Pain News Network: Nearly All Hemp Products Will Get You High

SOURCE: Pain News Network

EXCERPT:

“Much of what’s being sold as ‘hemp’ today isn’t hemp at all — it’s a cocktail of synthetic intoxicants and illicit THC masquerading as a natural, legal product. It's essentially the ultra-processed junk food of cannabis, but far more dangerous," said Tiffany Devitt, Director of Regulatory Affairs at Groundwork Holdings, which helped establish the cannabis industry in California and is trying to protect it from hemp competitors. 

"These companies aren't just skirting regulations – they're putting consumers at serious risk with designer drugs that look a whole lot more like ‘Spice’ than natural hemp."

Devitt and other authors of the white paper believe the contamination is not accidental. They said that filtering out or reducing the amount of delta-8 or delta-9 THC in hemp products is inefficient and cost-prohibitive, incentivizing companies to not do it.

“Because of these inefficiencies, most so-called ‘hemp-derived’ THC products are, in reality, synthetic cannabis — reminiscent of illegal products like ‘Spice’ that flooded California a decade ago,” they wrote. 

The lack of oversight also results in tax evasion. Over 90% of the hemp products analyzed were sold without collecting California’s sales tax, and none of the vendors paid the state’s cannabis excise tax. 

“The failure to ensure tax accountability allows unregulated ‘hemp’ products to undercut the legal cannabis market while depriving the state of revenue meant for public health, environmental mitigation, and enforcement,” the authors concluded. 

The white paper calls for all hemp products containing THC to be regulated as cannabis within California, to protect consumers and workers.