Edibles are easy until they’re not. A 5mg gummy might give one person the high they were looking for, while someone else barely notices it (like me). Then there are people who take 10mg, decide nothing is happening 45 minutes later, eat another gummy, and eventually realize they have made a terrible scheduling decision.

I’ve spent years teaching people how cannabis dosing and different methods of consumption actually work, specifically at Oaksterdam University, and I have a master’s degree in Medical Cannabis Science and Therapeutics. So edible dosing is one of those subjects I can get extremely nerdy about.

The TL;DR version is that there isn’t one perfect edible dose for everyone. But there is a much smarter way to find yours than eating a random amount of THC and hoping for the best.

First, Edibles Don’t Hit Like Smoking Weed

I don’t care how much weed you can smoke. Seriously. I’ve watched plenty of people with a very respectable smoking tolerance get absolutely wrecked by an edible they thought they could handle.

The reason is pretty simple: eating THC is not the same thing as inhaling it. When you smoke, THC gets into your bloodstream fast. With an edible, it has to work its way through your digestive system and liver first, so everything happens on a much slower timeline. And once it does hit, you’re usually in it for a lot longer.

Then there’s 11-hydroxy-THC. Your liver makes more of this psychoactive THC metabolite when you eat cannabis than when you smoke it, and it can hit just as hard—if not harder—than THC itself. That helps explain why an edible can feel surprisingly strong even if you’re very comfortable smoking a shit ton of weed.

So when you’re figuring out an edible dose, don’t start with, “Well, I smoke a lot.” That tells me less than you think.

What’s a Normal Edible Dose?

There really isn’t one. “Normal” depends on your THC tolerance, prior experience with edibles, metabolism, product formulation, and what kind of experience you’re actually trying to have. I know that’s an annoying answer in an article that’s literally supposed to help you choose a dose, but 10mg isn’t some universal baseline just because it’s a common amount you’ll see in edibles. But here are some basic dosage ranges that can make navigating a package considerably easier:

• 1–2.5mg THC: Microdose
  This is the range I recommend when you’re new to cannabis, want very subtle effects, are particularly sensitive to THC, or just want to see how your body reacts without committing to much.

• 2.5–5mg THC: Low Dose
  A good starting range for someone who’s inexperienced with edibles, with 2.5mg being the more cautious place to begin.

• 5–10mg THC: Moderate Dose
  5mg and 10mg are often considered a standard single serving on a lot of regulated edible packaging. It’s where the high becomes much more noticeable for a lot of people, especially if you don’t have much edible tolerance.

• 10–25mg THC: Strong Dose
  This can be a perfectly normal dose for regular edible consumers, but it’s enough THC to seriously overwhelm someone without much tolerance.

• 15–20mg THC: Stronger Dose
  At this point, we’re getting firmly into experienced-consumer territory. If you don’t already know how you respond to edibles, this is not where I’d recommend figuring it out.

• 20mg+ THC: High Dose
  Experienced consumer territory. Plenty of people routinely eat much more than this, but that doesn’t make it a good starting point for everybody else.

And there are always outliers. Some people swear they feel 1 or 2mg. Other people can eat 50mg and still function like a normal human being. That’s why somebody else’s “normal dose” isn’t particularly useful. You’re trying to find the amount that works for you, not prove you can keep up with whoever handed you the gummy.

I also wouldn’t get too hung up on whether 5mg is officially “low” or 10mg is officially “normal,” though. These aren’t weight classes, even if you do end up calling yourself a lightweight or heavyweight with weed. The goal is to find the smallest dose that reliably gives you the effects you’re looking for.

How Much THC Should You Take Your First Time?

If you’ve never had an edible before, I’d start with 2.5mg THC. And that number isn’t completely arbitrary. Research using 2.5mg of oral THC has found measurable effects even at that very low dose, although people didn’t necessarily feel obviously high from it. It’s kind of the sweet spot for a first experiment considering you don’t have any other health issues. You’re taking enough THC that it can actually do something, but you’re not diving straight into a full 5 or 10mg serving without knowing what an edible does to you yet.

Could you start with 5mg? Sure. I wouldn’t consider that crazy for someone who’s already comfortable with weed. But if you’re nervous, really sensitive to THC, or have basically no tolerance, go with 2.5mg. Worst case, you don’t feel much.

From there, it’s pretty simple. If 2.5mg was barely noticeable, try 5mg next time. If 5mg was nice but you wanted a little more, maybe try 7.5mg. This is where the whole “start low and go slow” mantra actually fits into practice. And that’s titration: gradually adjusting the dose until you’ve found the amount that produces the desired effect without overshooting it.

You don’t need to go from “I barely felt that” to eating twice as much just to see what happens. And I do mean next time. Not 45 minutes later. We’ll get to that.

Please Don’t Take More Because “It’s Not Working”

This is where people get themselves into trouble with edibles. You take 5mg, 45 minutes go by, you’re not really feeling much, so you take another 5mg. Maybe even another. Then the first dose starts kicking in, followed by everything you ate after it.

Most edibles are slow AF. You can start feeling the effects anywhere from about 30 minutes to two hours after eating one, while the full effects can take as long as four hours to show themselves. That doesn’t mean you’re sitting there completely sober for four hours and suddenly get blasted. It means the high can keep building after you’ve already started feeling it.

That’s why I really don’t recommend chasing an edible while you’re still figuring out your dose. Feeling something at the one-hour mark isn’t necessarily your cue to eat more, because you may have no idea how much higher you’re about to get.

If you’re experimenting with a new dose, let that dose play out. You can always build up to it and eat more another time. But you cannot un-eat the gummy you just swallowed.

What Changes How Strong an Edible Feels?

A lot of this comes down to pharmacokinetics, which is how your body absorbs, processes, and eventually gets rid of THC. You can take the exact same dose as someone else and have a completely different experience. You can even take the same dose yourself on two different days and have it hit a little differently.

Tolerance is a big one. If you use THC every day, 5mg may barely register. If you haven’t touched weed in months, that same 5mg could be plenty. And tolerance drops, so don’t assume the dose you used to take is still going to feel the same after a long break.

Food can change things. Research has found that eating a high-fat meal before oral THC (edibles) can delay when it peaks while also increasing overall THC exposure. So yes, taking a gummy on an empty stomach versus after dinner can actually make a difference. Although I have come across brands that specifically instruct you to take their edibles on an empty stomach for maximum effects. Personally, a full stomach is my move.

Set and setting are real, too. Taking 10mg on your couch with nothing to do is not necessarily going to feel the same as taking 10mg before walking into a packed concert. If I’m already anxious or having a shitty day, that’s probably not when I’m going to experiment with a higher edible dose. Especially if I don’t know how it’s going to hit me yet.

Then there’s the edible itself. A regular gummy, chocolate, drink, capsule, and one of those newer fast-acting edibles may all say 5mg THC on the label, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re going to come on the exact same way. Formulation is important and varies.

Your own metabolism and physiology are part of it too, obviously. But I wouldn’t get sucked into trying to calculate some perfect THC dose based on your body weight.

Basically, the milligrams matter a lot. But they’re just not the only thing going on.

Count Milligrams, Not Gummies

Whenever someone tells me, “I ate a gummy,” my immediate question is: OK, but how many milligrams was in it? Because one gummy is not a dose.

I’ve reviewed gummies with just a couple milligrams of THC per piece, and I’ve reviewed others with 50mg, 100mg, or more crammed into one. So don’t go by the number of gummies you ate. Look at the actual THC per piece, and make sure you’re not accidentally looking at the total THC in the entire jar or bag instead.

This gets especially sketchy with those enormous high-dose gummies that you’re supposed to cut into a bunch of servings yourself. Technically, sure, you can cut a 50mg gummy into ten pieces and call each one 5mg. But unless it’s scored perfectly, you’re eyeballing it. If you’re still trying to figure out your dose, I’d rather buy something that’s already made in 2.5mg or 5mg pieces.

“I ate half a gummy” means absolutely nothing to me until I know what was in the other half.

Does CBD Change the Dose?

CBD gets paired with THC in edibles all the time, and there’s this longstanding idea that the CBD will somehow mellow out the THC, especially the anxiety or paranoia that can come with getting too high. Sometimes, maybe. There is human research showing CBD can reduce THC-induced anxiety, and another study found less anxiety with cannabis containing equal amounts of THC and CBD than with THC-dominant weed.

But CBD is not some automatic off-switch for THC. Other research hasn’t found the same protective effect, which is why I wouldn’t count on a 1:1 gummy to save you if you take way more THC than you can handle.

It gets even stranger with really high doses of CBD. In one study, people took 20mg THC with 640mg CBD and actually had stronger effects and more impairment than they did from the THC alone. That is a huge amount of CBD compared to your average gummy, so it’s not something I’d worry about with a normal 1:1, 5mg THC + 5mg CBD edible. But it does kill the idea that CBD simply cancels THC out.

If a gummy has 5mg THC in it, I’m counting it as 5mg THC whether there’s 0mg, 5mg, or 20mg CBD sitting next to it. The CBD might change the feel of the high, but I wouldn’t use it as an excuse to take more THC.

Don’t Use Your Highest Dose as Your Default Dose

Just because you can handle 50mg doesn’t mean 50mg needs to become your regular dose.

THC tolerance creeps up on people. The 10mg that used to get you perfectly high starts feeling kind of weak, so now you’re taking 15mg. Then 20mg. Then suddenly you’re the person buying those absurd 100mg gummies because everything else feels like a waste of time. Regular cannabis use can absolutely make you less sensitive to the same amount of THC over time.

If your dose keeps climbing and you’re not even getting a better experience out of it, that’s probably worth paying attention to. Sometimes taking a break, or even just cutting back for a bit, makes more sense than continuously throwing more THC at the problem.

I’d rather find the lowest dose that reliably does what I want than brag about how many milligrams I can eat. Having a massive edible tolerance is expensive anyway.

Find Your Sweet Spot

If you’re new to edibles, start with 2.5mg THC and see what that actually does to you. If you already know you handle weed pretty well, 5mg might be fine. And for all the cannasseurs, go off… have your high dose edible. Either way, there’s no reason to rush this.

The biggest mistake is getting impatient and adding more THC before the first dose has really shown you what it’s going to do. That’s how a perfectly manageable 5mg night turns into 15mg and regret.

Once you find a dose you like, stick with it. You don’t need to keep pushing it higher just because you can. The goal is to get the high you actually want and not to set some personal record.

Microdose Edibles We Love

Cann’s original social tonic tastes incredible and has only 2mg THC. Plus, it sets in fast so you don’t have that long, anxious waiting period. You’ll know pretty quickly when it sets in, and it wears off more quickly, too, just in case you decide this edible stuff’s not for you.

These Sunday Scaries THC sleep gummies offer a light dose of 2.5mg, plus relaxants that will help keep you calm even if getting only slightly high freaks you out.