Microdosing is the act of consuming a substance in such small amounts that the effects are sub-perceptual – meaning below your perception, unnoticeable.
It can be done with a number of different substances depending on what your goals are.
It has become popular over recent years among certain circles, including high-functioning CEOs, coders in Silicon Valley, creatives, and sufferers of anxiety, depression and PTSD.
In order to take control of my problematic cannabis habit, I personally experimented microdosing with magic mushrooms and, ironically, cannabis. Both helped drastically, but for very different reasons.
In this article, I’m going to break down exactly how microdosing THC can help you overcome cannabis addiction and live a generally happier, healthier, and more productive life.
Microdosing cannabis to reduce THC intake
Microdosing is a popular way of consuming psychedelics like LSD and psilocybin (the active ingredient in magic mushrooms) but you can also microdose cannabis to great effect.
By microdosing THC (ideally combined with CBD) you will find yourself having less cravings for cannabis. It can also help withdrawal effects like anxiety, irritability, trouble sleeping, and a lack of appetite.
This recent Australian study on people with cannabis dependence found that when subjects consumed a dose 2.7mg THC and 2.5mg CBD up to 32 times a day, they had significantly more days where they did not smoke cannabis compared with a placebo group.
How to microdose cannabis
To microdose cannabis, you have a few options. The easiest way is to mix some CBD-rich flower with some THC-rich flower, load it into a dry herb vaporiser, and take a single 5-10 second inhale on it.
Dry herb vapes heat up to a pre-chosen temperature that is not hot enough to burn the plant matter, but hot enough to vaporise the cannabinoids and essential oils. This produces no carcinogenic chemicals like combustion does. It also allows you to take a single inhale and then turn it off.
This will give you a small dose of whatever cannabinoids and terpenes are present in your cannabis mix. You should not notice any obvious effects apart from a slight sense of calm and a reduction in anxiety, irritability and cravings. You can do this multiple times a day – either when cravings hit or when you see fit, like once in the morning, midday, and evening, for example.
You can also experiment with different ratios of THC/CBD in order to find what works best for you. When microdosing, I find a roughly 50/50 ratio is best, however, you may find that you need less THC or even none at all. CBD, after all, is very effective on its own.
I’ve found that microdosing cannabis is most effective when you’re experiencing cravings. So, if you usually start your day with a joint, try having a pull on a vape in the morning instead and then wait 10/15 minutes. You might just find that your cravings are reduced and you can go for another hour or more before you decide to have that joint. Keep this up and you’ll soon notice your THC consumption reducing with little effort.
If you still really want that joint after 10/15 minutes, have it and don’t beat yourself up about it. This is a long-term game and being harsh on yourself is not going to help.
If you don’t have a dry herb vaporiser, you can try taking just one puff of a joint (ideally with both hemp flower and THC and no tobacco) and then putting it down and waiting 10-15 minutes. Alternatively, low-dose edibles are an option, but unless you have access to standardised products, dosing could be difficult.
I go into further detail on microdosing in my new book, Overcoming Weed Addiction, as well as a number of other cutting edge techniques that have helped me cultivate a healthy relationship with cannabis. The book is short, concise, and highly practical. It’s available on Amazon at this link.
having just checked out the linked best vapes post, i have a couple of questions.
but first, a thank you. i commented a few months ago asking if there was any comparison between hemp elf and canavape, and while i still like CV’s e-liquid flavours, all of my crumble and shatter and CBD bud are now coming from hemp elf. so i wanted to thank you, jack, for pointing me in that direction. i had really hoped mr ohm would have been decent, hoping to support more local businesses, but their bud was all brown and burnt super harshly, with a much muddier CBD high than hemp elf’s of supposedly the same strain. i haven’t been able to completely leave my opioid painkillers behind, but have been able to go from 6-8 doses a day to 3-5, which has reduced my weird vivid opioid nightmares/anxiety dreams a fair wee bit, and my joints are less inflamed too – especially with blue dream terpenes, it’s much more effective than ibuprofen.
so anyway, onto the ramble and the question. i had bought a puffit on a friend’s suggestion years ago, but was never that impressed by the small clouds and how long it took to get high, not ideal when using for chronic pain. the first hit was always fairly potent, but then each one had diminishing returns. to the point where i had to spend 30 minutes of heating cycles to get the equivalent of a second hit when smoking. the puffit broke and got replaced by a puffit x under warranty, they insisted the forced air would make aaaallll the difference…. it did not. on top of that, the battery meter would show green even when it ran out of battery – to which puffit blankly said: that’s not a malfunction, it’s purely based on voltage rather than an adaptive circuit, so really it’s good that you have a higher voltage battery! except it stopped charging based on voltage too… so i would have to keep it constantly plugged in if i wanted to use it on a whim.
so long story short, i’ve had that puffit x sitting around for years and years and it only gets used when a friend wants to partake but not smoke. i since got a huge bong with a recycler precooler and the high seems much more mellow and hits me a lot faster. for me it’s less head high and more body high even with the same strain than vaping, which lets me kill my pain and get on with my life.
but over the years i’ve felt, especially with the prevalence of vaping liquids, that it would be nice to have an option for being out and about… i’m not a huge fan of joints, you waste so much on smouldering and stuff. but my bad experience with two puffits, a friend’s magic flight box, and some ribbed box with a straw mouthpiece that looked similar to one featured in the top vapes article… none of them impressed me.
have you or any other readers used a puffit (which was admittedly better than the MFB, although still not super great) or similarly malperforming vape, and a modern pax? have they drastically improved since 2014?
when i got my puffit the pax was first gen and a bunch of friends had the button break or the oven seal break or things like that, though they liked the pax’s performance before it broke on them.
so i didn’t really feel like buying a pax1 at the time, especially having already paid a bunch on the puffit, especially when premium bongs were only about half the price of yet another vape, and bring the temperature down well below that when vaping or piping if you’re not a silly bugger with huge hits. but people keep saying things about the pax that sound almost like they don’t have the problems my puffit had – they say it’s fast heating (though my puffit also said that), they say big clouds.. and the pax3’s concentrates/oils ability seems interesting to me too.
in line with all this history, i’ve recently started dabbing concentrates (and the resin film inside my bong when i give it a clean out) and enjoying that rather a lot. i’m aware that dabbing is essentially vaping, with a different heating method, and only for concentrates. so it got me started thinking about dry herb vapes again, this article reminding me to look into things a bit.
i absolutely hated having to coax the last 50% out of the bowls in my puffit, so that put me off things for a long while. but it would be nice to have an option for dry herb when my throat’s feeling sensitive, as cool as concentrates are they just cannot top high quality fresh bud for the dimensionality and complexity of the high for me.
i had heard before about studies saying vaping extracts more THC than smoking, and bong water trapping some THC itself… so i do wonder if my displeasure with joints, pipes and previous vapes partially come from trying to raise the effective CBD percentage in my bud in my bong?? and if that IS the case, i could potentially just buy up CBD bud versions of my preferred strains to mix 50/50 or something, assuming the other issues i had with vapes are fixed nowadays.
sorry for the long one, and i hope all that i said made sense. you’ve got an invaluable resource here jack! and i hope your plans to feel more in control of your toking work out well – at the end of the day it’ll make those special occasion social smokes all the more effective. i would like to not have to smoke quite as much as i do right now, but as it stands the alternative is pumping my body full of dihydrocodeine again, so i just accept that maybe some psychological dependency may be occurring – which is at least not as bad as my physiological dependency on the opioids. though i am hoping to be able to someday get access to NHS cannabis oil now that that’s legalised, if only for giving me another avenue of control and tuning on my pain management. of course my friends in boston with medical cards and friends in seattle of all sorts would seem to have it pretty ideal for access in my book.
anyway, thanks again jack, for your time and for reading my long-arse message. hope your day’s going great.
Hi Katelyn, thanks for the comment. To answer your first question, no I havent’y tried the puffit. However, I have tried a couple of cheap dry herb vapes, like the flower mate 5.0, and to be honest they don’t compare with a Pax2/3 or any other premium vape. The premium ones are well worth the money in my opinion.
Second question: I think vaping 50/50 is the way to go. You’re right, vaping extracts a lot more cannabinoids than smoking, and combining CBD and THC increases THC levels in the blood and is more effective. Win win!
Cheers,
Jack