Dispensary vs Homemade: The Edible Debate

By Brittany Morgan Williams

The beautiful thing about edibles is that they come in so many different varieties. You can even make them yourself at home! I used to make them out of shake I got from my ex-fiancée’s dad, and you never knew what THC level you were going to get. They were almost always designated to relaxing, stay-in nights.

The main thing that I (and many others) use edibles for is pain. I was hit by a drunk driver when I was 17 and have rods throughout my legs and arm. Constant pain here, people. I took far too many (legal prescription) pain pills and developed ulcers from them. Then I went to college. Let me clarify that, I went to Humboldt State University in the Green Triangle in Northern California. I was pretty much destined to start smoking weed. In my first roommate sitch, I was offered a weed cookie that was supposedly a ‘dud.’ I had never tried any type of weed before. Nonetheless, I bravely ate it! It was not a good leg day. Anywho, I was watching Phantom of the Opera (the Emmy Rossum one, not the black and white ones) and right when Gerard Butler bursts out with his slightly off pitch ‘Music of the Night,’ I could have sworn that half of his face started sliding off. I burst out laughing. I don’t really remember the rest of the film (I’d seen it before), but I know there was a lot more laughter than is usually the case while watching that film. It was pure relief that my legs felt normal after over a year of constant spasms. Which is one of the main reasons weed is such a special part of my life, even if certain members of my family *cough* Mom *cough* don’t understand that.

The second time I ever tried a homemade edible was the exact opposite experience. At that point, I had tried smoking a little bit and enjoyed a joint from time to time. I was chilling with my roommates and we ate a special brownie each. We didn’t know the dosage and didn’t feel it after 30 minutes, so we each ate another half of a brownie. Oh boy. Bad idea. At first, we were having a good time, watching Mulan and singing and dancing along. One by one, we started dropping. I lasted the longest, but eventually collapsed into my bed. I slept it off for 18 hours! The others weren’t so lucky, two of whom passed out on the couch and one who ended up passing out on the floor longer than me.

Since then, I’ve been pretty choosy with homemade edibles. Thankfully, the majority of my friends in LA get the dispensary edibles and those are a lot easier to calculate future highness. Just the other night I went to a friend’s Christmas party and one of the items on the food table were two bags of dispensary grade edible candies! I definitely ate one of each. Well, more like two. One was a sour watermelon candy and the other was sour strawberry sticks that didn’t even taste like weed (a definite improvement over the homemade edibles I’ve tried!). And I could still function and party with my friends. No crashing for me!

Either way you look at it, you will get a nice body high from an edible, homemade or dispensary. It’s just a bit easier to measure how high you’re getting with dispensary edibles. But don’t worry, the worst that’s going to happen is that your body feels so awesome that you pass out! ☺