Infused beverages have quickly become my favorite way to consume cannabis, especially during this sweltering, smoky summer. That said, there's something missing in Washington's cannabis market, and it bums me out.
Once upon a time, in the not so distant past, there weren't cannabis products like there are now. There was the weed you could get from a black market dealer, and that was about it. Legalization has led to an explosion of cannabis products, so this bit of complaining is quite possibly the result of being spoiled by an ever-expanding marketplace. Regardless, I want to be able to consume cannabis beverages the way we consume alcoholic beverages like beer, wine and cocktails.
Shop around any dispensary in the region and you'll find countless beverages, in all kinds of flavors and forms, but there's one giant hole in the offerings. They're all incredibly strong, or they're on the opposite end of the spectrum and will produce a microscopic high at most.
You can grab a six pack of beers or a bottle of wine on your way home from work and split it with some friends over the course of an evening. You can get a nice, relaxing buzz without getting overwhelmingly intoxicated. As far as I've been able to find, looking far and wide around the Inland Northwest, there aren't any cannabis products that allow for the same.
You can find plenty of 12-ounce bottles with 100 milligrams of THC, but that's not something to sip on over an evening. For a casual user, you're getting pretty stoned off a one-ounce mini-gulp. You can walk into a grocery store and walk out with a $3 can of 50-milligram CBD seltzer — I'm drinking one as I write this story — but throw back the whole thing and your achy muscles might ease up, but you won't get high in the slightest.
There aren't many, if any, options available that are built to be slowly sipped with friends around a backyard barbecue.
What I want is a six pack of infused beverages with, say, three milligrams of THC per can. Or a wine-bottle sized product with 30 milligrams that can be poured and shared around a meal. Something you can enjoy a few servings of while catching a mild, easy high and avoiding feeling like one of those "when the edible hits" memes. Maybe I'm a spoiled consumer, but I think that would be great. ♦
