Delta-8 THC is a recently popular way to get to as it is legal in many places where there is no regular cannabis. But the fact that it has gone through a legal loophole does not mean it is perfectly safe and recently warned the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. consumers i health care providers on some potential disadvantages.
What is delta-8?
Cannabis contains a lot of naturally occurring chemicals that have effects on our brain and our body. The best known is tetrahydrocannabinol or THC. This is considered the main source of weeds. Technically, most of the THC we care about is chemically known as delta-9 THC and federal regulations apply to cannabis plants that have a certain percentage of delta-9.
Another of these natural chemicals is cannabidiol (CBD), which you’ve probably noticed everywhere. since the 2018 farm bill allowed to sell cannabis plants with less than 0.3% THC to sell legally. This means that if you start with low-delta-9-THC hemp plants instead of high-delta-9-THC marijuana, you can do just about anything you want and sell it legally. This led to the rise of CBD products, which are made from these plants with low THC content.
Somewhere along the line, a genius discovered that you could process hemp plants to create them delta-8 THC. This is not prohibited by federal law, but it can still elevate you. There is more information on this our guide to enjoying delta-8 responsibly, but basically, in most states you can easily buy over-the-counter delta-8 products or order them online. You’ll often find them in CBD stores, as they owe their availability to the same legal loophole.
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So what’s up?
Recent warnings from the FDA and the CDC don’t include anything too serious about delta-8 itself, but we’ll get into the details in a minute. What is important to know first is that delta-8 is still THC and appears to have similar risks and benefits to normal THC (delta-9).
In other words, it can increase you, and if you get too much out of it, you could have symptoms of “greening,” including nausea, lethargy, and uncoordination. THC can also affect heart rate and blood pressure, making it a health problem. overdoses are unlikely to ever be fatal.
Once you understand this, there are two main issues that concern the FDA and the CDC.
People don’t always realize they are taking THC
Since delta-8 is often sold in conjunction with CBD products, it can be easy to overlook the fact that you are buying something that can elevate you. Not everyone knows what delta-8 is and it may be that first-time entrants call it a curious nickname as “diet weeds” or hear a sales pitch minimizing the similarities between the delta. 8 and the normal weed.
The recent one CDC report mentions two cases from the West Virginia Poison Control Center in which adults took what they believed to be “CBD-like products” and ended up being high enough to call the Poison Control Center.
Another couple of cases, this time from Michigan, were in children eating delta-8 jelly beans from a father. The children ended up with slow breathing, lower heart rate, and lower blood pressure. They were admitted to intensive care for surveillance and supplemental oxygen.
The CDC also notes that labels do not always reflect the altitude a product can make you feel, as there are cases where a weed product may contain both delta-9 and delta-8, but only lists one or the other on his label. And while states with legal weeds often have oversight of quality control or requirements for laboratory testing, this framework does not exist for delta-8 products.
The bottom line here is that it’s important to treat delta-8 items the same way you would with any other weed product – keep them away from children and pets, read the labels carefully, and when you try any new product , take a small dose to start with.
Delta-8 products could be contaminated with other chemicals
If delta-8 products only contained delta-8, this would be the end. But hemp plants do not contain much delta-8 normally; that’s why we talk about delta-8 products (like gummies and steamers) instead of smoking hemp flowers. It takes a lot of industrial processing to turn the cannabinoid trace of hemp into enough delta-8 for a psychoactive gum.
How an article in Chemical and Engineering News explains, laboratory tests have found other cannabinoids such as delta-9 and delta-10 THC in many delta-8 products, as well as a menagerie of mysterious compounds that do not occur naturally in cannabis and the effects and risks potentials of which are still unknown. One of them is olive oil, which can get dirty and may be the reason why people usually feel milder effects of delta-8 than normal cannabis, but this is just a hypothesis. We also don’t know what a safe dose of olive oil might be.
Then there is the problem of what is added to the products as delta-8 occurs. There is usually a solvent such as toluene or heptane and a strong acid. It might be okay if you knew for sure that these chemicals were removed before you finished the product. But “most people don’t take the time to distill it or use chromatography,” a chemist told Chemical and Engineering News.
The FDA and CDC are also concerned that people who make delta-8 products may do so without proper facilities and that they may add ingredients by color or other reasons that may not be safe to inhale or ingest. If you remember the vaping-related lung disease (EVALI) a few years ago, it seemed to have been caused by additives in weed vapors that were not safe to inhale. The regulation does not make things safe automatically, but it is worth noting that none of the vape products linked to EVALI came from legal dispensaries.
If you think you have had health problems related to a delta-8 product (or any medication, for example), the FDA has several ways to inform them and even talk directly to a person in the agency, appearing in the list at the bottom of their fact sheet in delta-8.