How to get started with cannabis

Whether you're new to pot or it's just been a while, the advice is still the same.

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Alex MacAskill

"Start low and go slow." Words to use by.

Annie MacEachern is an advocate using her voice to help get medical weed patients heard in the din of recreational pot legalization. But she's also an experienced cannabis user herself, and when we chatted about the medical cannabis fight she had some great tips for pot newbies. Here's MacEachern's advice on where to start, and how to bring yourself back if you go too far:

"Start low and go slow. Always. Just take a few inhales at first and see how you feel. Always stay hydrated, making sure you’ve got water is so, so important. Beyond the cottonmouth discomfort.

"And if you do find yourself in a state of paranoia or hysteria because the strain doesn’t agree with you, find some black pepper. The beta-caryophyllene in pepper is a terpene that will help neutralize the psychoactive THC that has gone into the bloodstream, so it is going to kind of even you back down. Cannabis is a plant, and we can use other plants to alter the effects that it has on us.”

About The Author

Kyle Shaw

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Kyle is the editor of The Coast. He was a founding member of the newspaper in 1993 and was the paper’s first publisher. Kyle occasionally teaches creative nonfiction writing (think magazine-style #longreads) and copy editing at the University of King’s College School of Journalism.