I've been getting enough smoke in my lungs breathing New York City air. So I decided it was time to take advantage of legal cannabis and buy some edibles. Since marijuana was legalized here two years ago, so many dispensaries have opened that if you live in Manhattan, you don't have to walk more than a block or two to find one. The problem is that most of them are unlicensed, and you can't be certain of the potency or purity of their products. And the handful of licensed dispensaries charge a premium, sometimes two or three times what you'd pay for the same thing in a licensed dispensary in, say, Arizona.
Being the frugal sort, I figured I'd take a chance, save a few bucks, and check out an unlicensed dispensary on Hester Street that had caught my eye. How bad could it be? So I went to Smokers Paradise 2, hoping to score some brownies or cookies. There were two guys behind the counter, neither of whom spoke English very well. Considering it was my first time buying legally, the product was a drug, and I had questions, I should have walked out. But I was able to establish that all they had in the way of edibles was a wide selection of gummies. For no particular reason I chose Jolly Rancher. They were manufactured in Canada, and the entire package, according to the label, contained 600 mg of THC. The proprietor was, with some difficulty, able to communicate that one gummy was equal to one dose. The package was $20.80. I was able to pay with a credit card, which surprised me. I thought cannabis transactions were cash only.
There were seven gummies in the package. That meant that each one should contain about 85.7 mg of THC, more than enough to send me into orbit. (A standard dose is 10 mg, but I have a high tolerance.)
I ate one gummy and waited three hours. Nothing happened.
The next day I ate two gummies and waited three hours. Nothing happened.
The next day I ate the last four gummies, allegedly 342.8 mg of THC, and waited three hours. Nothing happened.
Smokers Paradise 2 had sold me some very overpriced candy. It's the first time in my life I've been ripped off buying marijuana, and I've been buying it since high school. But I'm not going to get into an argument with the manager of a rip-off store. And I'm not going to tell Mastercard that I want a refund because the THC gummies I bought at an unlicensed dispensary didn't get me high. I'm just going to write it off as a research expense.
Next time I'll go to a licensed dispensary. Maybe they'll have brownies.
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