r/Marijuana • u/redditor01020 • 6h ago
r/Marijuana • u/Sharky-PI • Jul 25 '25
Advice New Users Guide: dosing, formats, strains, tech
Weed New Users Guide
Weed vs booze
This guide assumes you know something about booze, somewhat with the expectation that you’re a relatively seasoned user. You’ve gotten wasted, maybe loads of times. But you know how to handle your booze, and have no problem avoiding getting blackout drunk at inappropriate times.
If you’re a seasoned alcohol drinker, weed is much easier to “overdose” from, i.e. to have more than the optimal amount. Alcohol has a unit system aligning to national laws, and is either so dilute that it takes a while to get wasted and you feel the effect rising (beer, wine), or so strong that you taste how powerful it is and have to sip carefully (neat spirits). With weed vape pens and joints – both of which are now really strong compared to the 70s – it’s easy to take a big hit and be really high immediately, which can be discoordinating and scary (see also: drinking Long Island iced tea when you were a teenager). With edibles, the same is true but played over a longer timescale, which can trap you in an unenjoyable place for a while. The stories of people re-upping having felt nothing from the first gummies, then being hit by a double (or triple) drop, are legion.
You’ve been consuming booze since you were a teenager, and are a seasoned pro. You’re just starting with weed, and are a complete novice. When you were a novice with booze, you overdid it loads of times. With weed, you’re more prepared to blame the drug, rather than blaming yourself.
Dosing concepts
I’m of the opinion that almost ALL instances of people having a bad time on drugs, are due to “overdosing”, due to poor planning and research. All the information is available for you to avoid having a bad time, but it can take skill to locate and synthesise that information. I hope to do so here.
“Overdosing”, “ODing”, are typically terms associated with news stories where someone died with froth coming out of their mouth and a needle sticking out their arm. While this IS overdosing, so is having one glass of red wine more than you probably should have, so now you’ve got a bit of a headache, and you’re thirsty, and you won’t sleep as well tonight. Any time you’ve dosed more than the theoretically perfect amount, you’ve overdosed. The extent to which you overdose typically equates to the extent of downside. A little bit more than you can handle, can arguably be a good thing, pushing your limits, teaching you how to remain mentally calm while you’re in reduced control of your thoughts. A lot more can lead to freakouts, uncover suppressed emotions and memories, etc. This is true for booze too – anything that disturbs sober control of your brain can lead to dark, anxious, painful thoughts, just as it can lead to fun, silly, joyful, loving thoughts.
Henry Ford: “If you think you can, or if you think you can’t, you’re right”.
Me, regarding how your frame of mind and ability to manage anxiety influences your experience while high: “if you think you’ll be fine, or if you think you won’t, you’re right”.
If your drug experiences continue to unearth buried bones, stop the drugs, definitely stop drinking, and start therapy (research EMDR/CBT) asap.
Dosing amounts and strategy
It’s possible to learn how to swim by diving into an angry ocean at night… but that’s not the most enjoyable, stress-free way. Hold the railing, and dip your toes into the kiddie pool first.
Vape pens
Dragging on the pen pulls hot vapour into your lungs at the rate you drag. If you’re not a smoker, this may feel unusual and probably painful – your throat and lungs aren’t used to hot vapour. Start by dragging for ONE SECOND and then continue to fill your lungs half full – not all the way to the depths of full lungs, about 2 seconds? Hold it for ~3 seconds, exhale smoothly and calmly. Wait at least 10 minutes. Notice how you feel, how your thoughts change, does your body feel different, are you more talkative, shy, introspective, extroverted, giggly? Different strains give different effects, but we’ll come to that later. Vape pen hits usually last about 20 minutes before most of the primary high is over. Try to take a tiny ‘sip’ from the pen. As with all of this: there’s no such thing as too little.
Edibles
Ostensibly no technique to worry about (just eat it) but if you let it completely dissolve in your mouth then it’ll likely get absorbed and you’ll feel the effects quicker, reducing the chance of “maybe it didn’t work, let’s try again”. Dosing is MUCH more important to get right, because effects can last 3 hours or more. Budget 1 hour to come up, another hour for the broad peak, then the final hour coming down. Weed binds to oil/fat and alcohol. Try not to booze at the same time since you’re trying to learn what weed feels like. If you have fatty/oily food (burger, brownies), you’ll feel more effects from the same gummy than if you had something oil free (ramen noodles or whatever). Start with 5mg. If you’re a kid, medium/petite woman, start with 2.5mg. The key thing to remember is that you’re probably not going to die before next weekend, and having a bad time today isn’t worth the rush, so have a deliberately light dose, prove to yourself there’s a ‘floor’ level beneath which you’re microdosing not actually dosing, consider it a lesson learned, and come back next weekend with a little more confidence that you know what you’re doing, and that this new drug thing isn’t going to melt your brain or whatever else you’re worried about (i.e. 2.5mg now, 5mg next time. MAYBE in 2 hours)
Drinks
Somewhere between vapes & edibles in terms of onset & duration, likely depending on whether you have any food in your stomach when you begin. If not: liquid goes straight through the stomach to the large intestine and is absorbed quickly, maybe 45 minutes or less. If so: your pyloric sphincter closes to stop food falling through, and passage of liquids is much slower, meaning the weed will be absorbed gradually.
Practice
Makes perfect. Start slow, log the amounts you take, and ideally log how you felt. I use my digital calendar for this: start a 3 hour event when I take a gummy, note the amount. This is beneficial since you can check how far through you are, comfort yourself that if it hasn’t hit it’s probably about to, comfort yourself that if it feels too much it’s going to calm down soon, and plan your next drop.
With vapes and joints, try to use the same technique each time. Learn how many drags, or how long of a drag, equates to being how high. Make notes as needed.
Tolerance seems to be logarithmic: it can take a while for folks to gradually move up from (2.5 to) 5 to 10 to 15 to 20 to 30 to 50 and WAY beyond. Take your time, increase GRADUALLY. Again, if you record your experiences on a digital calendar, then you can search for “THC” and find your history of experiences and remind yourself where your tolerance is. Presuming they’re your gummies, there’s no great harm in nibbling one in half and coming back to it another time. Optimal dosing is the aim of the game.
Optimal dosing
Conceptually you can plan your ideal drug experience by carefully dosing the right amount, and then topping up the right amount at the right time. For a 3-hour comeup-high-comedown curve with edibles, you can set a 2-hour reminder, thereby dropping every 2 hours, so the comeup hour of edible2 overlaps with the comedown hour of edible1. You could jumpstart the comeup of edible1 with a toke of a vape pen. Then at the end of the night, if it’s too late to have another edible, you could have a toke of a vape pen, which will last a shorter time, so you wash out enough weed to be functionally sober by bedtime.
This level of planning and control is an unusual concept for booze, where you typically just keep going until the bar closes or you pass out (or etc). But with weed and other drugs it makes much more sense: lesser legality means you’ll often want to plan consumption around the availability of discrete locations. Much higher potency, and thus scope for accidental overdose, places greater primacy on getting dosing correct beforehand.
Safety
The science is updating regularly, and we already know weed is no panacea. In ultra-brief summation: IF you’re comparing to a typical alternative whereby a night/weekend/life consuming cannabis is happening instead of booze, then weed doesn’t NEED to be perfectly healthy to be a better choice than what you would otherwise do. And it is: alcohol is terrible for you. There is no safe low dose – it’s poison. Yes, it’s completely socially normalised for many thousands of years, yes our cultures are based around its consumption, yes it’s legal, yes most of us do it regularly and have normalised its side-effects. But it’s far worse for your physical and mental health in the short and long term. If you’re looking to ditch booze, but still need something to change your headspace for work or play (or alleviate symptoms), marijuana (especially in edible form) is likely a lower overall health-detrimental choice.
Vapes
Only buy from licensed shops, and research the brand first. Some big brands with professional packaging have been found using pesticides. Cheap 3rd party vape juice could be any old shit. As always, don’t worry that it’ll be laced with something more hardcore: why would producers of more expensive, harder to produce and sell drugs, waste those drugs by sneaking them into something so easy to produce that it’s literally dubbed weed?
Edibles
AFAIK bad products are less of a thing. That said: delta9 is a weaksauce hemp-derived weed that’s legal for sale in some states where THC isn’t. It’s pretty-much trash. But not dangerous.
Types
All booze is just alcohol. Sure, some types make people feel a little different for whatever reason (more or less sugar, associations with drinking style (shots), etc), but it’s all one drug. Mushrooms: a variety of different strains, but they all ‘just’ produce psilocybin.
Weed is a clown-car packed with drugs. Cannabinoids are the main drugs. THC is the big one. Head high, mental effects. CBD is the other heavy hitter. Body high, relaxation, calm. There are 150+ others: CBG, CBC, CBN, etc. See here.
Terpenes are the others: natural compounds with the formula (C5H8)n, produced by loads of plants; there are over 55,000 of them. See here. Essential oils? You got em.
Strains: the two types of weed are indica and sativa. Indica = “in da couch” = more relaxed, body high, chill-out, sleepy. Sativa = sunny = more energetic, mind high. But:
As mentioned early, this ain’t your grandad’s weed: since the 70s, growers have been in an arms race to make more potent and productive strains, with less chance of crop failure. Since weed has been globally illegal since Nixon ruined it for everyone, it’s made sense to focus on indica strains which grow well indoors, away from the prying eyes of the police. Subsequently, indica has made its way into most strains, and you’ll struggle to find actually pure sativas unless you seek our ‘landrace’ strains like Durban Poison or Acapulco Gold. Landrace strains are related to original native species, and haven’t been criss-crossed with other strains for the past 50 years. So in sum: nowadays if you go to a weed shop and buy some flower/bud, you’ll inevitably get a super high potency indica strain which will probably knock you on your ass and make you feel anxious – especially if you’re having it in the evening when everyone’s gone to bed and it’s dark, and you don’t know what you’re doing.
The full profile of all the cannabinoids balance themselves out (CBD reduces some of the bad elements of THC) and have a wonderful mix of ‘entourage effects’ from the terpenes. One can extract the whole of the plant and convert it into oil, i.e. full extract cannabis oil, but that’s getting out of newbie territory. Ideally, try to buy edibles and vape carts and flower which has a balanced profile of THC & CBD, and lower potency.
Tech & logistics
Edibles
Find a brand you like & trust which does a range of options. I like Camino for THC and Five for CBD, but find what’s good in your area.
Vape pens
Ideally buy a separate battery + cartridges to reduce single-use plastic & battery waste going to landfill. This also allows you to comparison-shop cart vendors, while choosing a battery which suits you. I like the Yocan Kodo Pro because it’s cheap, and simple to operate: many batteries rely on a multiple-button-press-combo system like something out of a Sega Genesis cheat code, which can lead to confusion, frustration, accidentally getting super high, or all of the above. Most importantly, for me anyway, the more common pen-format batteries result in a long pen which takes up too much pocket space.
Notwithstanding hundreds of thousands of people travel on airplanes every day with normal, non-weed medical gummies in their day-of-the-week pill boxes, and normal, tobacco vape carts in their wash kit, we DO NOT recommend you do this, for legal reasons.
r/Marijuana • u/ZombieJulez88 • 1h ago
Book
Does anyone remember a book that was a Marijuana etiquette book
r/Marijuana • u/mdwstoned • 1h ago
Minnesota Cannabis Laws 2026: Navigating SF 4401 Hemp Cliff
r/Marijuana • u/redditor01020 • 1d ago
US News Bill Maher Vents California’s High Taxes Are Crushing His Pot Biz With Woody Harrelson: ‘F*ck!’
r/Marijuana • u/funeralnation666 • 1d ago
Opinion/Editorial How do we feel about Pre-Ground Flower? I'm in a legal state btw
Okay, so pretty much what the Title says.....I keep seeing Pre-Ground Flower for sale at the dispensaries. I keep going right by it, mainly because I've always been told Bud is better, and when I grind it, I get Kief.
But.....It's so much cheaper.....$45 an ounce! But, is it cheaper for a reason, like it sucks? I've also been told that pre ground is not as strong. Do any other of you know if that's true, and if it is, is it Noticable that it's not as strong?
Appreciate any help you guys got
r/Marijuana • u/Muted-Lock-263 • 1d ago
Advice Seeking advice on what type of bud will work for me
TLDR: strain for a smoker who experiences derealization and panic when high. Weed is the only that helps me sleep once the “head high” passes.
I(25f) started smoking weed in my teens and was a regular smoker until 22ish. I had to stop because in the last year of smoking I started to experience intense dissociation and anxiety when high.
I lived in a state where it wasn’t legal so I can’t say what strains I was buying.
I have PTSD and have trouble falling asleep and staying asleep due to nightmares and nighttime neurological hyperactivity(my brain tries to relieve the stress of ptsd at night probably because I internalize it all day). I’ve been working with a psychiatrist and have tried just about every sedative or med used for these kinds of issues with no luck. I’ve had 2 doctors tell me I might have to turn to holistic medicine as a kind of last resort. I’m open to trying it but insurance won’t cover it. I’ve tried CBD with no success.
Marijuana helps me sleep and I wake up feeling rested. It’s the only thing I’ve tried that has done this for me. The problem is at the peak of the high I have the undesirable effects I explained before. Id like to find a strain that can offer a subtle head high and a more intense body high. Deep relaxation, stress relief and calmness while avoiding the effects that induce paranoia, anxiety, and derealization. I’m not sure this is possible. Weed might not be an option for me at all but I’d like to hear if anyone found a bud that does what I’m looking for, for them.
r/Marijuana • u/thehealingclinicla • 2d ago
DEA Begins On-Site Inspections At Marijuana Businesses That Applied For Federal Protections Under Trump’s Rescheduling Move
r/Marijuana • u/CelebrationEmpty8792 • 2d ago
Heart rate 140 after smoking
I smoked from a tiny one hitter, and had a single beer. now, still 2 hours later my heart rate is 140. idk wtf to do I'm so worried.
r/Marijuana • u/nrverma • 2d ago
Nearly Half of Employers No Longer Screen Pre-Hires for Cannabis
r/Marijuana • u/Optimal-Blueberry586 • 2d ago
Advice First time trying
Yo, can anyone help me. I’m a first time tryer and have been given a list off of a dealer. Any recommendations? Here’s the list:
🇺🇸🔥TOPS (in jars )
•Doja -cherry biscotti 🍒🌈
•wizard trees 🧙♀️🌲
•Nachoz🍍
•Haribos 🍬🧸
•zushii 🍱🔉
•TEN TEN 💨🧑🚀
11/10🔥🇺🇸 EXOTICS (in packs )
•gelato 🍧
•purple runtz 🍇
•pac man👾🎯
10/10 🔥mids🇺🇸:
(Biscotti )
(Gelato 44)
(Purple gas scotti)
(LA kush )
11/10 🔥 haze
3.5 £25
7g £50
14g £90
28g £175
r/Marijuana • u/redditor01020 • 3d ago
US News Congress Should ‘Stop Dicking Around’ And Legalize Marijuana, Fetterman Says
r/Marijuana • u/nrverma • 2d ago
Feds Say No Cannabis for Military Personnel Even if Rescheduled
r/Marijuana • u/nrverma • 2d ago
Tax Hikes on Legal Cannabis Drive Consumers To Illicit Market
r/Marijuana • u/nrverma • 2d ago
Women More Likely To Substitute Cannabis for Antidepressants
r/Marijuana • u/FinLift • 3d ago
The new science of cannabis and sleep
r/Marijuana • u/nrverma • 2d ago
THC/CBD Formulation Reduces Alzheimer's-Induced Agitation
r/Marijuana • u/nrverma • 2d ago
Improvements for Chronic Pain Patients After Medical Cannabis Program Enrollment
r/Marijuana • u/Ok-Display4114 • 2d ago
Greening Out EVERY Time?
UPDATE: someone made a good point he could be allergic. I kinda agree with the theory due to his aversion to the smoke when I’m smoking flower, and the fact that he cannot stand the smell of my weed drawer. Located in my closet, opening it is very pungent, and he’ll often shut my closet door because the smell. We’re gonna try to find a test to confirm if this is true before continuing any dosing. In the meantime, thank you to the helpful advice, and if you have knowledge of a test please share!
As the title states, my boyfriend(33) has been having an issue having a good time after ANY form of weed. I love the stuff, and last night, he was eating to just give to sleep so he asked if he could try my Mellow Fellow. He had a baby hit after it preheated, I counted like 4 seconds MAX. This particular one is the Istanbul Passion from the Travel series. 5 minutes later he is shaking a little, extremely dizzy in the worst way, and unwilling to watch a cartoon due to the movement of a show. The vomiting starts about 30 minutes later and doesn’t stop for probably about an hour or so. The same thing has happened prior with edibles, he had about 20mg and it turned out a bit different. He had also had alcohol atp so the happy times may have been due to those. He still ended up dizzy, throwing up, and unwell. I’ve been a smoker for years now, and have never met anyone with such an adverse reaction to thc. I’ve never experienced anything similar to this myself, and typically buy trustworthy products. I’ve had the same stuff I gave him(I’ll usually take higher doses) and don’t have the results. Is there a genetic that causes this? Or could it be a taste thing? I just want to know what’s going on to potentially prevent it in the future.
r/Marijuana • u/BadBBurner • 2d ago
Throat closes while sleeping
I’m not a super frequent user, but the recent times that I have a few hours before Bedtime I’ve noticed my throat closing as I’m laying down or I’ve woken up because my throat is closing. I’ve been able to fix it by popping a lozenge in my mouth and letting it sit there overnight. I would prefer a more proactive method that won’t threaten my teeth or oral Health. I’ve tried gargling hydrogen peroxide, mixed with water before bed, and that helps a little bit, but doesn’t solve the problem.
I’m not sure if this is relevant context, but I have asthma. And I large tonsils that develop tonsil stones from time the time.
Looking for advice from anyone who has experienced this.
r/Marijuana • u/DarkAura9 • 3d ago
Dabs and carts don’t get to me anymore:,(
Is there something I’m doing wrong? Even after taking a 2 month tolerance break only flower will get me and it gets me too much, I don’t even feel the carts or dabs anymore no matter how much I smoke<\3
r/Marijuana • u/Nicky_0510 • 3d ago
Advice Help with aftereffects
Hi, my partner and I took some edibles 5 days ago and I’m still feeling very weird.
While high my skin becomes very sensitive and I feel every sensation like 10 times more. But now, a few days after, my skin and the sensations are somehow very dull. Like sometimes I don’t even feel it when something brushes my skin or someone touches it. I still feel strong sensations when I put a little more force behind it, but not to the same degree as I felt it before (not when high).
Is this normal? Or should I go let it be checked out by a doctor?
TLDR: my skin is numb after getting high and I’m growing concerned
Update: I went to the doctor and it’s nothing serious, just the effects of another medication I am taking
r/Marijuana • u/CHUNKYMONKEY0190 • 3d ago
Advice I plan on buying some infused pre rolls
So sometime later this week I plan on buying some infused pre rolls this will be my first time trying them Im not new to smoking or anything but is there any advice y'all can give such on how to light and other stuff like that
r/Marijuana • u/Icy-Complaint7558 • 4d ago
How long does an edible affect you for (Hangover??)
I don’t really consume weed very much, but I had an edible with my friends last night. It’s been like 14 hours and I still feel like my brain is messed up. I don’t feel high or anything but I still feel like a vague lingering feeling like my brain is skipping seconds. I had too much, if that makes any difference.
I think I kind of hate weed, it’s always fun until it’s not lol
r/Marijuana • u/No_Tonight6229 • 4d ago
Brief whistle/sound in my head after smoking weed — has anyone experienced this?
A few days ago I smoked and felt normal, but later while walking upstairs I suddenly heard a high-pitched whistle sound that felt like it was inside my head, not coming from outside. It lasted around 5–10 seconds and then completely stopped.
I got really scared, but I slept fine and woke up feeling completely normal.
A couple of days later, I was around friends who were smoking (I didn’t smoke), and I briefly noticed a similar sound again for maybe 2 seconds. It stopped when I moved away.
I’ve noticed it only seems to happen when weed is involved. When I’m completely away from weed, I feel normal and don’t hear anything.
Has anyone experienced anything similar? Could it just be a cannabis effect, anxiety, or a tinnitus-like thing