In recent weeks, the regulated marijuana industry has faced a crisis of confidence prompted by lab-approved products found to contain pesticides.
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Now there’s evidence some marijuana samples submitted for testing contain a mysterious “soup” of dozens of unknown compounds never before found in cannabis.
Lab executives told MJBizDaily they believe the compounds are created when hemp-derived cannabinoids are converted to delta-8 and delta-9 THC.
Labs do not test for these byproducts; rather, most states require labs to test for various levels of heavy metals, mold and cannabinoids.
And how they affect consumers is unknown.
Creating delta-8 THC
Cannabis contains trace amounts of delta-8 THC, and most D-8 products are manufactured by converting nonintoxicating CBD, potentially leaving behind questionable byproducts, according to scientists in the marijuana space.
“These are chemical side reactions,” said Susan Audino, a chemist/chemometrician, independent consultant to chemical and biological laboratories and MJBizDaily contributor.
“You can’t make one thing without something else being formed as well.”
Josh Swider, co-founder and CEO of San Diego-based Infinite Chemical Analysis Labs, said that he has screened many delta-8 products created through chemical processes.
“You’ll see 60 unknown compounds in there,” he said. “Some of them get identified, but all of them are never found.
“That is telling you that you’re now adding other compounds that we never found in cannabis, and now people are smoking it.
“It’s a very common thing going on around the country.”
Fraudulent practices?
The flagrant disregard for discovering more about these mystery compounds stems, in part, from fraudulent practices around THC-potency testing, according to Bob Miller, CEO and chief scientific officer at ACT Laboratories, which operates in Florida, Illinois, Michigan, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
“Potency testing brings up the opportunity for some bad players – both on the laboratory testing side as well as on the grower-processor side – to make deals,” Miller said.
“You give me higher potencies, I give you more money for my test, and I can sell it for more.
“It’s a win-win for everybody except the consumer.”
Unidentified components
On the “soup” side, Miller said Michigan-based ACT Laboratories is seeing more delta-8 THC entering the supply chain, and that’s where the real issue exists.
“What they do is they say they’ve got ‘hemp’ that they then bring and sell across state lines,” he said.
“But, really, it’s a combination of delta-8 and delta-9 (THC).
“When they start to do that conversion from CBD to delta-8 and delta-9, it’s very sloppy.
“You get a mix of many different components, and for all of those components, many are not yet being identified. The chemistry is not clean.
“You get this batch that is going to be completely different from the next batch.
“And, oh, by the way, some of the compounds that are being formed, we don’t even know what they are because they’re not requiring that today to be tested.”
Clients don’t want to know
When a lab tester gets these reactionary “soups,” Miller said, some of the compounds are more psychoactive than delta-9 THC.
“What we do is, any peak that we see of appreciable levels, we are going to inform the client what that we see,” he said.
“It depends on the client whether they want to understand what it is.”
“Some clients are very interested; some clients say, ‘I’m paying you to test for these specific state-mandated cannabinoids, and that’s really where we want you to work.’
“Typically, these unknown peaks come in things like distillates and edible products, and that’s where we start to see some interesting things.”
Even cannabis that has been cleared by regulators can become problematic.
Product contamination could come from the device being used to consume the cannabis oil.
“The U.S. state regulators say, ‘Hey everybody, you need to test all of the oil before it goes into the vape pen,’” Audino said.
However, she added, regulatory bodies don’t pay much attention to chemical reactions.
“Most vape cartridges need to heat up at a specific temperature,” Audino said.
“And depending on where those cartridges are made, they may or may not be heavily laden with heavy metals – and if they are, those heavy metals leech off underneath.
“So now, you’ve got a clean oil coming through and being tainted by a chemical process: a physical, physicochemical process from just a heating element.
“That causes a bunch of other reactions, and people have gotten lung diseases.”
Labs put in the middle
It’s the customers of the labs – the product manufacturers – who drive what tests they do or don’t want, Audino said.
If regulations are not demanding it or not requiring certain tests, product manufacturers are probably not asking for them.
“Then, the laboratory is the unsuspecting person or entity in the middle with the moral and ethical conundrum,” she said.
Most state regulators are not scientists, Audino added.
“Most of them are lawyers, and most state regulators were forced into creating these regulations based on legislation,” she said.
“Legislation doesn’t care about science. They just say, ‘Do this. Make it happen.’”
Farm Bill origins?
Miller of ACT Laboratories said the 2018 Farm Bill, which legalized industrial hemp – and, unintentionally, the intoxicating hemp industry – has contributed to the “soup” dilemma.
“At the federal level, there’s definitely a movement literally right now to change the regs,” he said.
“The quicker they can do that, (it) will then stabilize that potential input into the supply chain of really unknown chemistry and take that one complexity off the table.
“That brings us back to: How do we control and better understand how cannabis really operates, and what are the compounds?”
Lab ‘reset’ needed
Most labs in the cannabis industry are moving away from science, Swider said.
“This might be a bad thing for the labs, because they become more cookie-cutter: ‘Do exactly what I’m told. Don’t look at anything else. Keep my eyes looking down, give them the numbers they want. Make sure they don’t have pesticides,’” he said.
“Honestly, the lab industry has 100% failed (the) cannabis industry for safety.”
Swider said the lab industry needs to be “reset.”
“States need to do it, and they need to figure out a mandate to do this,” he said.
“What you’re doing is trying to keep pace with an industry that’s trying to use creative ways to make things cheaper – or just scam the system or don’t care about public safety.
“I honestly think 70% to 80% of the labs probably shouldn’t be open because they’re not necessarily doing it for to be a safety lab, but they’re doing it for a dollar, and they’re willing to do whatever it is to make that dollar.”
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