Interlude: Learning on the High

Note: This blog entry will discuss legal cannabis consumption. If this isn’t your cup of tea, skip it and I’ll see you next week.

As I started writing this article one day in early February 2024, I was discovering how my body and brain react to edible cannabis. I realized the steps I took to get here are actually part of a process I use all the time to learn just about anything on my own.

OK, but… Cannabis?

Let me explain.

It starts with something tremendously boring: my anxiety about going to the dentist. Here’s the boring backstory. Feel free to skip ahead if you already know what this is.

When I was a kid, I don’t recall ever going to the dentist — we simply didn’t have the money for that. I was lucky, in that I never had any real dental problems — no cavities, no braces required, no extractions — so this didn’t seem unusual to me.

So, I was an adult when I started getting fillings and extractions. The first dentist visit I recall was in Seattle. I had some tooth pain, and they almost dislocated my jaw trying to extract a wisdom tooth.

Ever since, I’ve been very nervous going to the dentist.

My next dentist listened to my bad experience, and made sure I was comfortable. They, and every other dentist I visited in Seattle after that, offered me some form of sedation for most dental procedures. The most prevalent was nitrous oxide, which helps me relax during procedures. In fact, they were so good at making me feel comfortable, I fell asleep during a root canal.

Finally, I didn’t dread going to the dentist — in fact, I looked forward to it.

Then I moved to rural southern Illinois, and everything changed.

None of the dentists here offer any kind of sedation. My current dentist even writes on their treatment plans "WE DO NOT OFFER SEDATION". My innate anxiety about visiting the dentist returned, because their assistance in reducing that anxiety doesn’t exist.

So, I figured if they don’t offer sedation, I need to provide my own.

OK, so why cannabis?

Like many of my generation (Gen X), I smoked pot when I was younger. Yes, this is before it was legal, but the statute of limitations has expired, so calm down.

In any case, I remember the effect pot smoking has on me — euphoria, excessive giggling, a case of the munchies, and an almost complete inability to focus on anything. This last is the reason I don’t smoke currently — I hate having the attention span of a goldfish.

Of course, in recent years, many states (including Illinois, where I currently live) have legalized both medical and recreational marijuana. This has led to a proliferation of pot-based products in the market, including edible cannabis formulas.

Like Ludicity, I read about a lot of things. One of those was about how edibles affects the taker differently than smoked cannabis. According to most of the things I read at the time, edibles are more relaxing, with less of an impact on your mental faculties, and a much slower onset of those effects.

So, I decided to see if it would be beneficial for my visiting-the-dentist anxiety.

But first, I had to get some.

Procurement

It turns out there are several cannabis shops around me. While I live in the Middle of Nowhere${}^{™}$, it’s close enough to a Somewhere with a major state university, and another Somewhere with a Prospect League baseball team. In other words, there is enough population Somewhere close to make cannabis shops viable. So off I went to the nearest Somewhere.

I talked to the people at the cannabis shop, mentioned what I was doing and why, that it was my first time trying edibles, and that I was interested in starting as slow as possible.

Why slow? Because, said the sources I read, edibles takes longer to get into your system than smoking, and they advise you to start slow.

According to these guides, you probably won’t feel the effects for an hour or more, and you can’t untake it if you take too much. Take a small amount, wait an hour or so, and take more if needed.

I learned more from the folks at the cannabis shop as well.

For example, all of the edible products I saw at the shop had serving sizes listed, like a bag of chips. They also list how much THC (the stuff in pot that gets you high) and CBD (the snake oil that apparently cures both acne and cancer) is in each, and where it all comes from.

There are all sorts of products — candies, pills, lozenges, energy shots, and so on — and most of them contain 5mg of THC per serving. There are 20 servings per package for a total of 100mg THC, the maximum allowed in Illinois.

I opted for a simple pill, as my interest is medicinal not recreational. I am trying to solve a specific problem, not have an enjoyable evening with a tasty comestible.

Process

So I came home with my pills, and did nothing for a few days.

Why did I wait a few days? Simply put, I didn’t want to experiment with something that may impact my mental faculties when there were Other Things To Do${}^{™}$, and I had Other Things To Do the few days after I bought them.

Experiment is the active word here — I needed to know what was happening and why. I needed some sort of control and some sort of process to answer the questions I had

• Is 5mg of THC a lot, or a little for me?
• Do I need one serving, or more?
• How long will the effects last?
• Will it be an intense high like smoking, or something more subtle?
• Will I be able to function semi-normally, or will I be sleepy and dizzy?

So, one Saturday afternoon, after lunch, when I had no Other Things To Do, I setup a journal to track my impressions and took my first edible.

Let The Games… BEGIN!

The feeling was… well, less than overwhelming.

I wrote what I was feeling at regular intervals, every 20 minutes or so. Other than some light-headedness and mild relaxation about 90 minutes in, there wasn’t much to it. I do recall being slightly more distracted, and I lost the plot of some of the longer TV shows I watched. There were also one or two instances where my sense of time was off.

All in all, very disappointing. How could I stay calm at the dentist when I didn’t feel significantly calmer in my own home?

So the next day, I tried two, spaced about two hours apart.

The effects were more noticeable on 10mg. I had more moments of pleasant relaxation and mild dizziness, which is the effect I wanted. This peaked around three hours into the experiment.

However, my focus was also worse — I really couldn’t do anything that required concentration for more than a few minutes at a time. The plots to any TV shows longer than 30 minutes were completely lost if I looked away for a minute, and my time sense was off even more.

So, you take the bad with the good.

Wait, so how does this relate to learning?

Oh yeah, learning — what I started to talk about.

When I learn something new on my own, I find I follow a loose process:

• Do some reading on the new subject.
• Seek out an "expert" or two for insights.
• Try to do the thing myself in a low-stakes environment.
• Talk to others to refine my knowledge

I wanted to learn how edible cannabis would affect me, so:

• I read up on cannabis products from several sources, cross-checking information between them to find key points.
• I talked to the folks at the dispensary to check my thinking and get some recommendations.
• I tried it in a controlled setting, over a weekend, documenting the process.
• And now I’m writing a blog about it — not quite a discussion, but I did talk about this process with other friends.

When I was first learning Rust, I followed the same process:

• I read the Rust book online.
• I read other blogs and expert resources as well.
• I tried solving Advent of Code problems I knew how to solve (the low stakes environment).
• I talked about my learning here and with colleagues.

I used the same process to learn Python, how to prune fruit trees, how to paint miniatures, how to play the guitar and ukulele, how to draw, and so on. In every case, I did some initial reading, sought out experts (whether IRL or virtual) for aid and assistance, then tried the thing myself in a low-stakes environment.

The Low-stakes Environment

The "doing the thing in low-stakes environment" is key. I think everyone learning a new skill needs a sandbox in which to play with the skill where mistakes are tolerated and even welcome, the results are meaningful but not vital, and help is available when things get pear-shaped.

Mistakes

Mistakes are inevitable. You will mess things up. It’s an important realization that knowing how to do things right means also knowing how to do them wrong. Often, you do things wrong first, lots of times, and by doing them wrong, you learn how to do them right. It’s better to make the mistakes on a low-stakes project than something you may be getting paid for.

Results

If you’re not working towards a personally meaningful goal, why are you learning this new thing? You need to be interested in the result to keep trying and correcting mistakes.

However, if you are too invested, you risk losing interest completely. If you initially try to learn a new skill on your magnum opus, you may be discouraged at your slow progress and lack of results. Start on a small project, then scale to the bigger life-goal project.

Help

Everyone needs guidance now and then. My guitar instructor in college took lessons from someone as well. Even if it’s just another person to bounce ideas off, input from people with alternate perspectives and varied experiences can mean the difference. You can spend an hour on a problem with some input from a mentor or expert, or a full day banging away alone with no progress.

So, What did I actually learn?

Well, in this case, I learned how edible cannabis affects me. I know it will be useful in the specific scenario I have in mind. And I know how much I can take to get an effect.

I also learned it’s not something I want to make a habit of taking. The loss of focus is personally distasteful for me. No judgment to anyone using on the regular while still being productive — I just can’t do it.

But what about the dentist?

Oh yeah, the reason I went down this path to begin with.

My appointment was at noon one day, so I took two pills around 8am. By the time I was in the chair getting drilled and filled, I had the same sensation that nitrous gave me — mildly relaxed, slightly light-headed, and not at all nervous. By that evening I was back to my normal self.

And I haven’t taken any more since.