Edibles aren't the unpredictable baddie brownies that they once were.

They're all grown up now and ready to help with your most severe aches, pains and ailments.

Pick a stoner, any stoner, and ask them if they’ve had an edible before and you will get a story. Everybody’s got one, and it usually goes something like “I ate a small piece and I waited two hours but didn’t feel anything. So, I ate the rest, and then a few minutes later, the first piece kicked in…” Sound familiar? I don’t know about you, but I’m having flashbacks.

Yes, once upon a time, you went to a dispensary and you picked out goodies that had zero batch consistency and no credible way to assure that the amount of THC on the label was actually inside the product—and not significantly more or less. Even within the edible itself, whether it was a chocolate bar, brownie, gummy, or rice krispie treat; there wasn’t often an equal distribution of THC. That means you may have eaten one half and only consumed enough psychoactives to give you a light buzz, while the other half could contain enough THC to convince you that you’d cease to exist if you didn’t wave your arms around every five minutes—right before you passed out for ten hours straight.

And okay, they’re usually funny stories (in hindsight). But the unpredictability and strength of the effects that edibles became known for relegated them mainly to party favors and festival snacks for decades, and that’s doing a disservice to cannabis users and edibles alike.

Luckily, with the regulation of the cannabis industry, edibles are now created with precise, lab tested amounts of THC in them which are distributed equally throughout each piece due to advents in the preparation process. And they all come from licensed companies that are held accountable to state standards, rather than from some random person’s home kitchen.

Pain, stress, insomnia, and anxiety are no match for edibles

Why was the unpredictability of edible content such a big disservice, both to the product category and users alike? Well, it’s because edibles have some serious benefits. Let’s talk about what puts the ‘magic’ in a magic brownie (or any other THC infused snack).

First off, their potency is your friend. For those with extreme pain who either can’t get by on pain medication alone, or choose not to use such medications, edibles are a godsend. They can numb the body in ways that even dabs (vaporized cannabis concentrate) can’t touch, and here’s why.

THC is a lipid soluble chemical, and what that means is that fats—like butter and cooking oils—allow THC to break down into little particles which become far more bioavailable once ingested. It’s much more efficient than smoking for two reasons:

• First, when you smoke, you are attempting to bring the THC resin on the buds of your flower to a particular temperature, at which the THC breaks down into small enough particles to be absorbed by the lungs into the bloodstream.
  From the moment you inhale, your body begins the process of breaking down the THC in your bloodstream and cleansing it from your body. The effects of smoking are nearly instantaneous, but they wear off quickly, especially for regular smokers.
  

• Secondly, when you burn flower, you will never achieve a 100% consumption rate of all of the available THC available on the flower.
  Consider the sticky crystals that come off on your fingers as you pack your flower, the amounts of THC will never reach the proper temperature to be released, and the fact that your lungs can only absorb so much THC in a given puff—you’re essentially leaving THC ‘on the table’ in exchange for a faster effects and a similarly fast comedown.

Why are edibles so much stronger than flower?

When you eat an edible, as your body digests the food, beverage, or other suspension that the THC is infused within, that already-dissolved THC is digested by your stomach enzymes and absorbed into your bloodstream.

Consider also that it’s absorbed into your bloodstream through your stomach rather than your lungs and you can begin to understand why edibles are known for slower building, but more powerful, and longer duration effects; your stomach actually breaks down THC more before it reaches your bloodstream which enables your body to use it more effectively before eliminating it from the system.

How exactly does this happen?

As your body attempts to break down Delta-9 THC, your pancreas produces a digestive enzyme that helps your liver convert THC to a new form called a THC metabolite—specifically, 11-hydroxy THC.

This metabolite is about 4x stronger than Delta-9 THC (the form that is most prevalent on buds, which your body absorbs when you smoke) and its effects last 7-8 hours with a slow onset versus Delta-9’s quick onset and 4-5 hour effective window.

This is why smoking THC and consuming it offer such widely different experiences.

What about CBD edibles?

It’s beneficial to consider this information from the perspective of CBD use as well; there are many edibles on the market which contain high amounts of CBD with little to no trace of THC. However, it’s important to know that the body digests both compounds differently,

If you’re someone that doesn’t like the psychoactive high of cannabis, but would prefer to treat your ailments with CBD rather than other measures, consuming a CBD edible is one of the most effective, efficient ways to do so.

While high amounts of THC notoriously exacerbate anxiety, CBD on its own is not psychoactive and it’s touted for both its pain-relieving and calming properties. CBD may also play a role in lengthening the duration of effects provided by THC.

If you’re looking for the best way to consume it, try sublingual edible products. These are typically drops that you place under your tongue. Because this ingestion method bypasses the first stage of the liver’s digestion, sublinguals offer a much higher potency of CBD effects.

There are other benefits to eating edibles too

A major one: edibles are arguably the safest way to consume THC long-term. Because you’re not combusting the THC and inhaling it, you’re not introducing smoke and everything carried within it to the mouth, throat, and lungs. And even the sugary sweetness of the edibles that usually carry that THC is offset to a degree by the chemical’s insulin-lowering effects.

Besides that, edibles give you a lot of control over your effects. There’s a small learning curve, which is why it’s suggested that users should begin with small doses and build up to the amount of product that provides their perfect high. But once you know where your happy zone is, you can alter your dosage up or down easily and quite reliably, thanks to standardized batch and item consistency.

Not even wax or flower can provide that same consistency, even within the same batch; during the cultivation process, there will always be some flowers that produce more or less THC in the final product. One also has to consider bud size, and that the nugs in your jar likely come from different plants.

An experienced grower can replicate their cultivation results to a high degree, but just like how every ‘Honeycrisp’ strain of apple varies slightly from the next—from size, to shape, to color, texture, and even flavor—no two buds are identical, even from the same plant.

Don’t worry— that doesn’t mean you can’t trust the THC measurements on flowers, they represent the batch averages which are generally quite consistent when produced by professional cultivators. What it does mean is that edibles simply allow for more even distribution of THC across the product than other forms of cannabis do.

Save money on a stronger high

Finally, edibles can be extremely cost efficient. Most edibles come in 100mg packages that are separated into 10mg servings and the can cost anywhere from around $5 to $30, with most in the $10-$20 range:

At $10, you’re paying $1 per serving. That’s:

• $2 a serving for a $20 product

• $3 a serving for a $30 product

  
  
  

  And if you snag an edible for less than $10, you’re paying pennies on the dollar for each serving. That’s kind of crazy!

Variety is the spice of life

The best thing about these little cannabis goodies is that they come in every shape, size, and form imaginable. Name a favorite snack, beverage, or candy, and you can bet that someone has made a THC-infused version of it.

And if you’re not interested in consuming food, candy, or drink, consider tinctures: they’re often a tasteless or mildly flavored suspension of a lipid like coconut oil, for example, and THC. Tinctures often come in vials with more servings (a legal serving in CA must be 10mg) so that means more total THC present.

Not to mention, many tinctures and edibles are available which either contain CBD or are made entirely from CBD with no added THC. So, if you’re looking for added pain relief from CBD, or you’re looking for its anxiety-reducing effects, you can access a controlled dose with or without THC present.

Ready for an eddy?

Check out some of the awesome edible products that you can pick up at ASHE Society’s Santa Ana, Pomona, and San Bernardino dispensary locations today.

Or, order with D’ASHE Orange County Cannabis delivery to have your products hand-delivered to any address in Irvine, Santa Ana, Tustin, Laguna Niguel, Costa Mesa, Newport Beach, Huntington Beach, Garden Grove, Anaheim, Fountain Valley, and Westminster.

Use the buttons below to skip to your store or choice, or scroll to view some of the best, most popular edibles in the cannabis industry and all of the potency choices and flavor varieties ASHE can offer them in!