Edibles Independence

Amsterdam. The city name alone conjures up images of high tourists causing bicycle jams along gorgeous tulip-lined Dutch canals with windmills in the background. This is where it all went down.

At 24, I was energetic, ambitious, and just learning to break free from the ultraconservative views I was taught as a child. I was on a three-month stay in Paris to learn French, reduce my ridiculous American accent, and explore Europe’s finest cities. Amsterdam was a natural choice due to proximity and museum selection. That’s right. Museum selection.

I saw a lot that weekend: Vondel Park, the Rijksmuseum, Anne Frank’s House, experienced the Heineken Experience, and stumbled upon the Erotic Museum. I wandered aimlessly, popping into local establishments but passing on coffee shops because they just didn’t have the right vibe from the outside. Too many obscure, creepy men with black hoodies and sunglasses, perhaps?

The 24-year-old me enjoyed walking city streets for hours and made it a mission to get lost in foreign cities, and this was no exception. As I wandered the not so touristy and mostly residential streets of Amsterdam, I stumbled upon a local bakery. I figured I deserved a consolation prize for at least thinking about going into a coffee shop to enjoy my first edible.

I inspected all the gorgeous baked goodies behind the sneeze shield and decided on a tasty looking brownie. The woman behind the counter could tell I was an American and told me three or four times that it is a “special brownie,” and she checked for comprehension more times than that. I was relieved that I stumbled into a discrete coffee shop and could legally enjoy my first edible. Conservative upbringing, remember?

I purchased my brownie and away I went to my hostel to enjoy it. Damn it was good. I ate the entire thing.  After a brief nap, the Van Gogh Museum seemed like a great idea because it was around the corner, but it took an hour to find my way around that corner.

It had all hit me at once. I was giggly, easily lost, slow moving, and barely functional. I don’t remember much of my Van Gogh Museum experience except for a fellow museum goer that genuinely looked concerned about my well-being. And a concerned Dutch citizen on the train to Nijmegen the following day to meet my aunt’s friend named Gretchen.

When I arrived in Nijmegen, Gretchen introduced herself and then immediately asked if I was high. This was a day and a half post-brownie, and my answer to her was “yes.”

Some years later, I moved to the Netherlands to work and for graduate school. I partook in space cake and brownies again, but it was nothing like my first experience. I felt like I was duped. This is when I discovered that not all edibles are created equally… unless you make them yourself and measure the potency.

Having the ability to measure cannabinoids in edibles not only makes consuming them safer but empowers individuals with edibles independence. For those who partake for medicinal purposes, accurate dosages are even more important, and having the ability to measure at home not only provides privacy but saves time and money.

For those of us who enjoy edibles and spending time in the kitchen, taste testing the potency of cannabinoids in edibles need not apply. Engineered Medical Technologies has developed a home cannabis oil potency tester called tCheck that removes the guesswork from homemade edibles. The tCheck enables individuals to accurately measure infused oils, making it easy to avoid under and superdosing.

The tCheck was just launched in August but is already making waves in the cannabis community.  Want to learn more?  Check out their website at http://tcheck.me.

By Jessica Sicard

This article was sponsored by tCheck.