrams, I’m going to be high for longer. It can last a long time, especially if you eat a lot, definitely longer than when you smoke.

Lizzie Post: But edibles are really tough because any given day, your metabolism could be faster or slower and you’re up against when is this high going to hit and how long is it going to last?

Lizzie Post: I always like to say for people who take pharmaceutical prescriptions, it’s kind of like rapid release versus time release, and edibles is more of a time-release. When you smoke, you can feel what, how high you’re going to get pretty quickly so you can stop but with edibles, it can take up to an hour or two to feel the effects. So I also anecdotally heard that people will take an edible for the first time, not feel it and then try it again and then they’ll really feel it the next time.

April Pride: Not feeling it the first time is a super common refrain I hear about smoking weed for the first time, so same can be true of edibles, I guess.

Sara Adams: If you’ve never taken an edible before, your body kind of needs to be awakened, your endocannabinoid system needs to understand what it’s receiving.

April Pride: But what if your endocannabinoid system is wide awake and you’re still not feeling the effects of an edible you ate nearly two hours ago, or maybe it just never kicked in? What else could be going on?

Sara Adams: Are you taking it on an empty stomach? It can affect how quickly you feel the effects of the edible.

April Pride: Taking an edible on an empty stomach can affect your high, but not in the way you may think. A 2012 study found that THC and CBD were absorbed quicker on empty stomachs compared to those who filled their bellies with food in addition to the edible. The time it takes to metabolize a meal will slow down the absorption of THC and CBD, but when taken with food, the total amount of THC absorbed was higher. With food, you get higher later, but higher overall than having an edible on an empty stomach. Once you’re high, you’re likely to be higher longer. This is definitely true. The richer the meal with which you choose to pair your edible.

Sara Adams: THC binds with fat. So when you’re eating, it actually helps your body absorb the THC in your edible. So having one right before you eat, you digest and absorb and you start feeling it

Vanessa Lavorato: And I’ve found over the years, just the difference between my peanut butter bon bon versus my Fleur de Sel caramel, the peanut butter usually hits harder. I don’t know why. I’m assuming it’s because the peanut oil has a higher smoking temp. It might bind with the cannabinoids better. It seems to make sense that something that is like a richer fat or like avocado oil or something like that might bind to the cannabinoids more.

April Pride: Vanessa reminds us to take cues from our normal digestive behavior and apply it to ingesting edibles.

Vanessa Lavorato: So what’s your metabolism like? Everybody is so different. Some people can drink eight cups of coffee and they don’t feel it at all. Another person will take a sip of coffee and they’re bouncing off the walls all day. We experience things differently. And with edibles, it’s the same thing.

April Pride: On another note, what do you get when you mix coffee and cannabis or speed and weed?

Vanessa Lavorato: Then your kind of doing the hippy speed ball, which is caffeine and THC. That might be a little too intense for people, especially if you don’t drink coffee normally.

April Pride: Sara Adams, who explained how THC binds with fat is the co-founder of mindset cannabis, which is out in San Diego. The brand signature products are Belgian quality colitas, a ball of flavored chocolate, which dissolve in coffee to create effects and making hippie speed balls a weekend morning dream or nightmare if you don’t get it quite right.

Verena Von Pfetten: You need to be aware of how potent your product is. That’s really hard to do when we’re talking about homemade infused goods.

Vanessa Lavorato: I did some experiments and I put a gram into a stick of butter, and I made a dozen cookies. In 12 cookies one gram of weed made each cookie about 10 to 14 milligrams. That’s a lot for one gram.

Sophie Saint Thomas: A gram of flour is the equivalent of what I call a baseball bat pre-roll. They’re so big, but the flour that’s inside, that’s one gram of flour.

Raeven Duckett: Everybody has a bad story, you know, like, Oh, this one time I had this cookie…

April Pride: Everyone has a bad edible experience. So many people have told me about being a cookie casualty.

Raeven Duckett: There’s a lot of people don’t know how to do edibles.

Sophie Saint Thomas: It’s why when it comes to edibles that like the number one rule is to know what you’re offering someone and label it clearly. If you are going to be bringing edibles to any kind of gathering you are labeling and making it incredibly, incredibly easy for anyone to tell that what you are serving has pot in it.

Vanessa Lavorato: I mean, yeah, if you’re at a party, I don’t know. I wouldn’t take an edible at a party, but I guess it can be fun if you’re like microdosing.

April Pride: And seemingly everyone is micro-dosing gummies.

Raeven Duckett: I love the Camino Gummy. They’re one of my faves right now. Rose delights. I’m in love with them. Really, really great edibles. Not eating a mouthful of grass, you know.

Verena Von Pfetten: Wild one-to-one gummies have been my go-to. They’re really easy to like put in my purse and like microdose anywhere. And it’s very, nobody knows what you’re doing. And that’s really nice to be able to have that freedom. I had one about an hour ago, it was like a two and a half milligram Kiva or something so we’re good.

April Pride: Verena seems not too [inaudible 00:07:57] to consuming a Kiva Camino two and a half milligram gummy, but I have friends who max out at two and a half milligrams. So what’s the right dose, Vanessa?

Vanessa Lavorato: I always say for people to start at two milligrams around that area until they figure out what the right dose is for them.

Verena Von Pfetten: My sweet-spot is like five milligrams of THC and five milligrams of CBD. Cause that for my body feels amazing. And I feel like someone took a little thread and pulled it through my body up the top of my head and I’m sitting up straighter because of that. And that is super consistent for me. It’s been weird honestly. And I’ve been dying to like, like what strain is my strain? I have no idea, but the ratio is really important to me and how I want to feel.

April Pride: And what if you’re not feeling the way you want to feel?

Vanessa Lavorato: If you feel too high, eat something that does not have any weed in it that will help kind of dilute things in your stomach.

Verena Von Pfetten: Some edibles that have some CBD in them, which help bring down your high.

April Pride: I know another thing that can bring down your high. The case of the munchies, or rather the scene of the crime. Once you finish concocting something that involves food of varying textures, but definitely rich all the way through and require the use of microwave a lot

Verena Von Pfetten: The other one with edibles is that, you know, the munchies kick in and you really don’t want to then start munching on more edibles. Cause I don’t know about you, but there are moments with my munchies where I go like robotic. And the next thing I know, you know, that bag of chips is devoured, but it’s, if they happen to be infused, I’d be in real trouble.

April Pride: Pro tip buy products, buy weed products, edibles that are less than two and a half milligrams of THC for treat. Popping five extra mints that are two and a half milligrams of THC will require quote, “going with it” and at times you will have to quote “white knuckle it”, but at least it’s not five additional mints that are each 10 milligrams of THC. Like at that point it’s highly likely that you’re going to piss yourself. So take Vanessa’s advice,

Vanessa Lavorato: Call yourself a lift and go home. It’s okay.

Kate Miller: A bad edible trip is never fun.

Verena Von Pfetten: Like oh my God I can’t eat edibles because I’m going to be like laying on the floor somewhere. Like really paranoid.

Vanessa Lavorato: Sometimes edibles, if you eat enough, can make you hallucinate. Sometimes it can make me a little bit paranoid. So I don’t like those experiences as much. You just kind of have to accept it for what it is and be like, okay, what lesson do I need to learn from this experience? I can just focus on what is my left pinky toe doing.

April Pride: But what if you want to move on from focusing on your left pinky?

Kate Miller: And the best thing to do is have your favorite snacks and a funny movie. Get cozy. You’re going to be okay and surround yourself with chill people. No one who gives you anxiety. Do not call your mom.

April Pride: Sophie Saint Thomas is most definitely not calling your mom.

Kate Miller: My personal like Sophie Saint Thomas favorite, that is, is edibles for sex. I just love them so much. The company 1906 makes these pills called high on love. And they have an aphrodisiac blend that has 2.5 milligrams of THC in each one. I find that if all the consumption methods that edibles affect my body’s the most, like I can use an edible and have an orgasm without even touching myself. They’re so powerful the way they affect my body. And you can have one, you know, earlier in the night, you know, edibles take anywhere from 45 minutes to two hours to kick in and then you feel nice for the rest of the night. My orgasms are stronger and I feel more connected to my partner. I always joke that I feel like kind of like psychically ready. Like I know what they want. Like, Oh, like this dick needs to be sucked. I can just tell by like looking at this person.

April Pride: Or maybe you have a very different demand of your plant medicine in the bedroom?

Raeven Duckett: Cause I’m a woman in my forties. And a lot of us don’t sleep very well. So what I like to do is I like to have one of our calm colitas, which is an Indica and I take it half an hour before bed. And that actually would give me a good six hours, sometimes seven, eight, solid sleep. And I wake up refreshed. I don’t have, I don’t wake up and then like at three o’clock and then not be able to go back to sleep.

Kate Miller: You know, it’s more of a body high. It lasts longer, definitely last longer, which is great for people who need it for pain management or for, you know, sleeping. I think for me, the biggest thing was as far as getting over the fear of taking edibles was when I figured out, oh, it doesn’t last forever. Like you’re going to be okay.

April Pride: Yes you’re going to be okay. Even if things go a little sideways every once in awhile. I mean, what are edibles for after all.

April Pride: Thanks to our high guides in this, in every episode of the high guide, which is kicking off on this feed of how to do the pot for our inaugural five episodes. And you can follow the high guide podcast now, whenever you listen to podcasts like this one and I hope you enjoyed this episode. I’m crafting three more similar to this. And I’d love to hear from you as it takes shape.

April Pride: Many who listened have followed my journey in cannabis and I am so excited to share in this next chapter. So please follow along on Instagram @aprilpride.

April Pride: How to do the pot you can find on instagram @dothepot and for lots more information and past episodes visit dothepot.com. Thanks to how to do the pot’s co-creator and new full-time host Ellen Scanlon, Madi Fair, brand manager, and our producer, Nick Patri.