Our editor cannabis adventure started in the newsroom about two weeks ago, when I was underprepared to pitch the next two weeks’ content. With some quick thinking, I made a plan for this week and labeled one future article simply: “Paul’s edible adventure.” I was going to make edibles with minimal guidance from the internet.

Serena Bettis, our editor in chief, decided to accompany me on this adventure (and supervise).

There was one issue: Bettis and I are not very good stoners. I can count on my own two hands how many times I’ve been high before, and Bettis, the baking savant she is, had never gotten high. Fortunately, we had the internet, gumption and a camera crew who knew more about this than us.

Our adventure started at Green Dragon dispensary, where I realized two things: First, when going on a cannabis adventure, it is best not to forget your ID at home. Second, an ounce is way more than a gram. After eventually acquiring half an ounce of Green Dragon’s cheapest indica (Whoody Melon), we continued on our merry way with what can only charitably be described as “a bit too much cannabis.”

After a brief run to the grocery store and hiatus waiting for our camera crew, we got to work. Borrowing Bettis’ roommate’s grinder — we’d forgotten to secure one beforehand — we got 3.5 grams of cannabis trim and spread it out on an oven sheet with a tinfoil cover. After preheating the oven to 230 degrees, we put the whole thing in for 45 minutes to decarboxylate. Needless to say, the entire kitchen smelled great.

“Now, an astute reader may think: ‘Paul, don’t you run the cannabis desk and know about the classic edible blunder?’ The answer to that question is yes, but when you’re watching a movie and don’t feel high the entire time, you start to question, and I cannot emphasize enough: They were really good cookies.”

From there, I only had three jobs: eat semisweet chocolate chips, manage the cannabis timer and descend into madness (Bettis didn’t trust me to bake). I can safely say I did two of those things with great skill, and the cannabis timer wasn’t one of them.

Eventually, the cannabis was ready. We took it out, let it cool, then added it to chocolate chip cookie dry ingredients. We then added the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, stirred and put in way too many semisweet chocolate chips.

Our canna-dough made about 40 or so cookies at about 15 milligrams of THC each. Bettis was a wizard forming the cookies. I was less so, due to my aforementioned descent into madness. Fortunately, we soon had the dough prepared, a Netflix movie on and cookies in the oven.

Now, there was a problem with these cookies. They tasted too good. With normal cookies, this is the goal, but with cannabis cookies, it is a deadly pitfall I walked directly into. Toward the beginning of the movie, I had a cookie. Then, I figured one more couldn’t hurt because they tasted so good. About an hour into the movie, I felt nothing, so I had a third. Then, I had a fourth 30 minutes later.

Now, an astute reader may think: “Paul, don’t you run the cannabis desk and know about the classic edible blunder?” The answer to that question is yes, but when you’re watching a movie and don’t feel high the entire time, you start to question, and I cannot emphasize enough: They were really good cookies.

At the end of the movie, we all bid ado, and I caught a ride back to my place. That, of course, is when the edibles started to hit. I found myself unable to hold together any semblance of coherent thought, and I couldn’t remember what happened five seconds ago. One cookie processed.

Once I got back to my house, the second cookie hit. That was a doozie, but it was the third and fourth ones that really got me. From there, my experience quickly turned from weird to transcendent. Every stimulus was amped up to about 11, and I felt stuck about half a second in the past. I was dry-mouthing out the wazoo, and getting a glass of water turned into an almost Herculean task. Fortunately, when I finally lied down in my darkened room, I passed out until 1 p.m. the next day. 

8/10 cannabis experience.

Reach Paul Brull at cannabis@collegian.com or on Twitter @csucollegian.