Shayda Torabi, To Be Blunt Podcast and Restart CBD

Ellen Lee Scanlon (00:00):

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

Ellen Lee Scanlon (00:07):

Welcome to How to Do the Pot, a podcast de-mystifying cannabis for women. I’m Ellen Scanlon. On these short episodes, we share women’s stories about the first time they bought legal weed. I hope they bring a little fun and a new perspective into your week. Shayda Torabi is the Texas-based host of To Be Blunt podcast and the co-founder of RESTART CBD.

Shayda Torabi (00:35):

I’ll start the story by sharing that I am a born and raised Texan. Cannabis is still not fully legal in my state, but luckily I had family and grew up going to Colorado. So I had to book a trip as soon as I could. So, I remember planning a trip to Colorado and going to a dispensary for the first time. And I think that I definitely felt like a kid in a candy shop. I had never seen cannabis be productized before, especially coming from Texas. Just kind of the illegalization and the familiarity more with the black market. I never had choices when I was consuming cannabis prior to legalization. I was always left with, “Well, I think this is an Indica, or I think this is a Sativa,” but there was no candy. There was no topicals. There weren’t any fun type of creative brands or packaging.

Shayda Torabi (01:34):

And so I just remember being in the dispensary and just being like, “I want to buy everything.” And so naturally, I did buy everything. And in that package, I bought this two-pack of chocolate truffles. I think when you come from the black market, you’re not really used to dosing or anybody talking to you about milligrams. It’s more like, “Here is weed. And you can buy it, and it’s this price.” But when you go to a dispensary, there’s obviously, packaging. There’s instructions to some extent. It’s like, “This candy has this many milligrams.” Well, I totally overlooked that. I was just so excited to be legally purchasing cannabis that I got these truffles because they sounded so good. And I remember just gobbling one up and kind of asking questions later. My poor boyfriend at the time, he was like, “Okay, girl. Go for it!”

Shayda Torabi (02:27):

And he just watched me go to the pool and start floating around. And the next thing I know, it’s like, “Babe. The edible is kicking in.” Once you eat the edible, it’s kind of like the beginning of the journey. We were at a resort, so I just remember swimming. And I ended up taking a really big fat nap, and that was awesome because I love a good cannabis-induced nap. But for sure, when I read the packaging after the fact when I came to, it was like “50 milligrams of THC per truffle.” So the whole package had a hundred milligrams. Why does a single piece of chocolate, like the size of a quarter, need to be 50 milligrams? Obviously, I think dosing has kind of mellowed out since then, but it was certainly a really exciting first experience of just truly, really diving headfirst into the legal cannabis dispensary experience and just being so fascinated with all the products that I just wanted to try them.

Shayda Torabi (03:26):

And so, I’ve now been super fortunate to have many other cannabis dispensary experiences, but my takeaway is always to read the product label. Even now, in 2021, it still just helps you set yourself up for success with the products. Make sure you understand the ratios if it’s a CBD to THC product. If it’s a 1:1 versus a 1:20. Those obviously matter how the product is going to work with your body and your unique biochemistry. So yeah. Oh man, I miss those early days. It was kind of like a grab bag of “What are you going to get when you go to the dispensary?” But it was also a really exciting journey to watch the evolution of how far cannabis has come since those early days of legalization.

Ellen Lee Scanlon (04:12):

If you have questions about edibles, check out episode 10, The Edibles List, which will help you understand what dose is right for you.

Ellen Lee Scanlon (04:23):

Thanks for listening to this episode of How to Do the Pot. If you’d like to share your story about the first time you bought legal weed, please send a voice memo to hi@dothepot.com or DM us at @dothepot. For lots more information and past episodes, visit dothepot.com, and that’s also where you can sign up for How to Do the Pot’s newsletter, which comes out every other Friday.

Ellen Lee Scanlon (04:45):

And if you like How to Do the Pot, please rate and review us on apple podcasts. It helps more people find the show. Thanks to Madi Fair, our brand manager, and our producer, Nick Patri. I’m Ellen Scanlon, and we’ll be back soon with more of How to Do the Pot.