The Farm Bill of 2018 legalized the cultivation and sale of hemp products, generally conceived as fabric, rope, and alternatives to plastic. Hemp is arbitrarily defined as cannabis varieties with dry weight containing .3% or less of THC. The law’s technical language specified delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol, which is generally considered to be the main psychoactive component in marijuana. Therefore, the bill assumed, hemp posed no threat of producing the “high”, or the subtle, but real, addictive potential characteristic of marijuana. It was not economically feasible to concentrate the low percentage THC in hemp to create a marketable product.
Ah, but government regulators can never keep up with clever entrepreneurs. Like the spy-versus-spy cartoon in Mad Magazine, every time a regulation is announced, a search begins for lucrative loopholes. In the case of hemp, the loophole discovered stemmed from the fact that hemp contains as much as 15% CBD. For botanists, this high level of CBD is no surprise. Both THC and CBD derive from the same precursor – CBG. The relative amount of THC and CBD in any variety of cannabis is inversely related and is based on the relative amounts of the two enzymes that convert CBG to either THC or CBD. As a result, legal hemp led to a glut of CBD products in the market.
The cannabis industry was faced with the problem of what else could be done with this excess CBD. Entrepreneurial chemists soon developed an economically feasible way to convert CBD to delta-8 THC, which has the felicitous qualities from a retail standpoint of being half as potent as marijuana’s delta-9 THC while not being regulated by the government. Previously there had been no reason to single out delta-8 THC for regulation since, although it is one of the over 100 cannabinoid compounds naturally found in marijuana, it exists in such small quantities that it could be ignored.
By the time different states became aware of delta-8, this legal intoxicating hemp product was being sold in over 90% of gas stations and head shops across the nation, as well as being easily available over the Internet, in products that can be eaten, drunk, vaped, and smoked. When a bill to regulate delta-8 recently stalled in the California legislature out of concern it would prevent its “lifesaving” medical use, Governor Gavin Newsom proposed emergency rules to prevent the sale of delta-8 to anyone under the age of 21.
Morality comes into play as soon as entrepreneurs market mind-altering drugs to children and adolescents (see Delta-8 Use Among Adolescents: New Report). Adequate documentation shows that youth below 21 become addicted to cannabinoids more frequently and quickly than adults. The law recognizes adults are generally capable of making rational decisions about their use of cannabis in states that permit recreational use of delta-9 in marijuana. But no state legalizes the use of cannabis below the age of 21. This is simply good public health policy akin to disallowing driver’s licenses to youth below a certain age. So, who are these people who callously hawk hemp products (i.e., delta-8 THC) to kids? What are they thinking?
People are complex enough that we cannot condense their motivation to greed alone. However, from the standpoint of right and wrong, which is the essence of our moral decisions, their marketing of delta-8 to children and adolescents is wrong, and therefore immoral. This conclusion does not mean that selling delta-8 to adults, or the consumption of delta-8 by adults, is immoral. But the endangerment of minors for profit, while often technically legal, is immoral.
Free enterprise and government regulation will always exist in an environment of dynamic tension. But there should be no resistance to government regulation when the exploitation of children is in question. In the case of delta-8 THC, Governor Newsom is on the moral side of history in the same way regulation of Juul’s marketing of nicotine vaping to youth was the morally right decision.
Again, people are complex. I imagine that many who exploit children and adolescents for financial profit feel some ambivalence about their actions. This ambivalence is evident in the rationalizations about free speech, the sanctity of free enterprise, and the dangers of governmental overreach they hide behind. In the end, however, right is right, wrong is wrong, and people’s behavior reflects their moral decisions. In the face of morally wrong actions that may exploit our youth, society has the responsibility to protect its youth, and governmental regulation is the proper vehicle for fulfilling this responsibility.
Now it’s time to do a better job suppressing the illegal, unlicensed cannabis market that callously sells to all ages and undermines licensed and regulated legal cannabis entrepreneurs.
You can view the whole article at this link Cannabis, Morality, and the Law
