My First Time With Edibles

I am not a huge weed smoker. No wait, scrap that. I don’t smoke weed. I have before, of course, and I like it, don’t get me wrong! Actually I am right now so maybe I should just eliminate most of what I just said. But for the sake of argument I would never say ‘I smoke weed’. Largely because I think it would make me incredibly unproductive if I smoked it frequently, and being self employed with 100 projects on the go that need me to be motivated at all times, which I struggle with anyway due to an acute lack of concentration, means I can’t afford to be unproductive.

That being said, every time I have ever smoked weed I have felt amazing, unlike other substances I have dabbled in, that give me bouts of nervous energy coupled with crippling anxiety, no appetite (essentially the only good thing about it) and a pretty grim come down. My experience with miss Mary Jane is not dense enough to be able to give educated opinions or enter into discussions with those in the know, but I can share my experiences, and this one is my first ever time with edibles.

A couple of years ago, my then very new boyfriend and I went to Amsterdam for New Year's Eve. When in Rome right? Neither of us smoke and so the coffee shop experience was more out of pure tourist pleasure. I decided that I wanted a brownie, so we walked through the red-light district and sought out the best looking coffee shop for the job. I nervously asked for a brownie and handed over my money to the miserable looking man behind the counter, who couldn’t even be bothered to make eye contact or say anything to me. What he should have said at this point was…

“Have you ever had an edible before?” and then advised how much I should eat, considering my Amsterdam virginity.

The brownie was big, and I mean, if it didn’t have marijuana embedded in it, it still would have been too much to eat in one sitting. My partner looked concerned as I began to break off pieces and shovel them into my mouth.

“Slow down please” he grimaced, watching as I chewed my way through another chunk.

“But I don’t feel anything. I think this is shit, it’s not working”

Ever impatient, I ate half the brownie, then set it down and waited for something to happen. Nothing. Waste of money if you ask me. We began to get ready to go out to the sex museum, our hotel was situated right on the edge of the red-light district, which thrilled me no end and I loved to go hooker window shopping with my boyfriend and decide which girl was perfect threesome material. Whilst Tony, my boyfriend, decided to get in the shower, I took the opportunity to eat the rest of the brownie without his supervision. I figured I might as well not waste the cake, if it wasn’t doing much anyway, at least I could enjoy it as a baked treat.

Bare in mind that, at this point, my experience with weed had been smelling my brother smoke it as a teen and smoking a little from a pipe, because that was what all my friends were doing. Very quickly after finishing the brownie I realised how hilarious everything in the room was. Everything. I don’t really know why, it was just crippling amounts of funny. My boyfriend got out of the shower and noticed I had finished the cake, looking unimpressed as he got dressed, I was still crying with laughter. By the time we were ready to leave I felt weak and light headed from laughing, Tony led me down the hall, red faced and still in hysterics. When we got to the hotel elevator, I lay down and began rolling around. There are some pretty incredible photos of this moment, courtesy of my loving boyfriend.

The sex museum was, in a word, shit, but luckily I was so high I found it entertaining. We walked back to the hotel in the freezing cold, it was the night after New Year's Eve and we had had a pretty intense one the night before so this was just supposed to be edibles and chill type evening. However, my brain had a whole other plan. Back in our hotel room, as Tony sat on the bed and tried to find a movie for us to watch, I was in the bathroom, staring at myself in the mirror. I had a spot on my chin that wasn’t there a few hours ago. What the fuck! I hardly ever get spots. So I decided to squeeze it, strangely, as soon as I squeezed the little prick, a second one popped up next to it. I squeezed the second one and then noticed a few appear on my forehead. What the fuck is going on!

I began to panic as more and more red pimples were seemingly erupting on my face.

“BABY” I cried, as I started trying to pick the red blotches off my face. “Baby I have loads of spots all over my face”

I started crying. My boyfriend rushed to the bathroom “It’s ok, come on, just come away from the mirror and chill”

But I couldn’t pull myself away from the mirror, after a while, with a lot of coaxing from my very patient and equally amused partner, I began to calm down and chill out. We gathered I had probably had some sort of allergic or bad reaction to the brownie. That being said, this is not supposed to scare away first time edible eaters. More serve as a caution or a warning. I have had brownies since this experience and been absolutely fine. The dude in the coffee shop SHOULD have told me not to eat it all. Amsterdam's red-light district is full of tourists flitting in and out of coffee shops, trying these things out for the first time. He should have known better. But I should also have done my research or listened to my boyfriend.

The main thing to take away from this is that edibles have a much stronger effect then smoking or vaporising, it takes a lot longer to kick in but it goes through the bloodstream where as smoking and vaporising kick in faster as they run through the nervous system. Eating marijuana can take 45 minutes to an hour to kick in and have effects that last a lot longer than smoking. Start slowly, wait, then see if you need anymore. Don’t be a fool and wolf the entire brownie down like I did. Of course if you are already someone that knows their limits and has been smoking for years, this is all obvious. But if you’re a first timer, tread with a little caution.