What is it like to take delta-8? A reporter shares his experience

AJ Dome, The Manhattan Mercury, Kan.
·2 min read

Oct. 2—The sun was setting when the beef jerky began to take hold.

The Caribbean jerk-flavored beef infused with 50 milligrams of delta-8 THC was enough to make me feel some kind of special but not enough to make me a clumsy mess. The high was pleasant, gentle, not rushed in any way. I felt appropriately sunny as dusk fell on Poyntz Avenue.

For the sake of journalism, The Mercury recently paid for a couple of delta-8 items and see if they got me high. They did. One more than the other.

Along with the jerky I also got a simple, unassuming dark green square gummy made with 100 milligrams of delta-8 for $5.

I ate the soft gummy at 6:30 p.m. on a Sunday. About 30 minutes later, I had dinner and reclined in my favorite chair with my laptop and YouTube. The tangy THC aftertaste lingered on my tongue, and my mouth and lips became increasingly dry as the evening progressed.

Fruity-flavored fizzy water turned out to be an excellent choice as the THC worked its way through my bloodstream, making me increasingly yet gradually high.

This was all entirely legal, due to a legal loophole, in a state where marijuana use is against the law.

Eating a potent edible THC product is like being slowly crushed by an extremely comfortable steamroller. My muscles grew heavy, my eyelids sagged, and over the next couple of hours I zoned in on YouTube, completely ignoring the outside world (and incoming texts on my phone).

Part of delta-8's sales pitch is that it offers the high without the anxiety or paranoia of other THC content. I encountered no turbulence on my metaphorical hot air balloon ride with a cousin of Mary Jane.

By 11 p.m. I had melted into the chair and was equal parts relaxed and euphoric but stiff and sore. I stood up to stretch and looked in the mirror. I couldn't help but laugh at how absurdly red my eyes were.

The next morning, I awoke late to sunshine filling my room. My brain was clouded in what old TV meteorologists would call "pea soup fog." Thoughts were slow to form, but coffee fixed that.