Forget CBD, Delta-8 THC Is Taking Over The Hemp Market With Promises of Intoxication
The synthetically derived cannabinoid, a cousin of THC that can be made from hemp, is technically legal under federal law - but that could change soon.
For the past few years, it has been nearly impossible to walk into a health food store, head shop, gas station, or even ice cream shop without being confronted by CBD products in one form or another. Thanks to the 2018 Farm Bill, hemp is legal in every corner of the United States, making room for a market jam-packed with CBD-rich hemp flower, tinctures, vape carts, edibles, and more.
But while the FDA and other federal and state agencies work to get a regulatory hold on the exploding hemp industry, consumers and producers are already blowing past CBD onto the next incredibly popular minor-cannabinoid, Delta-8 THC.
Delta-8 THC is a close chemical cousin of Delta-9 THC, the natural cannabinoid responsible for the high or intoxicating feeling of the cannabis plant. When we discuss THC colloquially, we are talking about Delta-9 THC. And even though Delta-8 THC is sold as an intoxicating, legal alternative to traditional THC products, Delta-8 THC does not grow naturally as a part of the cannabis plant. Instead, entrepreneurial hemp producers produce isolated Delta-8 THC by processing CBD extracts with a solvent, acid, and heat.
For hemp growers, processors, and sellers who saw a significant dip in sales over the past year thanks to massive spikes in production, concentrating CBD biomass into intoxicating Delta-8 THC products has been a godsend. Across the US, head shops, corner stores, gas stations, and other retailers are now jam-packed with Delta-8 vape cartridges, edibles, and hemp flower sprayed with Delta-8 oil filling the shelf space that once housed CBD.
“[Delta-8 is giving] processors an outlet for large inventories of CBD isolate they built up,” Ian Laird, chief financial officer at Hemp Benchmarks, told Politico. “It is the fastest-growing segment.”
According to statistics compiled from Hemp Benchmarks, sales of Delta-8 THC products have raked in more than $10 million in the last six months alone. And because many Delta-8 products are sold online and through unregulated retailers, that number likely leaves out a significant portion of sales.
At Tennessee-based Snap Dragon Hemp, owner Josh Manning told Forbes that Delta-8 THC products made up 20% of his sales last year, but that this year Delta-8 is already making up more than 80% of his business, bringing in upwards of $200,000 a month.
Despite the millions of dollars worth of Delta-8 THC products sold in retailers and online every month, the intoxicating cannabis products are still living in a grey area of legality. And just like the status of the CBD industry, actors at every level of the hemp business are anticipating impending regulations for the latest cannabis-derived trend.
“It’s not clear whether [Delta-8 THC products] are illegal under the 2018 farm bill,” Jonathan Miller, general counsel for the U.S. Hemp Roundtable told Politico. “It is clear that it violates the spirit of the law.”
The “spirit of the law” that Miller is referring to deals specifically with intoxication, or getting high. As most people know, CBD is beloved for its supposed medical benefits but does not feature any psychoactive component. When CBD is manufactured into Delta-8 THC, though, it takes on many of the intoxicating properties of Delta-9 THC. And while Delta-8 THC products are typically made using only hemp and legal solvents, those intoxicating properties, of course, raise immediate alarm bells with government and law enforcement officials.
“I think there are Delta-8 companies that have a good legal argument, but they might find themselves in court and shut down,” Dennis Hunter, the cofounder of Santa Rosa, California-based cannabis company CannaCraft, told Forbes. “I don’t think the FDA and DEA believe they have a good argument.”
One of the principal worries about the Delta-8 THC trend focuses on the production of the cannabinoid itself. Similar to the black market vaping crisis that rocked the cannabis and e-cigarette industries in 2019, Delta-8 THC products are produced using toxic chemicals without any regulatory oversight.
“While Delta-8-THC is legal if derived from hemp, the process most commonly used to produce Delta-8 — synthetically altering CBD into Delta-8-THC — probably isn’t legal,” Joseph Hoelscher, founding member of the Texas Association of Cannabis Lawyers and longstanding member of the NORML Legal Committee, told Rolling Stone.
“It isn’t just a clean one-to-one conversion,” Steven Crowley, compliance specialist at the Oregon Liquor Control Commission, told Politico. “Fifteen to 30 percent is unknown byproducts.”
Currently, a number of states are working to regulate and classify Delta-8 THC, with Oklahoma and Michigan marijuana officials trying to restrict Delta-8 products as a part of the state’s regulated cannabis program, a Florida bill introduced to regulate Delta-8 products and assure sales don’t reach minors, and a California bill that would create a taxing and labeling system for intoxicating products derived from legal hemp.
No matter how regulators try to corral the CBD-derived synthetic THC market, though, Delta-8 THC producers say that they are already experimenting with cannabinoids like Delta-10 THC, another chemical cousin that produces almost identical effects and can be made with a few relatively simple tweaks. As long as there is a market for cheap THC substitutes, industry insiders say there will always be suppliers waiting to fill the need.
“They can make Delta-8 illegal all they want. It’s not going to stop our industry,” Jay Barrios, owner of No Cap Hemp Company, told Forbes. “We’re going to keep innovating and coming out with legal forms of hemp.”
