MADISON, Wis. — New hemp-derived THC products are popping up across Wisconsin, and thanks to a loophole in the law, they’re legal.
“Everything that we sell falls under the law and the regulation, and that’s something that we are very adamant about,” said Seth Blackstone, the general manager at Knuckleheads, a tobacco shop on State Street that sells hemp-derived THC products.
Wisconsin law bans products containing the Delta 9 THC compound found in Cannabis plants. However, it says nothing about THC derivatives like Delta 8, Delta 10 and THC O which are derived from the hemp plant, leaving a legal loophole open for sellers like Blackstone.
“A year ago, most of what we sold was just Delta 8, and now you’ve got all of these other derivatives that have been discovered and extracted and are now being sold,” he said.
Just like Delta 9 THC, these products can cause a high. In some cases, Blackstone said they can be even more potent than Delta 9.
“The feelings are varied,” he said. “Again, everybody’s chemistry is a little bit different. But yeah, a lot of them do come with some psychoactive and euphoric effects.”
As more of these products pop up, some experts are expressing concerns.
“People have to have their eyes open,” said Dr. Cecilia Hillard, the director of the Neuroscience Research Center at Wisconsin Medical College and a cannabis researcher. “It isn’t innocuous, it isn’t necessarily safe in all individuals. I will definitely say that it must stay out of the hands of adolescents.”
Right now, customers must be 21 years old to buy hemp-derived THC products in Wisconsin, but Hillard worries that’s still too young.
“It concerns me up to the age of 25, to be quite honest,” she said. “It’s clear that the brain is not done going through this maturation phase until, in many people, in their mid-20s, so I think that is a big mistake.”
She also said that because the products aren’t regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, it can be hard to know what you’re getting.
“It’s really buyer beware,” Hillard said. “There’s nobody really watching over any of this stuff. It’s a relatively unregulated industry, overall.”
Blackstone said he provides his customers with third-party lab testing to help ease concerns.
“Most of the products that we deal with, we go out of our way to make sure that they are analyzed correctly,” he stressed.
In November, 82% of Dane County residents voted in favor of legalizing marijuana. While that referendum didn’t actually legalize anything, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers has said he’ll include marijuana legalization in his 2023-2025 budget, something that Wisconsin Republicans have blocked before.
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