Short Wave - The Science Behind The Delta-8 Craze

Episode Date: April 20, 2022

In the cannabis industry, the chemistry lab meets agriculture. A cannabis product called Delta-8 has been popping up in smoke shops, CBD shops and even gas stations.Dr. Katelyn Kesheimer, a researcher at Auburn University and the Alabama Cooperative Extension System, joins the show to demystify Delta-8. In this encore episode, we'll learn what it's made of, where it comes from, why it's so popular, and why science and the federal government are falling so far behind the cannabis industry. Email the show at [e-mail] pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Hey, hey, shortwivers, Emily Kwong here. If you follow the cannabis industry, you may have heard about a product on the rise, Delta 8, especially as Virginia becomes the latest state to ban Delta 8. And a federal bill has also been introduced to restrict it. Amid all this, you may be wondering what even is Delta 8? Well, we got into the chemistry of this product earlier this year and wanted to revisit that science today. All right, here's the show. You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.

Okay, so there's weed, pot, grass, whatever you call it. We're talking today about the cannabis industry, which is kind of where the chem lab meets agriculture. And there's this one type of cannabis product that's getting a lot of attention. It's called Delta 8 THC, or simply Delta 8. It's chemically synthesized, and it's now the fastest growing product in the hemp industry. You can get it in the form of edibles or vapes for vape pens, tinctures, infused beverages, and you can get it at smoke shops, CBD shops, vape shops all around. And you can

also get it at some gas stations just at the counter like you would, you know, cigarettes or other tobacco products. Caitlin Kessheimer is a researcher at Auburn University, an Alabama Cooperative Extension. She's been watching Delta 8. eight products populate the shelves in her community. They're kind of eye-catching. There's some colorful and shiny and usually have some sort of floral component to it, whether it's a hemp leaf or other kind of botanical picture. And it usually has a wellness kind of vibe to it. Now, just to be clear, Kaelin doesn't work for the cannabis industry. She's actually an entomologist. helping farmers around Alabama with any insect that might affect their crops.

Hemp and Delta 8 is something I never thought I'd have to know about, but here we are. So always exciting. The life of an entomologist, am I right? Now, the cannabis plant has two main superactive ingredients, THC, which is what gets you high, and CBD, or cannabodial, which doesn't get you high. So when Alabama farmers started growing hemp for CBD, Caitlin got a lot of questions about how to keep the pests away. She even got her own license to grow and study hemp herself.

But when Delta 8 THC burst onto the scene, it raised some alarm bells for her, because it's a product that will definitely get you high. Some growers had excess biomass from growing hemp, and they called me and asked, how do they convert it to Delta 8 THC? And I had no idea. To them in response, you said, like, what's Delta 8?

Yeah, I said, I have no idea. And why do you want to do this? What's wrong with the cannabodial? Why do you not want CBD? And at that point, it was also when the prices for CBD were plummeting. They went from, you know, $10, a percentage point, a pound, down to less than a dollar. And so there was a lot of economics involved in this. And Delta 8 was the next logical progression.

for a lot of these producers, which has really changed things for consumers. So today on the show, we're going to demystify Delta 8 on a chemical level. Talk about where it comes from, how it's become so popular, and why science and the federal government are falling behind on regulating the cannabis industry. I'm Emily Kwong, and you're listening to Shortwave, the Daily Science podcast from NPR. All right, to understand what Delta 8 is, let's revisit the chemical components of cannabis, shall we? Cannabis sativa, it's the species name for both hemp and marijuana. In the plant, there's cannabodial, also known as CBD, we mentioned that earlier.

Then we have the thing that gets you high, tetrahydro-canabinal or THC. So that's going to be in marijuana where hemp grown for, you know, the wellness and CBD. It has so little amounts of THC in it that it's not going to get you that typical psychoactive high that you're looking. for. And so that's the main difference between the two plants. But there are different types of THC. There's Delta 9 THC, which you see in a lot of traditional marijuana products. And then there's the thing called Delta 8 THC. A term we use commonly for Delta 8 is diet weed or diet marijuana. The high isn't as high. Right. Yeah. And so, I mean, it's going to react with people, affect people differently. But it's, it's consistent.

make you high, but not nearly as quick or intense as Delta 9. What makes it like Delta 9? So it is a scientific term for literally the location of where a double bond is in this carbon atom. It is on the ninth chain of a carbon atom and you have a double bond between the atoms. And if we remember from basic chemistry, I'm going to throw out another science term as isomer. And I'm brushing off some knowledge. I haven't heard that word in a while. Oh, it's been a minute. And so isomers, they're compounds that have the same formula.

So they're made up of the same things, but a different arrangement of atoms. And so that can affect the properties. And then also if you're ingesting these chemicals, they can influence your reaction. And so in Delta 8, you have a double bond on the 8th chain. Delta 9, you have a double bond on the ninth chain. And if we want to get real crazy, we have Delta 10 out there, too, which we know even less about. And there are trace amounts of Delta 8 in marijuana, but it has to be derived from cannabidiol in the hemp plant. And so there's no really standard protocol for deriving pure Delta 8. And so a lot of it is trial and error and maybe

some backyard chemistry, if you will. What's your reaction to that? It's alarming. I think back to, you know, when I took organic chemistry for the first time in college and you're doing these reactions and you follow it step by step that the, you know, the professor gives you. And it's like, okay, at this step, you're supposed to have a clear liquid. At this step, you're supposed to have a green sludge. And if you didn't have that, then something went wrong. But you're like, I'm following this protocol and I'm doing all these things right. It's because, you know, you have temperature and environment and there's so many things that can go wrong. There's no standard protocol or testing, and some of the products that you're using to convert it can be really caustic acids that can

affect you when you're ingesting them, and you don't necessarily know until you take it. And so I would caution anyone who is buying, make sure you know that this product was tested, and all of the products and byproducts are not going to be toxic. Okay, so if Delta 8 is like the milder cousin and hemp developers are kind of cooking it up in their backyard, why can it be sold at places like gas stations or convenience stores if Delta 8 has milder but somewhat similar effects to Delta 9 that we see in other marijuana products? Sure, that's a great question. And it's because of the 2018 Farm Bill that made it federally legal to have THC as long as it's derived from hemp or hemp-derived products. And so it has to be less than 0.3 Delta 9 THC, which is so little. Hemp was removed from the Controlled Substances Act. And so it's not technically a drug as far as the government is consistent. concerned. And so that's where we end up in this legal gray area where Delta 8 is actually

federally legal, but these products aren't regulated or evaluated by the FDA. Given how things are right now with how Delta 8 is being made and sold, what are some of its risks. So according to the FDA, we've had hundreds and hundreds of reports of Delta 8 exposure, and a lot of them were accidental exposers to children under 18. But depending on how much you take, what other byproducts are in that product, we've heard reports of, you know, hallucinations, nausea, fainting, low blood pressure, which can lead to trouble standing, slurred speech, difficulty breathing. And so there's a lot of health risks from taking something that maybe is new and foreign to your body or because it has a slower onset than your standard delta nine,

people may take a lot of it, especially in the form of edibles, waiting for a high. And then they basically overdose on delta eight and can get really, really sick. When you say there's been exposures? What does that mean? So usually that is if an adult has purchased legally some Delta 8 products and the packaging looked like a gummy bear or a cookie and a person under 18 took it. And so a lot of these are accidental ingestions. And we also have had issues with pets. We don't have a lot of research on how animals and children will react. We just know that they've gotten really sick. And so as far as I know, we haven't had any deaths or long-term damage,

but we're still really in the beginning of this kind of craze of Delta 8. Yeah, it sounds almost like Delta 8 has just kind of slipped under the radar of the federal government. So what are states doing to deal with that? So here in Alabama, there was a bill in. introduced last year, it was actually voted down just to ban all forms of THC. Wow. Yeah, and there was a ban in Texas that was lifted, whereas other states, I think New York is successful in putting restrictions on both producing and selling Delta 8.

And I think it's up to over a dozen states have either restricted purchasing or banned it completely. But to me, like we got to this point with Delta 8 because CBD was legalized and there's so much of it. And so people are just going to find another compound, I think, in this plant. There's so many different chemicals in this plant that if THC and Delta 8 is banned, they'll find the next one. And so it's hard for state and federal laws to keep up with all these, you know, backyard chemists, so to speak. And it sounds like there is a lack of real research about all the different cannabinoids out there that could be created. There's like a dearth of research about this plant in general.

Why is that? So ever since we put marijuana, cannabis, sativa on the controlled substances list, there's been very, very little approvals for research. And as we know with plant breeding, I mean, even though it's been illegal in many places, we've been breeding cannabis for certain traits for decades and decades. And so there's so much variety out there in the plant genetics, even within this one species cannabis sitiva. And people haven't had access to do the research on that. And I think we did ourselves a big disservice by adding it to the Controlled Substances Act and making it a schedule. one drug. It's been stigmatized. There's a really long history. And I feel like we could talk for

hours about just the history of the plant and the laws surrounding it. And as each state now allows recreational or medicinal cannabis use, we don't have the information to do that as safely as we could if we started this years and years ago. How has it affected you that scientific research into cannabis that is being heavily used all over the country has been blocked by law. It's incredibly frustrating. I have to jump through hoops to do hemp research. And I understand there should be some sort of regulations, but I've had to go get background checks and be fingerprinted. And I have very strict protocols for where the plants canning cannot be on campus. And as for the foreseeable future, I won't be able to do any research on marijuana or cannabis plants. And so at the

the day, it's really frustrating because I do see the benefits of this plant, both on the agricultural side, to help diversify our agriculture in the United States, especially in the southern U.S., where we can grow a lot of crops in the long growing season. But also on the human side, we know that it helps people that have ailments. And so why can't we treat this as any other medicine or plant compound that has benefits? And if taken incorrectly, It has bad effects. So, yeah, bottom line, it's just been frustrating. So if science nor federal regulation is really able to keep up with the industry in the United States,

what's your biggest fear about what could happen and what would prevent that from happening? So my fear is that tainted or dangerous products are marketed and sold. on a mass scale. What we need is a, from the top down, we need regulations and uniform sampling and testing approvals and regulations to make sure that safe products are going out there. Because as long as there is this gray area, a lot of people aren't going to understand it and there'll be people trying to make money off of it. And so we need a much more formalized uniform procedure if this is going to be sold on a big scale. Well, thank you so much, Caitlin, for talking to me.

Absolutely. Thanks for having me. This episode was produced by Eva Tesfi and edited by Sarah Saracen. Margaret Serino checked the facts. The audio engineer for this episode was Ted Mebeng. I'm Emily Kwong. Thanks for listening to Shortwave. The Daily Science Podcast from NPR.