September 6, 2023 – A cannabis-derived product created in laboratories across the country has led to hundreds of calls to poison control centers nationwide and sent lots of of individuals to emergency rooms with complaints of vomiting, hallucinations, and inability to face even fainted.
And it’s widespread and legal.
The perpetrator is known as delta-8-tetrahydrocannabinol, or more commonly delta-8-THC. Last May, the FDA issued one Consumer Update Warning of significant health risks related to delta-8 following ingestion, including accidental exposures in children.
Commercially available Delta-8 products are made in laboratories from cannabidiol (CBD) and a broad mixture of chemicals equivalent to pesticides, petroleum, and unknown ingredients. Because the FDA doesn’t regulate CBD, Delta-8 THC products fall under the radar with regards to oversight. As Delta-8 products land on shelves at local gas stations and convenience stores, what questions should consumers ask before purchasing?
What is Delta-8 THC?
Delta-8 THC is a component of the cannabis plant and a “cousin” of Delta-9 THC, the psychoactive component of cannabis – which provides users a “high”. In its purest form, it could possibly compete with Delta-9; They bind to similar receptors within the body and each produce a high. But in contrast to Delta-9, Delta-8 only occurs in trace amounts within the plant, which limits manufacturers' ability to make use of it commercially. This implies that the delta-8 present in the neighborhood smokehouse will not be the delta-8 present in nature.
The story behind the expansion of the Delta-8 market will be traced back to the Agriculture Act 2018. A clause allows producers, iIndustrial hemp, including Extraction of CBD and other things within the plant that contain lower than 0.3% THC. An oversupply of extracted CBD has led to a plethora of modified products that use household chemicals and other chemicals to convert hemp-derived cannabinoids into synthetic delta-8.
“They are literally atoms rearranged into arrangements not created in nature,” said Chris Hudalla, PhD, analytical chemist and founder and chief scientific officer of ProVerde Laboratories, a cannabis testing lab based in Milford, MA. “They don’t even have a name because they’ve never been seen before; We have no idea about their toxicity.”
Hudalla's lab tested nearly 5,000 Delta-8 samples and 100% were contaminated, some with as much as 30 sorts of unintended secondary products of unknown toxicity.
“It's a bit like Russian roulette: every chemist has a different recipe and every recipe creates a contaminant profile,” Hudalla said. “We literally know nothing about her. We don’t know if they cause birth defects…or if they cause cancer.”
Ethan Russo MD, a neurologist and researcher who studies how drugs affect the mind and behavior, said research conducted within the Seventies and more recently from Johns Hopkins Cannabis Science Laboratory, has shown that Delta-8 is about half as potent as Delta-9, This means you wish twice as much to attain the identical effects.
But a double dose comes with quite a lot of potential problems, including overdose and a syndrome called cannabinoid hyperemesis, wherein long-term use can result in repeated, severe bouts of vomiting that may send people to the emergency room.
People who take Delta-8 “We may not notice the toxicity right away, but we have no idea what the long-term effects of having these products in your body might be,” said Russo, the founder and CEO of CReDO Science. a company that consults with industry to design and lead medical cannabis research and clinical trials.
By the way in which, the Biden administration recently proposed changing the treatment of cannabis within the Controlled Substances Act. The government is looking for the status to be moved from Schedule I to Schedule III, a category that features drugs equivalent to ketamine and certain steroids which are considered to have “moderate to low potential for physical and psychological dependence.”
The rescheduling would mean that scientists would have greater access to cannabis for research, potentially opening the door to later legalization of marijuana and thus resulting in less consumer interest in delta-8.
Buyer's Regret: A Variety of Dangerous Side Effects
The FDA relies on it voluntary reports from consumers, patients, doctors and other health professionals to observe the unwanted side effects of some products equivalent to Delta-8. Between December 2020 and February 2022, there have been 104 reports of unwanted side effects from Delta-8. Poison control centers also documented over 2,300 calls regarding delta-8-THC exposure throughout the same period.
But when researchers began searching the social media site Reddit for self-reported effects of Delta-8 — reports that never reached the FDA — they found the numbers were significantly higher, including greater than 2,000 antagonistic events and greater than 400 serious antagonistic events, and located:
- Over 40% were psychiatric/mood related (e.g., anxiety, delusions, panic attacks, or paranoia).
- About 30% affected the lungs, chest, or throat (e.g., choking, pain when respiratory, coughing, or throat tightness).
- 22% were general in nature (e.g. tiredness, abnormal feeling with symptoms equivalent to heat and nervousness or secretions).
- 17% were gut-related (e.g., stomach pain/discomfort, diarrhea, bloating, nausea, or vomiting).
- Almost 9% were accidental overdoses, and seven.5% reported increases in blood pressure, heart rate and weight.
Hudalla recalled the case of a young father who had been using Delta-8 He had been eating gummies for months, but at some point decided to double his intake.
“He was unconscious for a while and when he woke up he had a psychotic episode; He literally thought he had murdered his two children who were sleeping upstairs,” Hudalla said.
Before you purchase
Until the FDA and states begin regulating synthetic delta-8, there are a couple of steps consumers can take to guard themselves.
- Do your homework. Find out how and where the products are made. Search the Internet for sources and ask directly in regards to the primary ingredients from which the product was made and the popularity of the laboratory that made it.
- Examine the label. A good product could have a Certificate of Analysis (COA), a document from an accredited laboratory confirming that the product meets certain standards. This should include the product name, the corporate that commissioned the test, the batch number and the date of manufacture.
- Limit your purchases to regulated pharmacies. For individuals who wish to try Delta-8 products, this may very well be a deal-breaker since most of them are sold online or in gas stations and convenience stores, in addition to through illegal channels.
- Be attentive.
But even with a certificate, Delta-8 manufacturers don’t have standard processes for potency testing.
“The big difference between Delta-8 and other THC isomer products is that there are no testing requirements,” said Tracey Lancaster Miller, executive vice chairman of Maryland-based Peake ReLeaf Dispensary.
Not only is it unclear whether it's effective, but “it hasn't been tested for contaminants, so you don't know if there might be mold, heavy metals or other types,” she said.
“These products should be banned,” Russo said. But “if they are to be sold, they must be properly analyzed and accompanied by certificates of analysis, and they require proper and accurate labeling. Lack of information about hazards does not equate to safety.”