You must have eaten some edibles made by people that had no idea what they were doing.
ALL weed needs to be de-carbed before it becomes psychoactive. The question is whether you de-carb it slowly in an oven of specialized machine at around 250 degrees, or whether you use the 1300 degree flame of your lighter to do it.
If you use your lighter, the accepted scientific standard is that joints/blunts lose 50% of the THC to destruction from the heat. While bowls/bongs lose 60% to heat. Then, depending on how big of a hit you take, how long you hold it, and how efficient your lungs actually are, another 40-60% of the THC you inhale is sent back into the atmosphere when you exhale. Of the THC that actually hits your blood stream, daily users can get 22-27% of that to be psychoactively available. While first time and casual users can get between 25-33%. What all of that complex math equates to is that for every 100mg THC that you set on fire, somewhere between 2.8-9mg actually ends up affecting your brain. (With casuals getting up to nearly 15mg)
Much like smoking crack, the onset of consuming THC through smoking is nearly instantaneous, with a mean time of metabolization being 4.5 hours. Whereas consuming THC through edibles is more akin to taking LSD with a 45minute to 1 hour onset, and a metaboliztion time of more than 8 hours.
On the other hand, for properly prepared edibles, there is no loss of THC to the heat or to the atmosphere. And while everyone is a unique biological entity, making exact dosages difficult to monitor, the absorption rate is at least 80%. Ultimately that means that edibles can deliver 17.6-21.6 mg per 100mg consumed for daily users, and casuals getting between 20-26.4 mg.
That's why edibles are driving up the number of hospital visits. People consume entire bags of edibles when they have no actual understanding of just how much more potent edible THC is. Many of those bags of edibles contain enough THC to get 8-10 people baked for an entire night out, but people eat them like they are potato chips.
I find that most long time stoners don't want to wait the time it takes for an edible to kick in, so they smoke while they wait. Which, of course, means that they are already high by the time the edible kicks in, and fail to notice it happening. Then, they get tired over the 4.5 or so hours it takes to metabolize the smoked THC, and sleep through most of the edible THC's life cycle.
Personally, I make tinctures. They are a happy medium. It takes 25-30 minutes before one can feel a sort of wave crashing over the brain, and it sticks with you for about 5-7 hours. It's completely possible to wake up exactly as stoned as I was when I fell asleep. And an ounce of weed made into a tincture can last a month or more. Where I was smoking a quarter pound per week when I consumed weed that way exclusively. Much, much more economical.
Not to mention that tinctures (alcohol based, because cannabutter, canna oil, and dab wax are ALSO types of tinctures) can be aged like wine, and kept forever, as long as you store them in amber glass, and keep them refrigerated. They get more potent over time.
And even though I am brand new to growing, I have been a stoner since 1982. And I have been an RN since 1994. No stranger to either THC, or the science behind it!
