Is delta-8 legal? (…or delta-10? delta-7? delta-10? THC-O-acetate?) Should cannabis brands foray into the isomers market*?
We first looked at these and other questions back in March when the delta-8 “trend” picked up enough momentum to draw attention from many, many corners. The sidebar below contains an updated cross-section of recent press and analysis along with several key sources from our March newsletter.
Is delta-8 hurting dispensary sales?
If a corner store just down the street from a dispensary sells – like hotcakes, according to the owner – a wide variety of delta-8 products, intuition would tell you “yes”. To what degree? It’s not clear that anyone has quantified the impact of delta-8 on delta-9 sales. It’s unlikely any single data source has sufficient information to do so accurately. Consider this: the ripple effect impacts the convenience and gas channel, “CBD stores”, and dispensaries, at minimum. Unless two or more companies* tracking purchases synthesize the POS data across channels, we won’t see the entire picture.
If you know of any data along those lines, kindly let us know?
Or maybe you’re interested in participating in a study to answer that question? Share your thoughts here.
Is delta-8 a “tale of American ingenuity“, a “market response“, or an open invitation to sell snake oil?
Here’s our take: the answer, unfortunately, to each question is “Yes”.
CURATED NEWS AND ANALYSIS ON DELTA-8 AND OTHER CANNABINOIDS:
Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board bans “synthetic cannabinoids” from being produced or sold. (Harris Bricken)
Buried in the article is another issue that will have a chilling effect on the market:
“[T]his recent change of position by the LCB could impact licensed businesses’ existing activities whose liability insurance excludes illegal products and who could now be more susceptible to legal actions if anyone consuming products infused with THC derived from CBD were to fall ill.”
Another, increasingly common, approach to handling delta-8, et al. – lump cannabinoids other than CBD into the highly regulated cannabis market.
Connecticut joins other states by banning sales of any hemp-derived “THC products” outside of licensed cannabis dispensaries. While the logic behind the decision makes sense, the uneven enforcement witnessed in other states will inevitably lead to confusion and harm small businesses.
What the hell happened at CHAMPS in Vegas? And why?
From a distance, the assessment by The Weed Blog sounds about right.
How local news is covering delta-8: here’s a take on “marijuana lite” from Asheville, NC.
Combined with images of handmade signs promoting “LEGAL THC” at CBD stores and elsewhere, the optics around delta-8 should make the industry uncomfortable.
What about little-known THC-O-acetate?
Experts express just as much skepticism, if not more, on the rise of “THC-O“.
From March 2021:
Is Delta-8 THC a Controlled Substance? Yes. No. Maybe. Cannabis Business Executive
Fad or future? Delta-8’s popularity divides cannabis extraction industry Hemp Industry Daily
California Lab Offers Cautionary Notes Regarding Delta-8 THC The Marijuana Times
Delta-8 THC Is Popular. But Is It Legal? Partridge Snow & Hahn
Statement on Marketing Hemp Products U.S. Hemp Roundtable
Does the Production and Sales of Hemp Products that Contain Delta-8 Put Producers in Legal Peril? Cannabis Business Executive
And finally, an official take:
“The [2018] Farm Bill passed with the understanding that hemp is nourishing, hemp could be food, used in supplements, used as fiber or grain. And hemp is not intoxicating,” Weintraub tells Hemp Grower. “Delta-8 defies the intention of the laws and the rules. I think it’s incredibly short-sighted and can bring down the entire hemp industry before we’ve had the chance to show people what this plant can do. Delta-8 makes me so angry. ”
This will never happen.
In this era of “walled gardens” of data and retail fragmentation, clients – buyers of retail data – are forced to pay for multiple feeds. The providers have little incentive to solve the problem – even if granted access to the resulting pool of data – and the client lacks the bandwidth and analytics wherewithal to find an answer. The entire exercise is likely moot. Intuition, in this case, is almost undoubtedly correct – on balance, delta-8 sales will cannibalize dispensary sales. The substitution effect is real.
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Photo by Wesley Tingey on Unsplash
