The Best Eye Drops for Red Eyes and Redness Relief

Happy 4/20 everyone! Even though we’re under quarantine for this year’s marijuana holiday, we know plenty of you are celebrating at home in big ways. With that being said, you may have an important Zoom meeting to attend or a video chat for work (it is Monday after all) where red eyes might make for problems. While we don’t advocate consuming cannabis over responsibilities like work and chores, on 4/20 (and in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic) it’s understandable to take a few tokes to relieve some stress and enjoy the most well-known day for cannabis celebration.

Of course, there are plenty of ways to cure a bad case of red eyes after a nice 4/20 smoke session. These remedies can range from a cold compress over your eyes to donning a pair of sunglasses. But this is no time to take chances on holistic remedies and you’re going to be indoors all day. You need eye drops stat. It’s the quickest and most effective way. But with so many options for eye drops, which is the right one for cannabis consumers with red eyes?

Like Band-Aids for bandages, Kleenex for tissues, and ChapStick for lip balm, there’s a reason people use the brand name Visine when they’re talking about eye drops. The brand is so well known that you’re probably visualizing the label as you’re reading this. So it should come as no surprise that Visine is one of the best options for turning those blood reds back into pearly whites.

Visine is one of the most well-known eye drop brands. photo credit

For 60 years their patented formula has brought relief of red eye to stoners everywhere, shrinking those expanded blood vessels back to their pre-Hulked out size and allowing pot consumers to continue on with their day undetected. One or two drops in each eye with the active ingredient, 0.05% tetrahydrozoline hydrochloride will do the trick. For the best bang for your buck, check out the Advanced Redness + Irritation Relief variety. It covers all your bases and clears up your eyes fast. 

If you’ve ever wanted that cooling blast that comes from chewing peppermint gum and then breathing in real deep, but dropped into your eyes, Rohto is the brand for you. The Japan-based company holds the title for number one eye drop brand worldwide for good reason. Rohto has gained its place mostly with its refreshingly cool varieties of eye drops. These drops give your eyes that bracing, wake up sensation of an ice-water dunk while taking the redness away. With Naphazoline hydrocholoride as the active ingredient, these drops have a great track record of success with weed consumers from Amsterdam to Japan. As an extra plus, they last all day just in case you’re thinking of indulging more than once while you’re out and about.

This well respected brand of eye drops may not have the brand name recognition of Visine (although you may recognize their commercials with spokesperson Ben Stein), but they still know what they’re about. With their active ingredient of Naphazoline Hydrochloride and an effective duration of 12 hours, Clear Eyes is always a quality choice. While they may innocently say that they’re trying to relieve you of the discomfort of hay fever, they’re well known to be effective on people who aren’t just suffering from seasonal allergies. Clear Eyes has built their brand, and even their name, on redness relief and they are one to trust about it.

Cannabis consumers who are also afflicted with far or near-sightedness can face a major problem if they also wear contact lenses. Given the choice, sometimes it’s better to just play off the red eye rather than treat it. The ingredients in eye drops like Visine, Clear Eyes, or Rohto can cause some real adverse effects when combined with soft or hard contact lenses. Once applied, these types of eye drops can build up on the lenses, making the irritation even worse. Sometimes it gets to the point where you have to just take your contacts out entirely, which is not ideal if you then have to drive, walk somewhere, or  identify random letters and numbers of increasingly smaller sizes on a chart six feet away. 

If you wear contacts, consider a rewetting drop that is safe for use. photo credit

Luckily, Baush & Lomb Sensitive Eyes Rewetting Drops will take your red eye away while preserving your contact lenses. While there are a couple of brands that will help you to re-moisturize your eyes while wearing contacts. Baush & Lomb is hands down the best for clearing up red eye as well.

With so many different brands of eye drops (and each one secretly knows who their main customers are), you’ll be able to clear up your red eyes in no time. While the above may serve as a basic guide, everyone’s body chemistry is different. Just like cannabis, if you find that one brand isn’t working the way you’d like, don’t lose hope. Once you find the brand that returns those blood shot eyes to their ivory hue, stick with it. Just remember to use eye drops before that big Google Hangouts meeting with the team today. Happy 4/20 everyone!

What’s your favorite brand of eye drops? Share your top picks with other readers in the comments below.