When people talk about cannabis legalization, they are almost always referring to making marijuana legal. That is a misnomer in the sense that marijuana is just one type of cannabis plant. There are others, including hemp. Why does it matter? Because states are starting to take a serious look at regulating hemp as tightly as marijuana.
The reasons for regulating hemp are pretty straightforward. That does not necessarily mean lawmakers are right to do so, but there is nothing ambiguous about their goals. They want to regulate hemp so that cannabis companies and consumers do not exploit it to get around strict marijuana regulations.
The question is whether strict regulations are the right way to go. And just as with marijuana, there are varying opinions. Let us go back to the roots of the issue to better understand those opinions.
Distinguishing Between the Two
We start by discussing the distinction between marijuana and hemp. Both are varieties of cannabis sativa. The two plants are nearly identical in their chemical composition. The only measurable difference between them is the amount of THC each one contains.
Marijuana plants contain more than 0.3% THC by volume. Hemp plants contain 0.3% or less. And while hemp was federally legalized under the 2018 Farm Bill, marijuana has been illegal under the Controlled Substances Act since the 1970s.
Marijuana Is Strictly Regulated
More than two-thirds of the states have legalized marijuana. Some states, like Utah, have only okayed medical consumption. Other states have legalized both medical and recreational consumption. Here is the common thread among all of them: legalization is accompanied by strict regulation.
Utah’s medical cannabis regulations are among the strictest in the nation. Still, Utahmarijuana.org says the state’s program works very well. It works so well that the Beehive State might soon take up hemp regulations. But why? What is the issue with hemp?
CBD-Derived Cannabinoids
Lawmakers saw their way to legalizing hemp because it contains so little THC. Its primary cannabinoid is CBD. On its own, straight hemp is not intoxicating. You could smoke it all day and never get a buzz. And yet, there is a problem.
Cannabis processors have discovered dozens of cannabinoids in their plants. Most of them do not occur in large enough volumes to make harvesting them worthwhile. But there is a dirty little secret: several intoxicating cannabinoids can be derived from CBD in a lab.
If you have ever heard of delta-8, you have heard of one such cannabinoid. Delta-8 is both naturally occurring and an isomer of delta-9 THC – the cannabinoid that is currently illegal under federal law. Being an isomer means that delta-8 is nearly identical to delta-9 at the molecular level. The only difference between the two is how their molecules are arranged.
You Can Get a Buzz
It turns out that you can get a buzz from CBD-derived delta-8. It is a different kind of buzz, but it is a buzz, nonetheless. And now that consumers know this, they are looking to buy federally legal CBD products so that they don’t have to jump into the marijuana pool. States want to stop this practice through tighter regulations.
Is more regulation the way to go? Many people consider it a foregone conclusion that marijuana will be moved to Schedule III fairly soon. But even rescheduling marijuana will not free it from strict federal and state regulations. People who want to get high without having to deal with marijuana will just buy delta-8 products instead. Therein lies the logic of more tightly regulating hemp so as to keep the delta-8 market from growing any bigger.