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 let’s find out what happened this week, when I did a little cooking with some weed olive oil. Did I get locked out of my apartment just as I started peaking? Did I rediscover my love for my favorite TV show of all time, Dawson’s Creek? Did I wake up with Crunchy Cheetos scattered across my bedroom floor? Let’s find out.
Product: Not So Virgin Olive Oil
Ingredients: Olive oil, THC and CBD extract
Purchased from: Exhale Med Center in West Hollywood
Suggested dosage: Each little bottle contains 500mg THC, which is a terrifying amount. They suggest that a teaspoon makes a “normal” dose of 29mg and a tablespoon makes an extra-strong dose of 87mg, but we’ll get into why that’s difficult to accurately measure in a minute.
Actual dosage: I have no earthly idea, and this is why homemade edibles can be so dangerous—because you never really know how much you’re getting. I cooked half the bottle of olive oil (so approximately 250mg THC) with some ground beef and a jar of tomato sauce, and then I mixed about a third of a cup of sauce in with some spaghetti. The label also said that cooking the oil over high heat for an extended period will diminish its potency, so at the end of the day, how was there any way for me to know how much marijuana I was consuming with my plate of pasta?
Flavor: In my experience, the flavor of pot just goes better with savory foods. Back when I made my own butter and oil and a lot of different homemade edibles, my specialty was this incredible — and incredibly dangerous — pot pesto pasta salad, where the pot flavor wasn’t noticeable at all among the basil and Parmesan and feta. But I didn’t have the energy to go through the production of making pesto, and I’ve been on a classic spaghetti kick lately anyway, so this seemed like the best way to ingest the olive oil. And it turned out pretty good! Not as subtle a weed flavor as the pesto, but still one that blended well with the spices in the sauce. I ate it up quite happily and wasn’t left feeling nauseated, as I sometimes do after eating super-sweet edibles.
The High: Again, it’s difficult to judge the oil itself on how high I got, but I’ll do my best. Before cooking with any pot product, even when you think you know the appropriate dosage, it’s important to remember that there’s no real way to tell how much you’re consuming (unless you just swallow a teaspoon of oil, which I would absolutely NOT recommend). With my experience cooking and eating edibles, I felt fairly certain that I would be able to handle whatever the spaghetti was going to throw at me, but when there are so many products out there with clearer dosages, there is no reason for novices to experiment with weed oils and other cooking products.
Anyway, I ate my extra-special dinner while watching Rock of Love with a friend — she had just a bite and later reported that even that got her a little high. She left and I was mostly just semi-stoned and sleepy when another friend came over; I was just starting to feel the real effects of the spaghetti when we went outside to smoke a cigarette and, through no fault of my own, got locked out of my apartment.
My roommate was at work and this could have been a real disaster, but, while I didn’t have my keys, I had a fully charged phone and a berry La Croix and a friend with a good, solid, not-buzzing-with-weed-oil head on her shoulders. After some basic trial-and-error and problem solving, I finally reached my roommate; her coworker offered to bring the keys over on her way home from work. Although I sat there getting gradually more high as well as quite chilly, I didn’t get crazy paranoid or freak out or lose my shit, and I am counting that as a definite win for the product. I tend toward anxiety anyway, and the fact that I was able to stay calm in a pretty shitty and stressful situation after eating a bunch of weed food speaks well for the properties of that olive oil.
We finally got inside after almost two hours, and man, I was so high. All I wanted to do was lie on my bed and watch something comforting, so I sent my friend home and did just that. Dawson’s Creek is the best, funniest, most ridiculous soap opera of a show and I love it so much and it healed me that night, it really did. I was up late getting progressively more stoned, and for a while I was pleased that for once I didn’t have the munchies—I was so full for so long from the pasta. But I wasn’t sleepy so much as physically glued to my bed, so around midnight I went on a snacking spree and ate all the processed garbage I could find in the house. It felt great at the time, but the next day… not so much.
Conclusion: Weed hangovers are a reality, my friends. Waking up in the morning, I was barely functional and basically was able to do nothing all day but nap and play Candy Crush and watch true crime documentaries. If you’re looking to do some experimentation with cooking your own edibles and don’t want to go through the hassle of making your own oil or butter, than this olive oil is a good way to go about it. But be prepared for an unpredictable experience, and make sure you’ve got nowhere to be the next day. Five out of six pot leaves for the far-from-virgin olive oil. Bon appétit!
