Sometimes, I use the phrase “white chocolate” as an insult. If a brunch line is too long, I might say, “Ugh, screw this white chocolate mess, let’s go to Dunkin’ Donuts.” Or, if someone describes something as being disgusting, I might say, “Yeah but it is worse than white chocolate?” When I am surrounded by children and can’t exclaim what the fuck, I instead exclaim what in the white chocolate, because in my opinion white chocolate is true fuckery—sugar and fat at their most useless. I do not like white chocolate, and if I was the type of person to throw the word “hate” around, I might even say I hate it.

“If a $2.50 piece of cannabis candy can’t make me a believer, nothing can.”

So, naturally when I opened my blinded package of these edibles I groaned hard. Not only were they white chocolate, but they were also shockingly bright pink. Nothing can make white chocolate worse than the addition of a cloyingly sweet interpretation of synthetic strawberry. But I’m not a total jerk; I know that opinions can be changed and that even my most hard stances can be swayed with the right argument. So I sighed, popped the cannabis-leaf-shaped bon bon into my mouth, and went to work learning to love white chocolate. I mean, if a $2.50 piece of cannabis candy can’t make me a believer, nothing can.

Wyld is Oregon’s leading cannabis edible brand, their signage seemingly ubiquitous in every dispensary throughout the state. And I endorse their reputation as luminaries of the industry, mainly based on how tightly puckered my face was when I first popped the candy in my mouth versus how relaxed it became once the “chocolate” began to melt on my tongue. The things I dislike most about white chocolate—the clumpy texture, the milky mouthfeel, the lack of complexity—were non-issues. The texture was as silky smooth as imported Belgian milk chocolate, the mouthfeel was creamy and light without the lingering smack of milk powder, and though the complexity was mostly synthetic, it was at least multi-layered in terms of flavor.

All of that said, the white chocolate’s intense sweetness remained an issue for me. Even though I am an avowed candy fanatic of the highest degree (Oh, you’re traveling somewhere? Bring me the weirdest candies you can find! I will love them all! Unless they’re white chocolate!), I could not surmount the tooth-terrifying sweetness of this candy. It gave me an immediate sugar headache that was not only ibuprofen-resistant, but also lasted well after the candy’s effects (couch lock and spacey times) had worn off. So that was a bit of a bummer.

I was working in my sketchbook when the 5mg of THC took effect, approximately 45 minutes after I’d eaten the commemorative half-dollar-sized edible. The high felt sunny and creative and came on with gentle ease like someone was lowering me into a warm bathtub. But after a few minutes, I realized I’d been drawing hands and feet backward and my perspective was all out of whack. The high had come on so slowly that by the time I realized this was not the edible for long, passionate sketchbook episodes, it was too late. I had already bonered my drawing of myself in a pumpkin coach. The throbbing in my head intensified (serving up a bit of nausea along the way) until I tossed my sketchbook aside and turned on the television.

“The effects were a dreamy combination of buzzy body high and crystal clear head high. ”

That tricky little sugar headache kept me from enjoying the full potential of this candy on day one, but on day two, I was able to circumnavigate the sweetness with a huge cup of black tea and a bland piece of toast for breakfast. The effects were enormously improved. There was still a suggestion of a headache that tittered in the back of my head, but it never fully emerged into anything of note. In fact, this tweaked experience proved to be a total 180 from the previous night’s performance, which also speaks volumes to this edible’s efficacy. On day two, the effects were a dreamy combination of buzzy body high and crystal clear head high. When popped in the early evening, the edible amplified my slow progression to bedtime, supporting cognitive decompression while I locked into Netflix for a couple of hours.

When popped first thing in the morning, the high was bright and sunny, providing the necessary focus for some early morning duties, and a crisp body buzz me kept me from my corner of the couch, but not so much that I bounced off the walls. Thanks to my tea and toast combo, I cheerfully cleaned the house, ran a handful of errands, and even went on a long walk. The high was clean and bright and only fractionally dampened by the overbearing sweetness of the edible itself, which I was able to wash cleanly away with my morning tea.

My first round of testing came after a full day and three full meals. I’m inclined to think that the initial headache was a result of me crossing my 24-hour sugar threshold. Day two started with such a whizz-bang sugar rush that I was cautious about my intake for the rest for the day. When I limited my daily sweets to one solitary Wyld Strawberry White Chocolate edible, my day was golden as a result. My advice for users of this edible is contradictory to most common sense edible advice (ahem, consume with food). Do yourself a favor and eat this zippy white chocolate early, with minimal food, and perhaps a large cup of tea because it is most certainly enough sugar for your whole damn day.