As a major anxiety sufferer and California resident, I’ve had a prescription for medical marijuana since 2006. In the decade since, I have tried — and made — all sorts of crazy cannabis products, but these days every time I go to the dispensary I see some new thing that you can eat or drink or rub on your body. As a public service, I decided to test out some of the more intriguing options to see whether they live up to the hype.
I’m getting high for you, folks, and don’t you forget it.
So what happened this week, when I freshened my breath with some handy weed spray? Did I go see Arrival? Did I fall in love with Jeremy Renner, Amy Adams and an alien? Did I eat an obscene amount of popcorn? Obviously I did! Read on to find out more.
Product: Sprayerz Peppermint Airless weed spray
Purchased from: Uncle Ike’s in Seattle, Washington
Ingredients: MCT oil, cannabis extract, soy lecithin, alcohol, glycerin, peppermint oil
Suggested dosage: According to the label, one serving is 10mg.
Actual dosage: Something I learned in the legal weed shops in Seattle is that their edible products tend to be much less strong than what we have in California. They’re scared of our 200mg cookies and whatnot — perhaps for good reason, but here in Cali we can generally handle our own shit, you know? Anyway, each spray bottle is said to contain 100mg of THC, i.e. 10 doses. Eight sprays equals one dose, and I took it twice at 16 sprays each time. So approximately 40mg, which is right in my dosage sweet spot.
The flavor: Hoo boy. Well, Binaca this is not. I was expecting something refreshing, but the spray itself was slightly oily, with more weed flavor than mintiness lingering in my mouth afterward. After the initial few sprays I put the rest under my tongue. The packaging didn’t give any instructions on how best to consume it, but this isn’t my first weed tincture rodeo so I just sprayed a bunch in and held it under my tongue for about a minute before washing it down as quick as I could with some of the homemade kombucha that my sister’s roommate keeps on tap. Ah, Seattle.
The high: It had been a while since I’d been to the movies, and all I knew about Arrival was “cool alien stuff plus Jeremy Renner” and damn if I didn’t need some real escapism so we made plans for a night at the theater. I took my first dose as I was finishing up work, and about half an hour later started wondering why my mind was so wandery. Spent about a minute tracking down mind tangents before remembering that oh, weed spray, right. I was hungry and totally forgot we were going to the movies so I ran myself a hot bath and gobbled down a bag of popcorn in the bathtub before getting ready to go out. There’s nothing like popcorn and a bubble bath on a cold November evening.
Welp, after the bath got my blood moving I was legit stoned, but being a committed weed reviewer and knowing I should front-load my edibles if I wanted them to last through the movie, I took another 20mg dose and off we went.
It was one of those highs where I knew how high I was — very high — but didn’t care in the slightest who else knew it. Kind of like floating around on your own magic carpet, if magic carpets also cause uncontrollable jabbering and spontaneous laughter. We finished half the popcorn before the previews were even over and when my sister made me go back for extra butter, the cashier tried to be cute with me. I unleashed a jubilant stream-of-consciousness rant about the glories of popcorn and then ran back to the movie before he could answer.
Go see Arrival, if you haven’t already. I thought it was going to be scary and then it was not; it was just wonderful and exactly the movie I needed for that particular moment in time. The visuals were spectacular — enhanced, undoubtedly, by the weed spray, which did indeed last all the way to the end — and the story buoyed my spirits. I skipped down the rainy street in the crisp night air and didn’t care a lick what anyone thought about it.
Conclusion: Four and a half out of six pot leaves for the weed spray. Is that what it’s even called? There’s got to be a better name for it, and I refuse to refer to it as “Sprayerz” because I am not a 14-year-old boy in 2005. Anyway, yeah, the flavor was not great, and I shudder to imagine what the watermelon kind tastes like. However, it was a really superb stoney experience, and deserves high marks for portability, convenience and discretion in addition to ease of dosing. And just in time for prestige movie season!
