Why 2.5mg is the number that keeps coming up.
Most adult-use Michigan edibles come in 10mg doses. Ten milligrams is a typical experienced-user serving. For someone new to cannabis, returning after a long break, or 50 and older, 10mg is often too much. Far too much to start with, and frequently the cause of the bad-edible-experience story everyone has heard from a friend.
The University of Michigan's National Poll on Healthy Aging surveyed older adults using cannabis and found the consensus comfort range starts at 2.5mg per serving. The same dose surfaces in AARP's cannabis-50+ guidance. Multiple peer-reviewed studies of senior dosing converge on the same number. It's the dose pharmacists describe as "a sip, not a glass." It's the dose every educated budtender on Michigan's Sunrise Coast quietly recommends to a first-time customer.
We didn't pick 2.5mg. The research did. We just listened.
What the research shows.
This is the part of the conversation where most cannabis writing either makes claims we're not allowed to make, or hedges so hard the reader leaves with nothing useful. We're going to do neither. Here is what the peer-reviewed research and authoritative health bodies report about low-dose THC, with citations. We'll let you draw your own conclusions.
The biphasic effect. Multiple controlled studies on THC describe a biphasic dose-response curve: at low doses, subjective effects often differ in direction from those at high doses. What people report as relaxing or calming at 2.5 to 5mg is frequently the opposite of what's reported at 20mg+. This is one of the most well-documented patterns in cannabis pharmacology, and it's the reason "more" is rarely "better."1
"Start low, go slow." The phrase shows up in the Michigan Cannabis Regulatory Agency's own consumer education, in NORML's first-time-user guide, in AARP's cannabis content, and in the University of Michigan's older-adults health poll. It's one of the few things every authoritative source in the category agrees on without qualification.2
Older-adult specific data. The U-M Healthy Aging Poll found that Michigan adults 50 and older use cannabis at among the highest rates in the United States: about 27% past-year, 9% daily, roughly twice the national average. The same poll found that the consensus comfort dose for this demographic begins at 2.5mg, that 44 to 50 percent of monthly users haven't told their doctor, and that sleep, pain, and stress are the three most-cited reasons for use.3
Why response varies. Body weight, body composition, prior cannabis history, and prescription medication interactions all influence how a given dose lands. There is no single right number for everyone. There is, however, a reasonable starting point that minimizes the chance of an unpleasant first experience, and the research keeps pointing to 2.5mg.
What 2.5mg actually feels like.
We are not telling you what you will experience. We are telling you what many of our customers describe to us, in their own words, after they've tried it.
The words that come up most often:
- "A slight softening of the edges of a long day."
- "Easier to settle into a book or a TV show."
- "Sleep that comes maybe thirty minutes earlier than usual."
- "My body feels less wound up after a fishing trip or a yard project."
- "I'm not high. I'm just less braced."
None of those are claims we make. They're things customers say. We're sharing them because if your only frame of reference for cannabis is "the time my cousin baked too many brownies in 1979," 2.5mg is a different category entirely. It is, for most adults, well below the threshold of what is commonly called "feeling high."
It is equally important to say what 2.5mg does not typically produce. It is not the impairment associated with higher doses. There are no visual or auditory effects. There is no "couch lock." There is, generally, no sense of being out of control of your own thinking.
One critical caveat: individual response varies, and Michigan DUI law applies regardless of dose. Don't drive after consuming. Wait at least four hours, longer if you're new to cannabis. The legal threshold isn't "do you feel impaired"; it's whether THC is detectable in your system in a way Michigan State Police enforcement allows them to charge. Treat any dose seriously on the road.
How long it takes, how long it lasts.
The most common practical question, and the one that causes more bad first-edible stories than anything else.
- Onset: 30 minutes to 2 hours. It varies by individual, by what you've eaten, and by the formulation of the product.
- Peak: typically about 90 minutes after onset.
- Duration: 4 to 6 hours of perceptible effect, with a long tail of subtler residual relaxation.
- Why edibles "hit different": when THC is processed by the liver, it converts to a compound (11-hydroxy-THC) that lasts longer and feels distinctly different from the version of THC produced when you smoke or vape. This is the reason edible duration is measured in hours, not minutes.
Wait two full hours before considering a second dose.
That sentence is probably the most useful sentence in this entire piece. "I didn't feel anything, so I took another" is the single most common cause of an unpleasant edible experience. Two hours. Set a timer. Drink water. If at the two-hour mark you genuinely felt nothing, then consider trying a slightly higher dose next time, not stacking it on top of the first one.
If you're considering low-dose for sleep, pain, or wind-down.
This is the part where most cannabis writing tries to tell you what cannabis "does." We're not going to. We're going to do something more useful.
If you're considering low-dose THC for sleep, chronic pain, or as part of a glass-of-wine alternative for evening wind-down, the most useful step you can take is a five-minute conversation with your primary-care doctor.
The University of Michigan's Healthy Aging poll found that 44 to 50 percent of monthly cannabis users 50 and older haven't told their doctor about it. That's a missed opportunity, not a moral failing. Bring these specific questions:
- "Does THC interact with any of my current prescriptions?"
- "Are there cardiovascular reasons I should think about before trying THC?"
- "If I notice [specific effect] after a low dose, should I stop and call you?"
Your doctor doesn't have to recommend cannabis. They just have to know you're using it. That's the bar.
If your doctor says "I don't have experience with this and can't advise you," that's a fair answer. Ask if there's a colleague in the practice who does. Many primary-care practices in northeast Michigan now have at least one provider who has gone through cannabis-and-aging continuing education. Often, asking is enough to surface them.
What to look for at our shelf.
The Sunrise Coast Relief shelf at both Highway Dispos stores centers on three formats at the 2.5mg dose:
- Gummies marked 2.5mg per piece. Look for packaging that states the per-piece dose clearly on the front. Cut the piece if it's larger; many of our customers start with half a piece.
- Tinctures with a dropper marked in milliliters. A 2.5mg dose is typically a fraction of a full dropper. The label tells you how many mg per dropper; do the small amount of math, or ask us at the counter.
- Topicals. Topicals don't enter your bloodstream in meaningful amounts and don't produce intoxicating effects. They're a category most of our older customers find approachable for muscle and joint relief without any concern about dose-related effects on the brain.
We're not going to name specific SKUs in this piece; products rotate. What we will tell you is that any budtender at Standish or Au Gres can walk you through the current 2.5mg shelf, explain what's been popular among our regulars in your situation, and let you decide. Bring questions. Bring time. We don't rush this conversation.
A note on what this page is, and isn't.
This page is consumer education from a licensed Michigan adult-use cannabis retailer. It is not medical advice. We are not your doctor, and we don't pretend to be. The research we've cited is the research as of April 2026, and it will keep evolving, and so will our understanding. We will update this page as it does.
If anything in this piece raised a question we didn't answer, walk into Standish or Au Gres any day from 9 to 9 and ask. The plain-language counter conversation is what this whole shelf is built around. The page is just where it lives between visits.