We’ve all been there: you lit the perfect joint, took a deliciously, expertly-timed dab, munched on an artisanal edible. Then all of sudden, those fuzzy feelings feel prickly, your laughter turns to panting, and you’re thinking, “dude, am I dead?” No, it’s just the moment when you realize “I’m too high.”
Maybe that edible kicked in three hours late. Perhaps you tried to impress a group of friends by holding the bong rip a little bit too long. You might have just tried concentrates for the first time and got caught off guard by their potency. Or maybe you are just a low-tolerance consumer.
It can sneak up on you in a thousand ways, but once it does, the resulting experience may make you uncomfortable; it’s sometimes enough to turn off even the most seasoned cannabis lover. Cannabis is not a lethal drug, and thankfully its effects dissipate well within a day. Here’s how to come back from the edge of greening out.
How long does it take to come down from a weed high?
After smoking weed, how long your high lasts depends on a variety of factors: consumption method, dosage, and unique individual variables that can vary from person to person like tolerance, age, and metabolic rate. Typically, the higher the potency of a cannabis product (read: THC % or milligram amount), the longer the high will last, though it may not necessarily be more intense. Concentrates are the most potent form of cannabis, with flower and edibles following behind.
This could mean that it would take longer to sober up from dabs than smoking a bowl, but dosage, quality of the flower or wax, and your body’s chemistry all contribute to your experience. It’s also important to note that the everyday smoker with a higher weed tolerance will sober up a lot faster than the occasional consumer who hits the party joint a couple of times. As our senior editor Bruce Barcott previously reported, new studies indicate that there is a “window of impairment” for cannabis across consumption methods of between three and 10 hours, but for most people, it’s around 4 hours.
Anecdotally speaking, the average cannabis high can last anywhere between 30 minutes to 2 hours at its peak. You can still experience lingering effects for a period of time after, and some highs have been known to last a lot longer. Thankfully, there are ways to help come back down and sober up when you feel too high, overwhelmed, or uncomfortable from excessive cannabis consumption.
Symptoms of being too high
If you know you’re too high, you know. But if you’re not sure how to figure out where the line to cross is, there are a few tell-tale signs to look out for. While we all love to have a good time, you may need to dial down your intake if you feel:
anxiety
nausea
dizziness
panic
paranoia
confusion
excessive perspiration
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