Cannabis edibles are digestible forms of cannabis inclusive of food items, capsules, and lozenges. You can even prepare edibles at home by infusing cannabis with any food product cooked in a lipid medium, like butter.
Cannabis edibles are popular among users for their long-lasting effects. Many MMJ doctors recommend them for pain management and sleeping disorders.
Through telemedicine, you can apply for your medical cannabis card to legally obtain cannabis products. However, to understand how edibles produce its effects, we’ll have to go through how it interacts with our body, let’s have a look.
How Do Edibles Interact With Our System?
Cannabis edibles enter our system through the gastronomical tract, just like other food. During digestion, the liver metabolizes the edibles along with the cannabinoids present in cannabis. These cannabinoids are converted into metabolites and enter our bloodstream, where they interact with our endocannabinoid system(ECS).
ECS And Cannabinoids
ECS is an intercellular communication system that plays an important role in various self-regulating processes occurring in our bodies. It comprises endocannabinoids, which are lipid-based neurotransmitters that bind to cannabinoid receptors. These receptors are mainly present in our central and peripheral nervous systems.
If you have had the first-hand experience with using cannabis, you probably would be familiar with the term cannabinoids or would have heard about THC(tetrahydrocannabinol) and CBD(cannabidiol). These are a group of naturally occurring chemicals found in cannabis that have various therapeutic, medical, and even psychoactive properties.
Cannabinoids like THC and CBD are present abundantly in cannabis, which interacts primarily with the receptors CB1 and CB2, present in the ECS.
As a result, we experience a modulation in our psychological and cognitive processes, which may include mood regulation, memory, pain sensation, reproduction and fertility, and several activities of our immune system.
How Do Edibles Differ From Other Methods of Cannabis Consumption?
There’s no doubt that today we are familiar with more ways of consuming cannabis than ever. Other than inhaling cannabis through heating dry herbs or concentrate extracts, you can consume cannabis sublingually(strips, tinctures, oil) or ingest canna-edibles.
Get in touch with a cannabis doctor for your 420 evaluations to get a fair idea about which consumption suits you best.
That said, cannabis enters our body directly through the bloodstream in most of the above-mentioned consumption methods. However, edibles go through our digestive tract, where our liver metabolizes it before they enter the bloodstream.
That’s where all the difference lies.
While smoking dry herbs or consuming sublingual, the effect is produced immediately. Whereas, edibles could take up to 2 hours to show the psychoactive effects. The reason for this delay is because our body needs time to metabolize the edibles. Depending upon the metabolic rate of the person, the effect of edibles, too, varies from person to person.
During metabolization, the liver also converts delta-9-THC, which is the main psychoactive ingredient of cannabis to 11-hydroxy-THC, which our body can easily absorb and is a more potent form of its antecedent.
That is the reason edibles have an intense effect on us as compared to other consumption methods. Moreover, the effects of smoking usually wear off in 2-3 hours. In contrast, edibles stay much longer in our system to produce a prolonged effect lasting up to 8 hours or even more, depending upon the dosage.
Correct Dosage is the key
Each person has a different internal ecology and physiologic response to medications. The reason why each individual reacts differently to cannabis edibles.
In simple terms, the same amount of cannabis edibles could create different effects on two people. So, make sure that you start with a small and consume cannabis after thoughtful contemplation.
Follow these points to understand the concept of dosing edibles:
- For first time consumers, it’s a good idea, to begin with, 3-5mg THC dosage to endure mild effects. This could help relieve anxiety and improve focus and creativity.
- 5-15mg of THC dose is for medical users looking for immediate pain relief. This could also help patients sleep better.
- A dosage above 15 mg to 30 mg could create strong euphoric effects. It must be consumed by experienced users or medical patients with severe sleeping issues.
Dosage above 30 mg could create very strong euphoria and may cause some negative effects too. Only experienced users with high tolerance levels or patients with severe illnesses like cancer and inflammatory disorders should consider it.