CANNABIS | PHARMACOLOGY
The Comically Unregulated World of Cannabis Derivatives
From Delta-8 THC and THC-O to THC-JD and HHC, the industry is oversaturated and unsafe
Marijuana has seen a major renaissance in recent years. With state after state legalizing the plant, and the passing of the 2018 farm bill, the industry has given way to a wild west of new marijuana products. With such rampant availability, it’s easy to get the impression that cannabis is a completely innocuous substance and that its growing number of distributors each deserves our trust.
Complicating matters further has been the emergence of stores and online markets that sell not cannabis as people have come to recognize it, but various cannabis derivatives and analogs. But because these substances are new, and chemically distinct from Delta-9 THC — the primary active psychoactive component of marijuana that people are familiar with — they remain in a strange legal gray area following the 2018 legislation.
Of course, it isn’t the first time that cannabis derivatives have been legally sold. Both hemp and CBD have applications that fall well outside the bounds of what people envision when they see that famed, six-leaf plant. But as the industry has continued to evolve, and as marijuana’s…
