I'm amazed by this thread's posts. The highest I've ever been on pot is when I've eaten it.
If you aren't getting high you are doing it wrong or not being patient enough and waiting from 1-4 hours for it to work.
The claim that it takes more pot to get high from eating it is somewhat bunk. I've had some kick-ass cookies from pot that had already been vaporized (albeit a lot of it) as well as cookies that were great and made with regs-to-mids. No need to put the high-grade stuff in food because you are getting all the THC via your stomach.
The claim that you have to heat pot to get high from eating it (like via making butter with it) is bunk. I have ground up pot in a coffee grinder and put it in standard size gelcaps. Take 2-4 caps and I am high as a kite.
It's interesting you say that. I make butter from my trim, and use the butter to make sugar cookies. The sugar cookies are my most useful and common medication. I occasionally vaporize bud and also throw the remains from that in my butter, when I make it. I probably shouldn't, but I also throw in the kief from grinding bud and from my trim box (I use a box with a silk screen and a mirror.)
As for the gelcaps, I tried putting coconut oil in them, and didn't like it at all, plus it was a PITA to fill them. I processed the oil sorta like butter, and it worked well for brownies, which don't keep well, so I don't make them any more, whereas sugar cookies last weeks and weeks in tupperware. As for raw (and, actually, the oil in gelcaps) I found they irritated my stomach. The gelcaps were a PITA to process, too. I positively hated tea. Tasted gross.
As for baked versus vaped, I've found that baked is a better body effect (and it's about the pain, for me) while vaping is more psychoactive. I find it worthwhile to vape recreationally on occasion (shocker), but also when I need to take the edge off quickly, fearing my pain will get really bad while I'm waiting for cookies to kick in. As for baked time effects, I'd say it's usually noticeable by one hour, if you look for the signs, and peaks in about two. It's after two hours that I usually re-dose, typically at about half the strength of the initial dose. I have felt profound (pain reduction) effects in as little as 30 minutes, though. Probably has to do with what the digestive system is up to; for example, if I hadn't eaten anything else then have a meal, I often start feeling it in the middle of my meal. Vaping, on the other hand, I can use if I take a fairly long lunch and want a relatively clear head after. It can (counterintuitively) enable me to think so I can get my work done, and of course, the psychoactive effects go away more quickly. Another side note, the psychoactive effects seem to be be inverse to the amount of pain I have, meaning if I'm really in bad pain, the psychoactive effects are practically not noticeable. I'd say this is because the pain is debilitating, and the lack of it is rehabilitating, so the effect of the "high" is minor in comparison to great pain (for those unaware, the greatest pain usually get involves something like cluster headaches, and often nausea, which is why thinking is greatly impacted by the pain.)
I've never really paid much attention to comparing the quantity used in the processes, but I'd say both vaping and cooking are more frugal than smoking, from the experiences of others, and the fact that I don't really use much, but use it fairly often. I think I could grow one plant a year in a libertarian environment (I.E., outside, during growing season) and have more than enough for myself--probably just using trim, for that matter.
It blows me away how inexpensive, and fairly easy, that would be. Of course, if it were completely legal, you could probably go to the equipment rental store to rent a trimmer cheaply, and cut down on the really crappy work. As inexpensive as the plant would be, you wouldn't be hypersensitive about the waste that comes with that sort of method, either (not to mention, it's all just more trim, with which I make my butter.)