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 let Xzibit pimp my ride one more time and ate his branded weed taffy before hopping on an airplane or two. Did I spend $13 on an airport beer? Did I eat a concerning number of red miniature Starbursts? Did I get up to pee before the captain had turned off the seatbelt sign? Let’s find out.
Product: Xzibit LOL Taffy
Ingredients: Not listed, but, like, probably corn syrup and starch of some sort and grape flavor and purple dye and, of course, THC extract.
Purchased from: Exhale Med Center in West Hollywood
Suggested dosage: Each individually wrapped piece of taffy contains 40mg THC, which is labeled as “a perfect dose.”
Actual dosage: 40mg because I ate the whole thing, obvi, and then quickly disposed of the evidence.
Flavor: As I’ve said before, I’m not super into weed sweets, but if I’ve got to have them, this was a good way to go. I love taffy because I have the candy-craving heart of a fat kid raised on Roald Dahl, and fake grape is an excellent flavor that always puts me in mind of the first time I tried Bubble Tape. Of course it did taste like pot, which, okay, not great, but I gobbled it down quickly and washed it down with my overpriced airport Stella and was good to go.
The high: I’ve eaten edibles on airplanes many times before, but generally only when flying cross-country. This was going to be a short trip, four hours total—Burbank to SFO and SFO to Arcata for a trip home to see my family—so I didn’t want to be too zonked out by the time I got there. I trusted Xzibit when he told me it was a perfect dose, and fuck if he didn’t turn out to be right.
I meant to consume my little piece of purple taffy in the car on the way over so as to not have to smuggle it through security, but I got distracted talking politics with my brilliant friend Andy and forgot about it until I was just about to go through the body scanner. Oof. Luckily the body scanner didn’t pick up on it chilling in my pocket, which is good or bad depending on your feelings about personal versus national security. I sat down at the bar and it was all melty-squishy so I peeled open the candy and sucked it off the plastic in a very undignified way and hung out to wait for my flight to depart.
I boarded the plane 40 minutes later just as the feels began to hit. The old lady in the seat next to me was definitely more drunk than I was high, but I could still tell she was judging me for the way I absolutely destroyed first a bag of Gardetto’s and then handful after handful of mini Starbursts, I mean, they sell them now in a bag of just the red and pink kinds, holy hell! Welcome to the future, little Eloise — how is a girl supposed to resist that?
Anyway, the first flight was super chill, I played Candy Crush and read my Us Weekly and tried not to get too irate that the only refreshment I was offered on this flight was water. I mean, not even a tiny cup of ginger ale? What is the world coming to?
By the time I got to San Francisco I was too full of candy to even imagine getting clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl, so I just bought a three-dollar Diet Coke and sat and worked on my computer until it was time for my next flight. My boyfriend suggested I go to the yoga room, but while I was high and mellow, I wasn’t that mellow.
I was already on a pleasant come-down when I boarded the second flight — fully able to focus on my new Margaret Atwood book for a while and then look out the window at the redwoods and mountains and gleaming sun over the ocean that meant the approach of home. When my mom met me at baggage claim the high had already faded, and I wasn’t left feeling woozy or sleepy. We got to the house and I played with my dogs and breathed in the buzzing green smell of Humboldt in the summertime.
Conclusion: As Xzibit’s winking cartoon face on the label promised, this was a perfect dose in every way. If you’re looking for a weed candy that’s tasty, portable and enjoyable, you just can’t go wrong with LOL Taffy. Six out of six pot leaves — I’d let him pimp my plane ride any damn time.
