Finding the best cannabis product is easier said than done.
Do you prefer a strong high or a fast-hitting one? Or one that lasts all day?
If you’re a casual cannabis consumer, you may not have given the question much thought. High is high, right?
But if you spend a lot of money on cannabis or you only buy weed on special occasions (like birthdays)—or if you use CBD for pain relief—finding the right product can mean the difference between feeling satisfied and frustrated with your purchase.
Every person responds to cannabinoids differently. An edible that locks one person to the sofa may barely be enough to register for another cannabis consumer. And a strain that puts my head in the clouds may leave you wanting more.
So rather than focusing on specific strains or products, we utilized the Daft Punk scale of marijuana metrics to find the “best” cannabis.
- Harder (hitting)
- Better (for you)
- Faster (acting)
- Stronger (for longer)
We applied these metrics to flower, concentrates, edibles, tinctures, and patches to see what types of products hit harder, better, faster, stronger.
For the sake of simplicity and fairness, we did not include products like caviar joints or moonrocks that layer different types of cannabis. We also focus only on products available at recreational marijuana dispensaries in Colorado.
Hardest-Hitting Cannabis Product
When we say “hard-hitting” we aren’t talking about harshness. We’re talking about the best and fastest high on a per hit basis.
To start, we considered THC levels.
- Top-shelf strains like OG Kush can have over 30% THC. That means in a gram of 30% OG Kush, you have 300mg of THC.
- Likewise a gram of cannabis oil with 80% THC would have 800mg of THC available.
- And a 100mg edible… well, that’s still just 100mg.
But, how does this break down on a per-hit basis? Whether you’re smoking your flower from a bong, bowl, or in a joint, you can expect to lose nearly half of the THC to burning.
- A single marijuana edible serving in Colorado is 10mg.
- One big hit of flower (30% THC) from a large bong would deliver about 5-6mg of THC (accounting for the size of the bong and THC lost to burning).
- And a large hit of hash oil—like you’d get from a dab—can include 12-15mg of THC in a
dab smaller than a bead (again, accounting for THC lost to burning or combustion).
Of course, we couldn’t stop at THC in a single dose or hit. When you smoke or vape cannabis through the lungs, it allows all of those inhaled cannabinoids to enter your bloodstream almost immediately. Most edibles, on the other hand, can take 1-2 hours to fully metabolize, which can result in a longer lasting but less intense high.
If you’re looking for the hardest and fastest-hitting high, the clear winner is a dab of high-potency cannabis oil.
Winner: Dabs
The Best Weed for You
Weed is like broccoli or a good night’s sleep: it does the body good. As any discerning cannabis consumer knows, though, not all weed is created equal.
Lots of growers treat their plants with potentially harmful pesticides and chemicals. And many hash oil, shatter, and wax concentrates are still extracted using butane or other toxic solvents.
The best weed for you is the purest weed—naturally grown and free from pesticides (like we grow at Karing Kind).
The best cannabis oil is the purest oil—made with clean-grown bud and natural CO2 extraction (like we use at Karing Kind Labs).
If you’re going with tinctures, topicals, or edibles, take a few minutes to find out where the company sources the cannabis and concentrates they use in their products. What other ingredients do they use? Some include non-cannabis ingredients you simply don’t need. Others infuse their products with essential oils or vitamins that support healthier skin and a stronger immune system.
In the end, we gave the “Better (for You)” award to cannabis topicals and patches crafted with clean-grown flower and clean-extracted oil. Many of these products are carefully crafted to provide the medical benefits of cannabis with either no psychoactive effects or a steadier, more controlled high.
Winner: Cannabis Topicals and Patches
The Fastest High
Even with the introduction of “fast-acting” edibles, sublinguals, and cannabis inhalers, the fastest high still comes from smoking or vaping.
Cannabinoids inhaled through the lungs reach the brain even faster than those that enter directly through the bloodstream.
The question, then, is whether a certain method of smoking or vaping allows the active cannabinoids to reach your brain faster than other methods. While we’re only talking about split seconds of difference, a gravity bong pushes THC into your lungs at a faster rate than a slow, calm drag on a joint or blunt. Unless, of course, you’re shotgunning the joint.
Winner: Vaping or Smoking (preferably from a gravity bong)
Longest Lasting High
If you want a steady, long-lasting high (without having to smoke every few hours or nom on another edible), you have two options:
1. A steady stream of THC
2. An overwhelming amount of THC
THC and CBD patches are designed to release cannabis over an extended period of time (often 12 hours or more). Many, however, have no or minimal psychoactive effects, making them better suited for pain and stress relief than a stoner’s day off.
A strong edible (like the impressive 1,000mg cookies in this High Times list) can introduce enough THC into your system to give a similarly long-lasting high. And the psychoactive effects become even stronger as the cannabinoids pass through your liver.
If you want a soothing high that lasts without leaving you feeling “too high,” we recommend picking up a cannabis patch. If you prefer a heavier, more psychoactive high, we recommend finding an edible you like and slowly increasing dose size to maximize how long you’re high without overloading your system with THC (which could leave you feeling sick or sleepy).
Winner: Cannabis Edibles
Harder, Better, Faster, and Stronger Weed
What do you think of our list of hardest-hitting, healthiest, fastest-acting, and longest-lasting cannabis? Add your votes in the comments or let us know on Twitter using the hashtag #DabPunk.
And stop by Karing Kind in North Boulder for all your cannabis needs.
Karing Kind is located just off of US-36, one mile north of Broadway, open MON-SUN from 9am to 10pm.
While we carry a variety of strains, concentrates, edibles, salves and tinctures, inventory and stock levels fluctuate from week to week and month to month. Check our menu and follow us on Twitter for an up-to- date list of edibles, concentrates and buds available.