“Mitch McConnell didn’t know what he was doing when he passed the 2018 Farm Bill. The bill included his provision that legalized industrial hemp, a form of cannabis that can be made into a wide variety of products including cannabidiol, a non-intoxicating cannabis compound commonly called CBD. That part was intentional — the law quickly launched a multi-billion dollar industry that put the once-obscure CBD compound into lattes, seltzers and hundreds of CVS stores across the country.
But after three years it appears one of the law’s biggest impacts was entirely unintentional: It accidentally created a booming market for synthetic THC, marijuana’s primary intoxicant.
The same type of CBD that’s for sale at CVS is now being synthetically converted into THC and packaged into vape cartridges and gummy bears. Thanks to a loophole in the 2018 Farm Bill, these drugs are marketed as a “legal high” and sold online and in states where marijuana remains illegal.
But chemists warn that these drugs can contain hazardous solvents, acids and unknown compounds. When FiveThirtyEight legally purchased hemp-derived THC products for testing, we found illegal levels of THC and a variety of mystery compounds that could not be identified. There are no federal safety testing requirements for these products, and while hemp companies occasionally publish test results, some brands have been caught using fake test documents.”
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“The hemp industry has quickly moved past selling just Delta-8-THC and is now offering an increasingly long list of synthetic cannabinoids that they can ship directly to your door.”
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“McConnell has spent years fighting for hemp legalization and, in particular, the legalization of CBD in an effort to appease his home state’s farmers. He made hemp legalization a campaign issue in 2013 and, when the Drug Enforcement Agency blocked Kentucky’s farmers from growing CBD-rich hemp under an earlier pilot program, the senator publicly fought the agency until the DEA backed down.
When it came to writing the 2018 law, McConnell apparently didn’t want to take any chances with the DEA. His provision permanently removed hemp from the Controlled Substance Act”
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“The five professional chemists we spoke to for this piece were all particularly concerned by the sale of synthetic cannabinoids like Delta-8-THC-O acetate, which are both synthetically made and synthetically designed (unlike Delta-8-THC, which can be found naturally in cannabis). These types of synthetic cannabinoids were first invented by the pharmaceutical industry and can react with our internal cannabinoid receptors in unnaturally strong ways.”
“The marijuana in that pipe was quite different from the black-market stuff I had smoked during college, when I could go through a whole bowl without experiencing the same effect. From my perspective, the Colorado cannabis was better, delivering a more pleasant experience in exchange for less effort and less exposure to combustion products. In that sense, it was also healthier.
Many politicians, by contrast, view stronger marijuana as ipso facto worse. Unimpressed by the minimization of respiratory hazards, they focus on contentious claims about the psychological impact of potent pot: It is more addictive, they say, or more likely to trigger psychotic reactions. They therefore want to legally restrict the potency of cannabis products sold by state-licensed retailers, which they claim will protect public health and safety.”
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“As long as consumers understand what they are getting, you might think, they can decide for themselves which products meet their tastes and preferences, and they can adjust their consumption accordingly: Just as drinkers tend to consume smaller volumes when they drink liquor than they do when they drink beer, cannabis consumers tend to stop when they achieve the effect they want, which means they take fewer puffs of stronger pot. But politicians who favor THC limits do not trust consumers to make those decisions.”
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“Vermont is the only state with a legal cap on THC content. Recreational stores have not opened there yet, but when they do they will not be allowed to sell flower that exceeds 30 percent THC or concentrates that exceed 60 percent.
A proposed limit in Florida, where marijuana is legal only for medical use, is far more onerous. It also would cap the THC content of concentrates at 60 percent, but it would limit flower to 10 percent. A bill to that effect was approved by a state House committee on a party-line vote last month; a similar Senate bill has not advanced yet.”
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“In Massachusetts, HD 2841 would likewise limit THC in flower to 10 percent”
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“A Montana bill described as “probably dead” would establish a 15 percent cap for all cannabis products.
In Colorado, state Rep. Yadira Caraveo (D–Adams County) this year wrote a bill that would have imposed the same 15-percent rule but shelved it in response to the uproar it provoked.”
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“Legislators who support such limits think potent pot appeals to many consumers, which is why they want to ban it. But if they are right, their proposals will invite a resurgence of the black market that legalization aims to displace.”
“Four years ago, Pennsylvania allowed patients suffering from any of 17 serious medical conditions to relieve their symptoms with marijuana. But there was a catch: If they used cannabis as a medicine, they could no longer legally drive.
Last week the Pennsylvania House of Representatives approved a bill that would eliminate that legal disability by requiring evidence of impairment to convict medical marijuana patients of driving under the influence (DUI). That reform points the way to a long overdue reevaluation of DUI laws that irrationally and unfairly punish cannabis consumers who pose no threat to public safety.”
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“Half a dozen states, including Pennsylvania, have “per se” laws that define DUI based on the concentration of THC in a driver’s blood, while one (Colorado) allows an inference of guilt when that level reaches five nanograms per milliliter. But these laws don’t make sense”
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“Because THC, unlike alcohol, is fat-soluble rather than water-soluble, there is no clear or consistent relationship between THC in the blood and THC in the brain, which means THC blood levels do not correspond neatly to degrees of impairment. Complicating the situation further, individual responses to a given dose of THC vary widely, especially when you compare occasional marijuana users to regular consumers, who may develop tolerance to the drug’s effects or learn to compensate for them.”
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“Even states that have legalized marijuana for all adults 21 or older do not necessarily have rational DUI laws. Illinois, Nevada, and Washington make drivers automatically guilty at THC blood levels that regular consumers commonly exceed even when they are not impaired, while Michigan still has a zero tolerance law that treats any amount of THC as conclusive DUI evidence.”