Extracts: Potency

HIGHLIGHTS

  • The amount you should consume depends on your body’s response: Try a small amount and wait at least an hour to determine any potential effects.
  • The intensity and longevity of the effects produced by cannabis extracts depend on many factors, such as your weight and sex, how much food you’ve eaten that day and your metabolic rate.
  • Buying legal cannabis extracts is the best way to ensure the product contains the advertised amount of THC and CBD and no contaminants.

Cannabis extracts, or concentrates, can provide a smoke-free alternative to consuming dried cannabis, but there are many considerations when it comes to extracts, including the amount you should consume and the potency. Here’s what you need to know — and why you should always buy legal.

What Type of Extract Should I Choose?

The type of cannabis product and consumption method — inhaling or ingesting — depends on the desired effect and your experience with consuming cannabis.

Unlike smoking dried cannabis, which can produce effects within minutes, ingesting cannabis extracts can delay the onset of effects, from 30 minutes to four hours or more. This delay is because the tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, and other cannabinoids enter the body through the digestive tract, where they are absorbed into the bloodstream and travel to the liver. There they are metabolized and released back into the bloodstream. These active ingredients then enter the brain and the rest of the central nervous system, potentially producing an effect.

Choosing a method of consumption depends on personal preference. If you are new to cannabis, dabbing is not recommended. Dabbing involves consuming a cannabis extract in oil or wax form by placing it on a very hot surface (called a nail) that is attached to a dab rig. The vapour that is produced is then inhaled through the rig. It is a complicated process that can produce strong, immediate effects, and it may increase your risk for experiencing negative effects, which could include toxic psychosis, orthostatic hypotension and acute impairment.

How Much Should I Consume?

The way you consume cannabis extracts will alter the onset, duration and intensity of effects, so even if you have consumed cannabis before, start low and go slow. Also choose products that are lower in THC or higher in cannabidiol, or CBD, to counter some of the effects of THC.

To avoid consuming too much, start with a very small amount, especially if you are trying a new product, and wait at least two hours to see how it affects your body before taking more.

Although there are rough estimates of the intensity and longevity of the effects produced by cannabis products, they depend on many personal factors, such as your weight and sex, how much food you consumed prior to consumption and your metabolic rate.

Why Buy Legal?

When you purchase a cannabis extract from the legal market, either through AshArio.ca you can be sure the THC and CBD content in the product is correct. Cannabis extracts can be highly concentrated — the latest extraction methods can create a product that is over 90% THC — so there is the potential for overconsumption. Extracts available through AshArio that are meant to be inhaled can contain no more than 1,000 mg of THC per package; ingestible extracts contain no more than 10 mg of THC per unit.

Buying legal cannabis extracts ensures the product does not contain any harmful solvents that may be found in products in the illegal market.