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REEFERFRONT TIMES
[REVIEW]
In the Weeds What the hell is delta-8? Tommy Chims investigates Written by
THOMAS CHIMCHARDS
P
erhaps you’ve seen the strange set of symbols adorning advertisements slapped up on billboards or promotional signage outside your local purveyor of CBD. A cryptic pairing of a triangle and the number 8, presented with breathless excitement about its availability (exclamation point!), amounts to a veritable hobo code for area stoners unwilling or unable to get a medical card, as well as those without a suitable hookup for some black-market weed. We’re talking, of course, about delta-8. A psychoactive cannabinoid derived from cannabis, delta-8-tetrahydrocannabinol, or - C, is an isomer of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, weed’s principal psychoactive ingredient, better known simply as THC. In recent years, delta-8 has become a hot topic in cannabis circles, owing to its legal status, with excitement about the substance quickly giving way to a fastgrowing subsection of industry. Though delta-8 has been studied since as far back as the 1940s, its newfound attention comes through a piece of legislation in the nited tates ecifically, the 2018 Farm Bill, which determined that cannabis with less than 0.3 percent THC is legally considered hemp, also removed hemp from the Drug Enforcement Administration’s schedule of controlled substances and determined that anything derived from it is federally legal as well. Since THC is just one of more than 100 total cannabinoids present in the cannabis plant, some enterprising folks in the hemp industry got to work extracting delta-8 and including it in a variety of products for sale on the web, or in a small (but growing) number of brick-and-mortar businesses.
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Delta-8 is the latest cannabis-industry craze, even as it’s currently in a state of legal limbo. | TOMMY CHIMCHARDS Of course, that’s when things got complicated. In its August 2020 interim final rule, or , the attempted to assert that the substance was still banned, claiming that it is a synthetic cannabinoid and therefore illegal. The Hemp Industries Association hit back with a lawsuit against the federal agency, arguing that the Farm Bill legalized any product derived from hemp, and thereby legalized delta-8. The debate between the two sides rages on, leaving the status of the substance in legal limbo. But for some, the DEA’s view of the matter was enough, and eighteen states have since banned or restricted delta-8, including such typically weed-friendly locales as Colorado, Illinois and New York. Horror stories from the early to mid-2010s about synthetic cannabinoid-fueled “zombies” smoking themselves into a near-catatonic state via “herbal incense” blends
OCTOBER 20-26, 2021
riverfronttimes.com
like K2 and Spice only hastened its fast descent from new kid on the block to ne’er-do-well in the eyes of its critics. But is this concern warranted? And furthermore, is delta-8 even worth all this trouble? At present, Missouri has no laws on the books regarding the cannabinoid, so I picked some up at a local CBD Kratom outpost in an attempt to get to the bottom of things. Now, it should be noted at this point that I also have more than a passing familiarity with Spice/ K2, and could even be regarded as something of an early adopter. Back in 2008/2009, when Spice as first starting to make a s lash in the UK, but before it came to the U.S. in the form of K2, I found a seller based in Florida that regularly imported the stuff to the United States and sold it here online. At that time, Spice was being marketed as a powerful herbal
blend with a proprietary mixture of plants containing known psychoactive elements that, in tandem, worked to produce effects not unlike those of cannabis. The truth, of course, was far more underhanded: Spice’s manufacturers were blasting research chemicals — in those early days, s ecifically the synthetic cannabinoid JWH-018 — all over whatever inert plant matter they could find, then selling it as an herbal incense” to skirt regulations and avoid liability. As with many who dabbled with Spice, I had spent some time being subjected to regular drug testing, and the fact that this stuff wouldn’t show up on those was enough to make me (foolishly) overlook its unknowns. It was also the first fake eed ’d ever found that actually produced any effects other than tasting like shit and making me cough a lot (which, to
