Are My THC Gummies Going Away?

Have you ever been in a gas station and seen CBD gummies with THC in them and thought,

wait, is this legal?

“If so, you are right to be dazed and confused.”

These products are on non-dispensory shelves, thanks to chemistry, maybe some botany confusion, and a weird legal loophole in the 2018 Farm Bill. So that law began regulating so-called hemp with low THC content, differently from other cannabis. But interchemistry people started extracting THC from that hemp and selling unregulated products

that could get you high. Think of the buzzy beaves in the liquor store. Now a bunch of states are working on laws to ban these hemp-derived products that contain even tiny amounts of THC, and a federal law is slated to close this loophole in November,

which would end up possibly snuffing out a multi-billion dollar CBD business.

Okay, if your confused don't worry, rolling up to sort some of this out is Dr. Cinnamon Bidwell, a clinical psychologist focused on cannabis at the University of Colorado. She co-directs the CU Change Lab. Hey, cinnamon. Hi.

Good to be here. Did I get that synopsis, right? Yeah, you hit the nail in the head. This is confusing though, right, because the law is legislating plants even though CBD and THC can be found in hemp, right?

Absolutely.

And cannabis is, it's a complex plant.

We really have to embrace the complexity here. So the farm bill essentially draws a line for a certain type of cannabis that has very, very low THC, but biologically, from a plant perspective, cannabis itself is all under one type of plant, right? It just draws a line of, hey, this very specific form of cannabis with very low THC, which

is the psychoactive component, gets to sort of fall under this special regulatory umbrella.

“And that's what we're calling hemp, right?”

Curiously. So hemp and cannabis, same plant, botanically? This is what everyone is so confused about, and I'm so happy to try to help clarify. Yes, all of this is cannabis. We are all talking about cannabis, and these components of cannabis that interact with the

human body to produce different effects. So people know a lot about THC, which is the primary psychoactive component. It's the reason that we're concerned about cannabis being a drug of abuse, and has to do a lot with it being scheduled at a very high risk level and illegal federally. So that's THC, and then there's another prevalent cannabinoid called cannabis dial, people

know it as CBD, and that is a lower risk in terms of abuse liability. Potentially has some important medicinal or harm reduction components, and so the farm bill allowed CBD or cannabis that was predominantly CBD to be regulated a little differently with a bit more flexibility, even though they all fall under the same umbrella of all being cannabis.

Okay, so when we talk about hemp and marijuana, I mean, are we talking about different varieties of tomatoes like beef steak versus cherry, or something same species, different variety? Yes, essentially, you know, we know how to breed plants, we know how to breed biological

“species to have certain traits, and so that's what we're talking about with different components”

of cannabis, different types of cannabis. They're essentially bred to favor certain cannabinoids or certain traits, and hemp derived CBD has been bred to favor high levels of CBD and lower levels of THC. Okay, all right, so these hemp derived products that you find in gas stations and convenience stores, you know, gummies, tinctures, are they tested differently than what you would find

at a dispensary, for example? Absolutely, so there are, you know, every state market, every state cannabis market, that's more THC focused, has some kind of testing procedures, testing regulations. They do differ across states, but they do tend to include making sure the THC levels are quantified clearly, making sure pesticides are tested, other contaminants, and that tends

to all go on the label, and there's a lot of important information that's acquired through those testing processes. With CBD, it's much more patchwork, it's much more state dependent, and some of these products are sold state to state, and they may or may not be tested or regulated much at all.

You said CBD products, but some of these CBD products have THC in them. Can you trust even the dosage of THC in these sort of hemp derived CBD products if you're getting them in a gas station rather than a dispensary?

The testing is not even guaranteed or systematic, so you really don't know.

The other piece is that people have learned that they can basically extract or concentrate

that THC from these hemp derived CBD products, so technically it was, quote, "safe," and so it could be sold in a gas station, but then they take this THC from that hemp derived product and create a THC focused product out of that hemp derived product. So you can have products that are "legal," but are essentially predominantly THC, and again, as you said, not tested or not regulated in the same way as a state dispensary type product.

“And that's what this federal law, and many of these state laws, that's the loophole that”

they're trying to close, basically. The intention is to close it, and I think the idea is to prevent these risks. I have concerns just about patchwork legislation and patchwork regulation. I think cannabis industry has been sort of a victim to that for a long time, and I think

more comprehensive plans could really get at some of the risks they're trying to get,

but also not remove products that are relatively safe or may actually help people. So there's a balance here that might be being lost with this federal law. Right. Also, like, why would you regulate based on botany, not based on the actual chemicals that you're trying to regulate?

Absolutely. That doesn't make sense. Exactly. And this arbitrary definition of certain types of this plant have certain regulations and other types of the plant have other regulations, creates a lot of confusion, a lot

“of opportunity for loopholes, and just a lot of confusion from the consumer, right?”

What's safe, what's not, what's regulated, what's tested, so we're not in a good position

there. Let's talk about some of these other cannabinoids. I mean, you know, I've seen the laws call out Delta IX THC, but I've also seen Delta 8 and THC V on packages are there different kinds of THC, what are we talking about here? Yeah, so Delta IX is sort of the main known psychoactive kind of culprit, let's say, for cannabis.

And this is, again, the reason why cannabis has a strong abuse liability and is of concern for vulnerable populations to be using cannabis. But there are slightly biochemically different versions of THC, like you said Delta 8 or THC V, that may still have some psychoactive properties, we're really still working to crack that nut and figure out exactly what the risks of those other forms of THCR that seem biochemically

quite similar to THC 9, but, you know, again, that's really new research, we're still figuring that out. The regulations kind of allow those forms of THC to sort of fall through the cracks right now. Are there other cannabinoids, like, on your radar, they're like, yeah, that's going to be

the next one that people are going to look into.

“I mean, people are so innovative and smart, and I think one of the problems of these”

patchwork laws is that it's allowing these innovation or alteration of cannabis in a way that may actually produce more forms of it that are psychoactive that we're not even familiar with yet. So, this federal law that goes into effect, it will restrict temperature of products, including ones that really have almost barely detectable levels of THC.

Are you hearing from people in this industry or people concerned? I think certainly from a research perspective, we're worried about not being able to access these projects. Research, this is a very important, burgeoning area of research that we really need to understand from a public health perspective.

And so by creating these restrictions, we're worried that there's just going to be limitations on research, which could really pave the path for therapeutic effects and better understanding of what cannabis does to the human body. And certainly industry members are concerned, and, again, just don't necessarily support these idea of regulating the plant based on these arbitrary cannabinoid definitions or separating

it out in certain ways. It'd be much better to have an overarching comprehensive regulation that fit all the aspects of cannabis that we do know about. What are the big research questions before us? Yeah, I think it's a really exciting area of research, but one that I think the public doesn't

understand how much more work we need to be doing to really understand how does CBD effects sleep? How can I really get an appropriate dose of CBD that might help my sleep? Those clinical trials that human work has not really been done, in part because the regulations are so confusing, it makes the research really hard to do.

And so by having clearer regulations, by having more permanent and science-based policies, it's going to open the door for research that will actually matter to people. So things like sleep, pain, anxiety, all these potential therapeutic effects of CBD, we

that's harmful, are there concerns about combination with other cannabinoids, and how

“do we really create a solid evidence base for consumers to make healthy decisions?”

Dr. Cinnamon Bidwell, a clinical psychologist focused on cannabis at the University of Colorado. Thanks for joining us today. Thank you. After the break, moving from the Pungent vape store in the corner to the Pungent/pile

in front of it, I'm talking about an urban winter time icon, the Dirty Snowbank. What's in it? We'll find out if that's after the break. Some discoveries change everything. And when I see the results, the hairs on my back are just rising.

Snowvery Mix takes you inside those breakthrough moments.

The oldest fossil well anybody ever found, we're not talking about hundreds or thousands, but over time, well over a million life-saved, are there like holes at the centers of galaxies? Experience science at the cutting edge, with the team that's done it for over 50 years. Search NOVA Remix and Subscribe. Moving from the Pungent vape store in the corner to the Pungent/pile in front of that vape

store. I'm talking about an urban winter time icon, the Dirty Snowbank. Every winter we watch pristine downy flake transform into a ragu of black, yellow, and brown streaks.

“Are these frosty sidewalk toilets as disgusting as they seem?”

My next guest wondered the same thing, and dug in to find some answers. Joe Hong is the investigative data reporter for WNYC and Gothamist, and he tested the soiled snow banks of New York City. Hey, Joe. Hey, thanks for having me.

No problem. Was this a passion project for you?

A little bit, but I think like collectively as a newsroom, we've always sort of wondered,

oh man, what is in that gross snow that's just been sitting there for weeks, and it got to the point where my editor was like, you know, I think we have a lab or we can get this stuff tested, so we decided to, you know, scoop some of, put them in some sterilized bottles and ship them off to this lab in Long Island. Well, yes.

Tell me a little bit more about the process. Where did you collect your snow and why did you select certain spots? Yeah, absolutely. So we picked three spots. The first one is Williamsburg.

So a neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York? Yes. And that neighborhood is known for it's really bad air pollution.

And so we want to see this.

And hipsters, just. Exactly. So we want to know. Yeah, so we want to know is the snow sort of like soaking up all this air pollution, like a sponge.

And so we went there and then I went to the Jackson Heights Roosevelt Avenue subway station. So we're talking Queens now. In Queens. Yeah. We know from under the elevated subway track, we know that the subway tracks, they

shed lead from the old lead paint that's on them. And I also found, you know, quite a bit of bird poop from the avian residents who live under that track, that had accumulated on the snow. And then we went to Washington Heights in Upper Manhattan. We chose that neighborhood because I did a story earlier last year that found that Washington

Heights residents had the highest number of 3-1-1 complaints related to people, not picking up after their dogs.

“And so yeah, we wanted to see like, is this snow just full of dog poop?”

This is very scientific. I mean, were you in rubber clubs? Did you have test tubes? How should I picture it? Yeah, yeah.

So we just wanted to be very cautious. This is stuff that like we, we look at all the time, but you know, don't really want to think about or, you know, touch. So we got one bucket for each sample and then we used a brand new set of rubber gloves and a brand new scooper for each one of these samples.

So we didn't want to cross contaminate or anything. Of course. Yeah. So we wore sort of like PPE as we collected them. And PPE, and were you, you know, just in terms of methodology here, because we're

science show. Do you scooping up the worst bits in the pile, or are you like homing in on the brown streaks or the pink chunks that we all know are there? So we were kind of trying to get a representative sample of the grossness that we see. So that meant skimming like an inch layer off the top of a pile that looks particularly

bad. If I saw like an actual piece of dog poop, just like sitting on the snow, I didn't

I mean, we have the results.

We know we know what we're going to do. Yeah. Okay. We got to get to the results. We're any of the results, PP.

“And by that, I mean, particularly perplexing.”

Yes. Well, I should say they were initially perplexing and then we talked to some experts. But we found some high levels of metals like chromium and lead as well in some of the snow and you know, the levels that we were seeing were significantly higher than what we

would find in drinking water.

But once we start talking to experts, you know, we realize, oh, if there's even like a little bit of dirt mixed in with the snow, New York City's soil contains just high levels of lead and various types of metals across the board. So that's sort of what caused those readings. And I guess another thing in the Jackson Heights sample, you know, I mentioned all that

bird poop that I definitely, you know, skimmed some of what we found, though, is high levels of this bacteria called interococcus and that bacteria is found in the fecal matter of warm blooded animals. And so this was likely dog poop or God forbid human feces. But at squirrels or they're other warm blooded.

You know, you're right. I didn't. I did not. Brats. Yeah, I did not.

I didn't consider that. So yeah, that Jackson Heights sample was particularly rich.

“Any other findings that made you scratch your head?”

Not necessarily scratch my head, but the, the lead readings, I think were a little eyebrow raising, shall we say, because, you know, we, it's not inconceivable that small children will be running around and playing in the snow right after it falls. And they might fall or like grab some off the top and put it in their middle. And we did jump.

Come on. We all know. Yeah. I mean, I'm not, I'm not a parent. So I want to be sensitive here, but I mean, I, as a kid, I was known to do that as well.

But, you know, seeing these lead readings made me think like, oh, maybe, maybe parent should be a little more, a little more careful about letting their kids just sort of run around and putting this stuff in their mouths. So do you think that these findings are transferable to other cities or did your experts think this is like New York specific?

Yeah. So I think a lot of the metals that we found like lead and chromium have a lot of like industrial applications or there's sort of the byproducts of like urban environments. And so yeah, like you're going to find more of these materials in bigger cities. And you know, the interesting thing, though, if you think about it is that these snow banks

are just kind of laying there like what's already on our streets and what's in our air and in our environment like you're around. And so yeah, they're not grosser than the city on a, on a good day necessarily. So these, these snow banks are kind of holding up a mirror to, to our cities sort of like air and air quality, uh, brown, yellow mirror.

Johan is the investigative data reporter for WNYC and Gothamist based in New York.

“This episode was produced by Kathleen Davis and if you want to complain about all the”

potty talk in the app or how we compare poop and crusted snow piles to a ragu, we always

welcome your feedback and also your suggestions and questions. Have you wanted to do an experiment like this? Give us a call. Maybe we can help. Eight, seven, seven, four, five.

We'll catch you next time. I'm Flora Lake tonight. [BLANK_AUDIO]