You don’t need to get “high” to get the benefits of cannabis. In fact, studies have shown that if you are using cannabis for symptom relief (anxiety, PTSD, chronic pain, muscle spasms, etc.) it seems to work best at lower or micro-dose levels.
This is something that’s going to have to be understood if (when) cannabis is legalized and people want to try it for symptom relief.
So what does this all mean?
Everyone needs to figure out how much cannabis is considered a good dose. For those who are using it recreationally, a typical dose can be a bowl of flower or a joint. A normal bowl has about 20 mg of THC in it. When smoked, this is a hefty dose (although everyone is different and depending on your metabolism you may need to consume more or less.)
If I smoked an entire bowl, I’d be headed to sleep. That’s just way too much for *me.*
If we use that 20 mg in a bowl as an example. A micro-dose would be less – a lot less.
In some cases, 1/10 of a bowl or about 2 mg of THC is enough of a dose to get relief.
The key is to take small micro-doses constantly throughout the day.
This might mean using a small one-hitter pipe up to 3 times a day. Or it might mean taking edibles (most will need to be divided into smaller pieces) routinely.
By taking micro-doses you are also saving money. Why pay for too much of anything?
I sometimes come across people who ask me “what’s the point using cannabis if you don’t get high?”
It’s kind of like the people who drink beer to get a buzz.
And that’s certainly one way to use cannabis.
But if you use micro-doses of cannabis, you get the pain and inflammation relief along with muscle and anxiety relief without the head involvement. That’s important to the many of us who are using cannabis for symptom control. We’re done with being zonked out by narcotics.
We’re using cannabis to get back into the game, get back to work, and to literally get off the couch.
Wendy E. N. Thomas is a candidate for the New Hampshire House of Representatives Hillsborough County, District 21. She is also in the NH Therapeutic Cannabis program. Wendy agrees with the State-wide Democratic platform of legalizing cannabis in New Hampshire, she would also like to see the Therapeutic Cannabis program expanded to include Anxiety, Lyme Disease, and insomnia (for starters.)
Wendy also understands that people need to know about what cannabis can do, how to keep it away from children, and how to use it responsibly (in the same way that the alcohol industry talks about responsible drinking.)
All opinions reflected in this article and any future articles on the Democratic cannabis platform are the opinions of Candidate Thomas and do not reflect any company or industry.
Wendy works at Prime ATC in Merrimack as a Patient Liaison. The contents of this article are not sanctioned by Prime ATC or any of its affiliates. Contact Thomas at wethomas@gmail.com .