States are increasingly moving to ban or restrict delta-8 THC products as they gain popularity\u2014particularly in jurisdictions without legal marijuana markets. But as regulators contemplate the legal status of the cannabinoid, officials with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) are signaling that, at the federal level at least, it\u2019s not a controlled substance at this time.<\/p>\n
Hemp industry advocates are touting recent comments from DEA representatives who\u2019ve responded to inquiries about delta-8 THC. Officials with the federal agency have indicated to state regulators that only products containing more than 0.3 percent delta-9 THC\u2014the most commonly known intoxicating cannabinoid\u2014is controlled, but the 2018 Farm Bill that legalized hemp does not explicitly ban THC isomers.<\/p>\n
And so from a federal perspective, DEA seems to be saying that there are no explicit prohibitions on the other, newly popularized cannabinoid. That said, the agency doesn\u2019t control hemp unless it crosses the potency threshold to legally transform into prohibited marijuana. Otherwise, the crop and its derivatives are in the jurisdiction of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the latter of which recently issued warnings about possible adverse health effects from delta-8 products<\/a>.<\/p>\n Hemp businesses are highlighting two recent DEA comments on the issue: one from a letter sent to the the Alabama Board of Pharmacy in September and the other during a virtual town hall hosted by the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services in June. Kight on Cannabis first reported<\/a> on the remarks.<\/p>\n During the town hall event, DEA Chief of Intergovernmental Affair Sean Mitchell was asked flatly whether the agency considered delta-8 THC illegal.<\/p>\n He said, \u201cwhat I want to say, and I\u2019ll be very, very deliberate and clear, at this time\u2014I repeat again, at this time\u2014per the Farm Bill, the only thing that is a controlled substance is delta-9 THC greater than 0.3 percent on a dry-weight basis.\u201d<\/p>\n In the more recent letter<\/a> to Alabama regulators, DEA further explained that \u201ccannabinoids extracted from the cannabis plant that have a delta-9 THC concentration of not more than 0.3 percent on a dry weight basis meet the definition of \u2018hemp\u2019 and thus are not controlled under the [Controlled Substances Act].\u201d<\/p>\n The agency said \u201conly tetrahydrocannabinol in or derived from the cannabis plant\u2014not synthetic tetrahydrocannabinol\u2014is subject to being excluded from control as a \u2018tetrahydrocannabinol\u2019 in hemp.\u201d<\/p>\n It further clarified that delta-8 THC \u201csynthetically produced from non-cannabis materials is controlled under the CSA as a \u2018tetrahydrocannabinol.’\u201d<\/p>\n But what is synthetic THC? After all, delta-8 THC products are most commonly made by synthesizing legal CBD from hemp. According to the letter, DEA considers unlawful \u201csynthetic\u201d THC products to be those that are \u201cproduced from non-cannabis materials.\u201d<\/p>\n Some hemp advocates see that as a green light for CBD-synthesized delta-8 THC.<\/p>\n Lukas Gilkey is with the Texas-based hemp company Hometown Hero, which filed a lawsuit last month against the state Department of State Health Services over a recent decision to specifically ban delta-8 THC products<\/a>. He said in a video analyzing the new DEA comments that it\u2019s \u201cvery clear that a lot of the states that are going after delta-8 and other hemp-derived cannabinoids to try and make them illegal are being very disingenuous.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI think [state officials] know that the DEA did not have the intent to make these products illegal, and I think they\u2019re trying to put words essentially in the DEA\u2019s mouth,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Regardless, DEA\u2019s new comments on delta-8 do not undo any state bans on the substance.<\/p>\n FDA, meanwhile, is making clear that it\u2019s aware of the increased market demand for delta-8 THC, but it has yet to move to ban the products.<\/p>\n The agency also announced a plan last month to us \u201cnovel\u201d data sources like Reddit<\/a>\u00a0to gain a better understanding of public health issues surrounding use of delta-8 THC and other cannabinoids such as CBD.<\/p>\n Arkansas Activists File New Marijuana Legalization Initiative For 2022 Ballot<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n Photo by Kimzy Nanney<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n The post DEA Emboldens Delta-8 Hemp Businesses By Signaling That The Cannabinoid Is Federally Legal<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
States are increasingly moving to ban or restrict delta-8 THC products as they gain popularity\u2014particularly in jurisdictions without legal marijuana markets. But as regulators contemplate the legal status of the cannabinoid, officials with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) are signaling that, at the federal level at least, it\u2019s not aContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":458,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,81],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50961"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/458"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50961"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50961\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50962,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50961\/revisions\/50962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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\nRead More: DEA Emboldens Delta-8 Hemp Businesses By Signaling That The Cannabinoid Is Federally Legal<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"