Less than 10 years ago, unlabeled, Saran-wrapped pot brownies dominated shelves at marijuana dispensaries. Patients rarely knew how much of the drug they were eating until the high hit.
"Every one of us has a story about taking too many edibles," says Brandon Siddall, head budtender at Caliva, a top marijuana dispensary located in San Jose, California.
New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd's story takes place in a Colorado hotel room, after biting off more of a caramel-chocolate candy bar than she could handle. Mine was on a plane.
Siddall says there's one item at Caliva that could transform the future of marijuana edibles and help reduce the frequency of these nightmare experiences. And they're selling like hotcakes.
Kiva Terra Bites by Oakland-based edibles maker Kiva Confections are M&M-sized candies coated in milk and white chocolate infused with marijuana extract. Each treat provides a low dose of five milligrams of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the psychoactive ingredient in weed.
The bites, launched in 2013, come in dark-chocolate espresso beans and milk-chocolate blueberries. A tin averages $18, and contains 24 servings.
It's a conservative dose for adults who don't know their tolerance or are consuming for recreational, rather than medical, purposes. Plus, the five-milligram increments make it easy to scale bit by bit and customize your dose depending on the occasion, Siddall explains.
"They can see how much they're comfortable with, and they never have to go over that point," Siddall says.
While there areno recorded casesof people fatally overdosing on marijuana, it can make patients incredibly uncomfortable. Their heart starts to race and, sometimes, anxiety strikes.
Five stateswill vote to legalizerecreational marijuana this November, while medical marijuana is up for consideration in four more states. This election gives the industry a chance to double the states that tax and regulate adult-use weed — and bring a new wave of users into the mix.
Products like Kiva Terra Bites could bring a level of predictability to marijuana consumption.
Kristi Knoblich, cofounder and COO of Kiva Confections, tells Business Insider that "microdosing" is absolutely the direction the legal marijuana market is heading in.
"We don't buy Everclear, right? You buy a beer," Knoblich says.
While Kiva Confections would not disclose sales numbers, the company (which also sells higher dose chocolate bars) is on track to reach double-digit millions in revenue this year. The Kiva Terra Bites are their most popular product.
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