Dear Cheri,

How much marijuana for a stick of butter? 

OR

How much marijuana should I use for a cup of oil?

OR

What’s a good amount of marijuana butter to use in my pot brownies?

I get variations on these questions all the time and my answer is always the same:

I have no idea. You didn’t give me nearly enough information to give you any kind of meaningful advice.

First and foremost, there is NO SUCH THING as an ideal recommended cannabis dose that fits everyone. People seem to have a lot of trouble grasping this concept, as I get these questions over, and over, and over again. So repeat after me:

"There is no such thing as an ideal recommended cannabis dose!"

Two and a half milligrams of THC is going to be more than plenty for some folks, while 100 mgs is not going to be enough for others. Cannabis dosing, especially with edibles, is highly individualized.

But even if there were such a thing as an across the board ideal cannabis edibles dose, which there isn’t but if there was, questions "How much marijuana for a stick of butter?" still lack two crucial pieces of information needed to accurately give advice:

• What is the strength of the cannabis being used?
  All marijuana is not created equal. While the United States government says the national average is 10% THC, low-end schwag can be as low as 3%, while some top shelf strains tested at 40%. Most will be somewhere between those extremes.
• What is the tolerance level of the person consuming the edibles?
  My regular dose would put a lot of people under the table. Conversely, I would feel nothing from the 10 mg cap most states have imposed on commercial edibles. Dosing is highly individual. It's not a competition, but you will need to know the dosage that works best for you, in order to make edibles that deliver the dose you need.

I know.  I am sorry this is not the simple one-size-fits-all answer everyone wants to hear, but I always want to tell you the truth.  So the question should never be "How much marijuana for a stick of butter.  Instead, the question should be:

How do I determine how much cannabis to use so I get a dose that’s right for me?

That we can do.  It's a two-step process.

Step I

First, you need to know about how much of a dose you personally need. If you are experienced with edibles and know this already, skip to the next step. If you do not know your ideal edibles dose range (or the ideal dose for the person who will be consuming the edibles), read this article, take a few days to figure that out, then come back to step 2.  It's OK, I'll be waiting right here when you are ready.

Step 2

Take my free online Edibles Dosing Class to learn how to use an ordinary calculator to calculate the dosage in your homemade edibles.  Even better, sign up for my Dosage Calculators (only $5.00 for lifetime access) that do all the math for you and make it simple to instantly adjust your recipes.

First, it will ask you to enter a THC percentage – if you are using lab-tested cannabis you can get this off the label, if not I teach you how to estimate it.

Then you’ll calculate how many mgs. THC is in your entire batch of butter or oil.

Lastly the calculator will tell you how many mgs. THC (or CBD if you have the lab tests) are in each serving of your finished edibles.

If you find that any given bath of cannabutter, cannaoil or edibles recipe is giving you too high a dose, just swap out some of the medicated butter or oil for regular. Conversely, if it is not strong enough, you can add more, or augment your recipe with kief, hash, hash oil, or tinctures.

Play with the amounts you use in the dosage calculator before you cook, so you get a dose that matches your needs every time.