Warning label

As Nevada eases into this Brave New World of legally purchased pot products—at least, for those with proper papers—some warning signs need to go up. “Caution. Watch for Brownouts!”

I have a buddy, my old pal Richard Cabeza, who’s been doing extensive research on various new edibles, and he now files the following reports, after some dedicated sampling conducted under highly ferruginous conditions. The chocolate chip cookies—real good. The chocolate candy bars—yeah, baby.

In fact, the truth is that our edibles, while very tasty, are also very potent, and therein lies some danger. There ain’t no gettin’ around it. These new stony treats, if consumed carelessly, will result in you being the victim of a massive “brownout”—so named for casualties of old-school, kickass pot brownies—crawling on the floor, delirious, nauseous, and out of it. Your friends will film you, put it on YouTube, the whole messy social embarrassment do wacka do.

When I say potent, the standard Nevada happy cookie has 38 milligrams of active ingredient. (Check label to make sure this is still the case.) Considering that 10 mg. is a healthy dose, this means that if you made an uninformed move and ate one whole cookie, you’d be borderline catatonic in an hour and quite unhappy with the trajectory of the evening.

Señor Cabeza reports that, if the target dose is indeed 10 mg., one must cut the cookie into quarters. Each quarter will yield a dose of 9.5 mg., and sure enough, he says that works quite well in achieving the desired altered state. But jeez, this is a 215 pound man, getting off on one-fourth of one freakin’ cookie. This gives you an idea of the power contained within our gonzo new goodies.

What’s very important, if you’re going to play in Edible Land, establish your dose. These treats are really enjoyable, but you have to know your dose in order to consume with confidence. So the basic proper approach—proceed in increments of 5mg. Start with a fiver, wait two hours, see what happens, make the adjustments. Edibles can be slow; you gotta give them a full two hours to make a fair assessment of your buzz. If you don’t get much of one, proceed to 10mg. Repeat procedure. Assess. Groove. Consume ice cream sandwich(es). If you’re over 200 pounds, go ahead and start with a 10 spot. No prob. Between 100-200 pounds, play it safe and start with five.

This slow, prudent approach is a bit cautious, yes, but after two sessions, you’ll have a good idea as to how much you can handle. And for god’s sake, keep this shit away from the kids.