The way most Americans consume weed is basically a guaranteed overdose for anyone without a high tolerance. The regular "weed" we buy from dealers has been getting stronger for years because the consumers spending most of the money on weed demand it be strong.
Once retail stores opened where I lived, I started buying weed with 10-15% THC instead of the standard 20-30%. It can feel like the difference between having a couple beers or 5 shots of tequila. Most of us can enjoy a few beers almost anytime, but rarely want to get shit-faced drunk. The black market, driven by heavy users, has been forcing us all to get far too high on weed because dosing a hit of weed at 25% THC is almost impossible. And we think this is normal.
Most of the weed in retail stores is still too strong for me, but at least now I have options, which for me has been the biggest boon of legalization. I can finally enjoy weed again! But this same story plays out across many drugs, with consumers facing far more danger and uncertainty than is necessary because of our spectacularly ineffective drug laws.
You'd think that would work, but it doesn't and I don't know why. Maybe because you still get the same % in the hit but it just doesn't last as long? For people that use vaporizers like mine, you also need to have a certain amount for the vaporizer to be effective otherwise you get nothing out of it which leads to inserting even more weed and suddenly you have more in your system than you meant to. The higher percentage stuff is an instant panic attack for me whereas the low percentage allows me to actually enjoy it. I have an extreme sensitivity to cannabis though, so this doesn't apply to everyone, but I'm also far from alone on this. I personally don't care if they sell high % concentrations as long as they make the lower concentrations available too for people like me. Unfortunately finding the low-dose stuff seems to be very difficult. I ended up growing my own low-dose strain though and it's been excellent so far.
> For people that use vaporizers like mine, you also need to have a certain amount for the vaporizer to be effective otherwise you get nothing out of it
You probably know this but just in case, some vapes are better for microdosing than others and will work with just a pinch.
> Unfortunately finding the low-dose stuff seems to be very difficult.
What I've been doing is buying CBD flower online (usually <$75 per/ounce) and mixing it with a small amount of THC flower. I can pack my vape full, still get big clouds, but have a tame effect, the only downside is that the flavor isn't quite as good.
The amount of flower doesn't seem to make much difference for me; it still produces the anxiety and panicky feeling, but doesn't last as long. For example I'll have 15 minutes of panic attacks instead of an hour. That's a great trick though, so I'll try it out with the CBD flower and see how it goes, thanks!
You can actually throw a wad of sterile cotton into your vape to fill the chamber. Pax even sells a half pack lid for their packs.
For your case you can also cut your high dose stuff with a cbd only strain right in your grinder to whatever ratio you want. The ground up weed would be no different at all from a low dose strain and certainly a lot more accessible.
It’s kind of hard. As some one that used to smoke a lot but only smokes maybe once a year at this point, I have to put impossibly small amounts of pot in my bowl and it still gets me very high.
Like I said, dosing becomes difficult because the drug is so potent. Even if you know you only want the smallest hit, it doesn't always work that way in practice (especially if you're not a frequent smoker and aren't familiar with using pipes and vapes, etc).
Plus, a lot of casual smokers think they're supposed to smoke the way they see in movies, or how they did in high school, which is usually not a single, carefully measure toke and then wait 20 minutes.
FWIW, the idea that weed is getting "stronger" isn't necessarily true. There have been growers and strains that could get 25%+ since the 70s. Its just that those techniques are more widely known/shared and these higher numbers are easier to get to for more growers because of this shared knowledge.
Once retail stores opened where I lived, I started buying weed with 10-15% THC instead of the standard 20-30%. It can feel like the difference between having a couple beers or 5 shots of tequila. Most of us can enjoy a few beers almost anytime, but rarely want to get shit-faced drunk. The black market, driven by heavy users, has been forcing us all to get far too high on weed because dosing a hit of weed at 25% THC is almost impossible. And we think this is normal.
Most of the weed in retail stores is still too strong for me, but at least now I have options, which for me has been the biggest boon of legalization. I can finally enjoy weed again! But this same story plays out across many drugs, with consumers facing far more danger and uncertainty than is necessary because of our spectacularly ineffective drug laws.