Marijuana in coffee

In the name of public service I sampled a few java-ganja products to observe their effects on my cognitive and motor functions. There’s a common misconception that if you combine two drugs you’ll get the best of both worlds. It’s the same thinking that gave us the vodka & Red Bull, the spliff, or the club kids special known as XECK (xanax, ecstasy, crystal-meth and ketamine, ground up together and snorted). Fixing yourself a drug salad, however, typically results in an unpredictable, synergistic effect that is often greater than the sum of its parts. This is likely the case with mixing coffee and cannabis, an increasingly popular trend for marijuana companies in legalized states.  In my home city of Denver, there are intense prohibitions against alcohol being combined with cannabis, either in products sold at dispensaries or any bar allowing pot to be consumed on their property, the idea being mixing the two can make you a danger to yourself and others. But there is no regulation for marijuana products infused with caffeine.

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In fact, coffee houses are about to become the premier venue for cannabis consumption in Denver, after the city council banned any venue that sells alcohol from participating in the recently passed social use initiative. Unlike marijuana, caffeine is definitively shown to be chemically addictive, yet is used by 83 percent of America and carries virtually no stigma.

It’s already common for people here to combine cannabis and coffee (I’ve heard it referred to as a “Colorado speedball”), either by pairing a joint with espresso, dropping a little THC butter in a cup of coffee, or picking up an infused edible or cup of coffee available at one of the seven hundred dispensaries in the state (more dispensaries than Starbucks!).

But little is known about how these two drugs get along inside our brains and bodies. Navigating the world of edibles can already be a harrowing and complex endeavor (just ask Maureen Dowd), requiring a lot of math and planning in order to avoid turning yourself into a disrobed maniac on the street corner shouting about agrarianism. Adding caffeine to the mix brings a whole new dimension to the experience, one that could get you higher than you intended.

So, in the interest of public service, I sampled a few of these java-ganja products myself, observing their effects on my cognitive and motor functions while trying to complete a variety of tasks.

These products vary greatly in caffeine to THC ratios, and naturally those differences have a big impact on the end result. But the one consistency I found in my (admittedly unscientific) experiments is: They kick in way faster than most products, and are significantly more intense.

There is some scientific evidence to back this up, though the neurological dynamics of how THC and caffeine dance in the brain are profoundly complex. Sergi Ferre, a neurobiologist at the National Institute of Drug Abuse, has co-authored one of the few studies on the subject, and says that he’s found caffeine increases the psychostimulant effects of THC.

Ferre also says that regularly consuming caffeine with marijuana will increase the addictive effects of marijuana (though he notes the difference between “addiction” and “dependence,” and is primarily talking about his subjects’—squirrel monkeys, in this case—desire for more THC when referring to “addictive effects”).

Currently, physical dependence on marijuana has never been proven, and it’s common for pro-pot activists to claim that caffeine is statistically more addictive than cannabis.

I’m a big fan of edibles, using them regularly during long-distance runs or just on a night out. Typically 10 mg of THC is a nice, quiet buzz for me, like the pleasantly warm phase after one or two cocktails, where you’re still able to function but have a secret euphoria in your belly. So when I noticed that the “Espresso Buzz Bites” I’d just picked up were only 10 mg each, it seemed like a reasonable idea to pop one before engaging in a bit of public speaking.

A local bookstore was putting out an anthology of short stories from Denver authors, and I was invited to give a reading. The edible was a mind-blowingly delicious Belgian dark chocolate, infused with coffee extract and cannabis oil and topped off with a couple espresso beans. But it was much stronger than most 10 mg edibles I’d had, pistol-whipping my brain as I approached the microphone, turning me into a giggly, ADD-ridden mess. (Thankfully I was reading a comedy story, as my mouth was grinning violently like a flaming jack-o-lantern, and it just looked like I was laughing at my own jokes.)

What happens to your body when you mix weed & coffee

My energy level plummeted only an hour later, likely due to the espresso edible containing less than 10 percent as much caffeine as a cup of coffee. Apparently that’s enough to intensify the THC, but it left me with a warm-bath lethargy, which was pleasurable but kept me from being able to socialize. It would be a great product to eat at home or before seeing a movie, but not if anything is expected of you.

“Caffeine does get your digestion working, which ensures the THC gets processed faster, resulting in what some say is a harder-hitting THC buzz,” says Timothy McMurray, chief operating officer for Canyon Cultivation (note: not a scientist). “For me, it is great on a Sunday morning when I am about to clean the garage or do some yard work. During the winter I have a cup before hitting the slopes.”

As room-temperature (I probably should have refrigerated it) black coffee, it’s not terribly appetizing, but I’ve never been one to care about the taste of edibles. Most of them are marketed by flavor, rarely categorized by the type of cannabis in it or how it’s processed; this seems counterintuitive to me, since you taste the product for mere seconds and experience its psychoactive effects for hours.

I’ve done plenty of writing under the influence of cannabis and coffee separately, but trying to work with both of them is like having two stereos in the room playing different music at the same time.

While The Coffee may not be great for anything intellectual, it was a blast to go running on. (This time I mixed it with ice and soy milk, which was quite tasty.) I’ve been eating 20 mg edibles before long distance runs for three years now (it’s an increasingly popular trend for athletes), and am extremely picky about what products I use. Many edibles are loaded with sugar and use poor-quality cannabis trim in their extracts (the pot equivalent of cheap hot dogs made from pig scraps), which can cause spikes and dips in energy, leaving you tired and unmotivated halfway through a run.

The 110 mg of caffeine in The Coffee gave me a steady energy, intensifying the 10 mg of THC enough to feel the cheery weightlessness I usually get when running on 20 mg of THC. What aimed to be a casual four or five mile run ended up being seven.

Marijuana is currently a banned substance for athletes operating under the World Anti-Doping Agency, so it would be difficult for cannabis coffee products to be marketed to athletes, particularly if they’re believed to be more addictive than regular marijuana products. Ferre’s study was done with the National Institute of Drug Abuse, and he expresses concern about a potential increase of addiction to marijuana in people who regularly mix it with caffeine. If it can be proven that mixing pot with coffee makes it more addictive (and more dangerous), there could be a push for more regulation against these products, or a ban on them in newly legalized states.

Ultimately, marijuana and coffee serve two totally different purposes: one functioning as a wake-up stimulant in preparation for the workday, and the other a post-work ritual intended to unwind a stressed brain. I understand some people drink coffee at night, and plenty of people get high in the morning, but for the most part society has placed them at opposite ends of the day for a reason.

Currently, there isn’t enough human-trial research on the subject to definitively say what’s going on when we combine caffeine and THC (as is the case with many marijuana issues), but the possibility that caffeine intensifies the potency of the product, not to mention the increase in heart-rate caused by both drugs, does justify some added scrutiny to these products, and perhaps new labeling requirements that inform consumers about the caffeine to THC ratios in what they just bought.

I’ll likely keep my refrigerator stocked with a few of these herbal brews for certain occasions, but for the most part will continue to keep my uppers and downers at opposite ends of the clock.

Caffeine may increase Pot-Associated memory loss

Some of this research was published in 2011 in the British Journal of Pharmacology. The study found that combining coffee and weed can worsen memory problems. Though researchers focused on brain chemistry in rats, they speculated that the memory loss associated with pot might be especially dangerous when young people (whose brains are still forming) drink coffee and light up at the same time.

Low levels of Caffeine might prolong your high

In a 2011 study conducted on monkeys and published in the journal Addiction Biology, scientists gave subjects a small amount (just 1mg) of caffeine. Then, they gave them unlimited access to weed. Yes, in the name of scientific discovery, small monkeys were self-administering cannabis at will (via a lever, because they’re monkeys). When the critters were given the low amount of caffeine, though, they were less likely go for the weed.

This may well result from the fact that just a little bit of coffee can make a small amount of pot go a longer way. “Low levels of caffeine may enhance the high and result in the need to use less marijuana to achieve the same result,” Dr. Starr tells Bustle.

But don’t light up and chug multiple cups of coffee just yet. “High levels of caffeine, however, could have the opposite effect,” he says. In a 2018 study published in the Journal of Internal Medicine, researchers at Northwestern Medicine when you drink a lot of coffee (we’re talking four to eight cups a day), the level of neurotransmitters in your endocannabinoid system decreases — AKA, more coffee makes your brain do the opposite of what it does when you’re high. However, study participants were only drinking coffee (as opposed to having caffeine and weed together), so everything that happens chemically to human brains when the two interact has yet to be studied in detail.https://284ea9767636403a2f88e456ec0018ef.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html

Weed and Coffee both give us Euphoria

A 2017 study published in the journal Annals of Neuroscience found that both caffeine and cannabis increase levels of dopamine (the happiness hormone) in the brain. On their own, both pot and coffee give you this euphoric boost, but the study concluded that the effects magnify when you combine the drink and the plant. “Since both chemicals increase dopamine levels, but through different mechanisms, the combined effect is an increased sense of euphoria,” Torf tells Bustle.

Both pot and Coffee Can increase your heart rate

Before you leap into the dopamine-induced euphoria that can you can get from a coffee pot, make sure you’ve talked to your doctor about your heart health. “Both marijuana and caffeine are known to cause tachycardia — or an increased heart rate. In people with underlying heart disease or problems with heart arrhythmias, consuming marijuana and caffeine — together or separately — could potentially put them at risk for heart complications,” Dr. Starr tells Bustle.

As with anything cannabis-related, there needs to be more research about how weed and caffeine interact, so be cautious. “It’s important to create your own dosing plan which works for your unique body and lifestyle,” says Valerie Sakota, co-founder of cannabis startup Babari. “If you’re new to testing out THC and caffeine, we recommend taking it for a spin on a morning when you’ve got a productivity goal but no meetings or deadlines. Start with a small dose — a few puffs of a joint or pipe, or a 2.5 mg of a tincture or edible with your morning joe.” Then, take the next few hours to be extra mindful of how you feel.