Mislabeled, illegal: Products sold at convenience stores test similar to marijuana
While North Carolina remains one of 12 states where marijuana — medical or not — remains illegal, WRAL Investigates found you can essentially find pot at corner stores across the state.
When Congress passed the 2018 Farm Bill, it legalized the sale of hemp and its byproducts, so long as the products have less than .3% naturally occurring Delta 9 THC. Marijuana and its main psychoactive ingredient, THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) is still regulated under the Controlled Substances Act.
It didn’t take long for growers to extract THC from hemp plants and introduce new products into the marketplace with claims that the CBD (cannabidiol) they do contain can help with pain relief and sleeplessness. CBD is a naturally occurring substance in hemp and pot that does not contain THC.
While CBD products were available prior to the Farm Bill, the number of products and availability surged in the past two or so years. From smoke shops to convenience stores, you can now find those products everywhere, claiming certain levels of Delta 8, Delta 9, Delta 10, THCA (THC acid) and more. While related to CBD, those products are much more.
"These are all psychoactive substances," Michael Horton told WRAL Investigates. He test products from growers, manufacturers and even store owners at the company he helped start, Raleigh-based Delta 9 Analytical.
While the products, by law, can’t be sold to anyone under 18, many have packaging that looks like candy and there are concerns the products marketing targets children.
WRAL Investigates went shopping for products to have them tested, purchasing three products from a Cary smoke shop, one from a Cary convenience store and one from a Raleigh convenience store.
"This is our mass spectrometer," Horton explained to WRAL Investigates when explaining the testing process.
Frank Maurio, the company’s chief operating officer, explained the prep phase of the samples. That starts with grinding the products and mixing them with a liquid before the mass spectrometer breaks everything down.
"It isolates each ion, breaks each ion and measures each broken part," says Horton.
He then pulled up the results for the products WRAL Investigates took to the lab. "What we found we’ve got quite a bit of Delta 9 THC," he said.
Finally, Maurio provided the summary. "Four of the five are not legal products in North Carolina, and four of five are not labeled properly," he said. When asked if those results surprised him, Maurio simply answered "No."
The results surprised WRAL Investigates. Under current law, a product must contain less than .3% of Delta 9 THC to remain legal.
The Gold Silver gummies we bought were mislabeled as far as the type of THC, and they were over the limit for THC content.
The Insane Gummies only contained one of three products on the label, but they were under the legal limit.
The Sweet Tooth vape was mislabeled and two times over the THC limit.
The Delta 10 Cake vape had NO Delta 10, but was still three times over the limit for THC.
Finally, a smokable Moon Rock pre-roll was the only thing properly labeled, but it’s a whopping 10 times over the THC threshold.
"Incredibly, not a legal product," Horton said.
Maurio said that the difference was between that pre-roll and marijuana is "Absolutely nothing."
In short, WRAL Investigates was able to purchase the same thing as marijuana at a gas station in Cary less than a half mile from two schools.
Maurio said the message is simple: buyer beware.
"That’s what you find across all these products. They’re either not compliant or they’re not what they say they are," he said.
Horton and Maurio are working with lawmakers to better regulate these products in North Carolina — including testing and what’s called batch tracking so you know exactly where a product came from and what’s in it.
So why is that important? Think of it in terms most of us have dealt with before. If there’s fear of salmonella poisoning in a certain brand of chicken, we get a warning that includes the distributor, which stores stocked that chicken and other information likes dates or lot numbers.
With these CBD products containing THC, none of that is tracked.
"If you just make the product safe so you know what you’re getting that would go a long way to legitimizing the industry," Horton says of the need for better regulation.
Both also agree it’s a matter of safety.
"If you’re expecting a 30 milligram gummy and you ingest 500 milligrams, that changes your day," says Horton. "If you eat something like that and aren’t expecting it, I’d go to the hospital."
Maurio adds mislabeled products are a threat to all of us.
"You get into a car or operating heavy machinery, you could be danger to yourself or others and not even know it," he said.
The bottom line, without proper oversight, both experts agree shoppers need to be cautious. Ask questions when buying one of the products. Some may contain a QR code you can scan to get lab results, but Maurio and Horton says you can’t really trust those either, because some manufacturers get a couple of products tested, but use those results on other products.
Poison control centers and the Food and Drug Administration have received hundreds of reports of adverse effects from the Delta line of products, with symptoms ranging from anxiety, to trouble breathing and more.
Cannabis chemistry: What is hemp, marijuana, CBD, THC, Delta 8?
Marijuana: A slang term for cannabis, a species of plant
CBD: Cannabidiol (CBD) is something you can extract from both marijuana and hemp.
Hemp: A cannabis product with .3% or less THC
THC: Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) is the primary psychoactive ingredient in marijuana. It is also in hemp, but it makes up less than .3%.
Delta 8: A shortened name for Delta 8 THC. Delta 8 is found in trace amounts in marijuana and hemp, but can be made by changing CBD genetics to increase potency.
Delta 9 THC: This is what makes you feel high. Delta 9 is more powerful than Delta 8 and more prevalent in marijuana.
Delta 10 THC: Similar to Delta 8 in that's it's only found in trace amounts. Users claim it offers a different type of high.
All of the Delta products are somewhat similar, they just have slightly different chemical structures.
THCA: Tetrahydrocannabinolic acid (THCA) is the precursor to THC. When heated over a flame, cooked or in a vape, THCA converts to Delta 9. Often used to make gummies.
