DOSE:

1

oral

Cannabidiol

(edible / food)

BODY WEIGHT:

165 lb

Double-Blind Experiment with CBD

Personal Background: I had never taken a CBD-only product before the events of this experience. I've used a variety of THC products in the past, occasionally in fairly extreme doses, and am very familiar with the effects of THC.

Cannabidiol (CBD), having recently hit the mainstream, has become one of those substances with a large number of dubious claims made about its effects and practical uses. For example, half of the grocery stores here in California have big racks of CBD-infused moisturizers and hair conditioners and all sorts of bullshit near the checkout, all claiming to "ease your pain", "help you sleep", and "grant you peace of mind".

Out of curiosity, my partner Dan and I decided to conduct a double-blind test on me to check our hypotheses about CBD. We purchased a small tub of CBD-infused gummy bears, each containing 250mg, and another tub of normal gummy bears that seemed visually indistinguishable from the CBD ones. A red CBD gummy bear was placed in one dish and a red normal gummy bear was placed in another. Which was which had been written on a piece of tape stuck to the bottom of the dish. They were mixed up and labeled A and B. A random number generator was used to choose which I would be eating the first night.

Around 10:45 PM, the chosen mystery bear was administered. Though we didn't know it at the time, I was given a CBD bear first. Considering all of the questionable claims made about CBD, I predicted that I wouldn't feel much of anything. I doubted that what I felt, if anything, could be easily identified as the result of CBD. The following are entries I made to an experience journal from that night.

T+0:12 - Weird head feeling. Not yet sure if caused by the gummy bear.

T+1:35 - I feel straight up high. About the equivalent of what I would get from taking a 3.5 or 4mg THC edible. It feels pretty much exactly like a THC high. Not very intense, but still unexpected.

T+3:55 - I'm very tired and still just as high. Need sleep but can't go to bed yet. No way of telling if being tired like this is from the gummy or not. It's late. [My partner was using our bedroom as an office that night and had more work to get through.]

T+6:03 - I'm about to go to sleep. Napped on the couch a bit so I'm not as tired as before. Feeling close to baseline.

The following night, we continued with the tests by giving me the other gummy bear, the one without CBD. I never ended up feeling anything from it (unsurprisingly), so I never recorded any logs.

The takeaway from this was that CBD was not only psychoactive but produced incredibly similar results to THC albeit with lower potency, requiring, by my previous estimate, 250mg to reach the intensity of 3.5mg of THC. This came as a surprise to me and my partner. However, it does seem to make a lot of intuitive sense considering how closely related it is to THC.

CBD is not just some placebo herbal supplement. I didn't even take that much for the experiment described here.

Exp Year: 2020	ExpID: 115079
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 22
Published: Jan 22, 2021	Views: 2,404
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Cannabidiol (596) : Small Group (2-9) (17), General (1)