Lighting up for the first time on 4/20? A cannabis doctor shares safety tips
April 20 — celebrated as holiday of sorts among marijuana enthusiasts — is a popular time for beginner cannabis users or first-timers to try something new.
As Monday’s 4/20 holiday approaches, a medical cannabis expert and licensed physician shared her thoughts on how unexperienced marijuana users can stay safe and feel secure in their decision to light up.
Dr. Sherry Yafai is a board-certified emergency medicine physician who has operated a private medical cannabis clinic since 2017.
“Quite a bit of patients came through the emergency department, mostly with cancer, who had suggested that they had requested cannabis recommendations, and it was utterly confusing to me,” Yafai said. “I started looking into the research ... and talking to anybody I could really get ahold of to really understand what was happening here.”
In her work at The ReLeaf Institute in Southern California, Yafai now helps patients of all ages who have a variety of conditions to integrate cannabis-based medicine into their treatment regimens.
Yafai recently prompted an AI chatbot to give her tips on a first-time recreational cannabis experience, just to see what the large language model would output for inexperienced users planning to sample marijuana on 4/20.
“This is the other very realistic part of medicine, knowing what people are seeing and have access to versus what you’re telling them,” she said.
How can I stay safe while trying weed on 4/20?
Above all else, Yafai strongly urges anyone interested in trying marijuana to purchase from licensed dispensaries.
“Illegal dispensaries are cheap, and I get that, but you don’t know what they’re rolling into their flower,” she said.
California requires dispensaries in the state to obtain a license to sell approved cannabis products from licensed manufacturers. The approval process for manufacturers involves ensuring safety testing on their products and accurate labeling of dosage.
Additionally, she reminds users that normal hygiene standards still apply when sharing a joint or vape, she said. While “puff, puff, pass” can be fun for spending time with friends, Yafai said it can still spread the same germs as kissing or sharing a drink.
“If they have oral herpes, you can get oral herpes. If they have a cold or COVID or flu, you can also get it by putting your mouth on what they are putting their mouths on,” Yafai said. “From a health perspective, get your own.”
Yafai recommends interested users who have heart rhythm conditions and people on medications talk to a physician with expertise in cannabis before diving into their first THC experience.
Tips for trying marijuana on 4/20
In addition to standard safety, the first thing Yafai recommends all new users learn is the basic language of cannabis.
“The word you’re looking for is not marijuana, pot, cannabis, whatever,” she said. “It’s really THC.”
The cannabis plant has two main chemical compounds that people use for different purposes. Tetrahydrocannabinol — or THC — is the main compound that gives the “high” feeling, while cannabidiol — or CBD — does not cause a high, but is used in health-related products and sometimes accompanies THC in certain products.
For first-time or infrequent users, Yafai said it’s important to stay as simple as possible with so many products available on the market.
“THC dose is pretty much all that matters, not whether it’s a sativa or an indica,” she said. “That’s like talking about what kind of wine you like ... no one knows the difference between indica and sativa unless they’ve been using for a while.”
What is a good THC dose for beginner users?
Dosage differs depending on the product, Yafai said. Edibles have a better expectation of how many milligrams of THC is in each serving, while smoked products — including vapes and flower — get a bit more complicated.
The concentration of THC within the plant or the vape oil affects the dosage and the experience. Yafai said vape oils have roughly 80% to 99% concentration, which are “whopping dosages for the average individual.”
Yafai said that the THC concentration in flowers has increased from 3% to 6% in the 1970s to more than 30% today.
Because of this, Yafai said it is important to pay attention to product labels and encourages new users to purchase their own products instead of sharing with a more experienced marijuana user.
However, Yafai still recommends beginner users smoke, rather than ingest, their THC as it is easier to fine tune the experience, and the effects of the high wear off faster than with edibles. If you prefer to avoid smoking, being aware of dosage in edibles is crucial, she said.
The common phrase “start low, go slow” encourages users to take low doses of edibles and slowly increase if they are not feeling the effects. According to Yafai, this is not good advice for infrequent users, it is more commonly used for easing users into long-term dosing.
“I tell everybody, don’t double-dip on edibles in the same night,” she said. “That is what will land you in the ER.”
Yafai urges new users to steer clear of extremely concentrated formulations like “wax, dab and shatter.”
“Those are our department’s version of heroin,” she said. “The most bastardized version of Tylenol with codeine is going to be heroin, and the most bastardized version of 15% flower THC ... is going to be wax, dab and shatter. So really it has no place in an average recreational user's language.”
