September 6, 2023 – A product derived from cannabis, made in labs across the country, has led to thousands of calls nationwide to poison control centers and sent hundreds of people to emergency rooms with complaints of vomiting, hallucinations and inability to stand and even fainting .
And it is widely available and legal.
The culprit is called delta-8 tetrahydrocannabinol or, more commonly, delta-8 THC. Last May, the FDA issued a… consumer update warning of serious health risks associated with delta-8 after people ingest it, including accidental exposure in children.
Commercially available delta-8 products are made in laboratories from cannabidiol (CBD) and a broad mixture of chemicals, such as pesticides, petroleum and unknown ingredients. Because the FDA does not regulate CBD, delta-8 THC products fly under the radar when it comes to oversight. What questions should consumers ask when delta-8 products hit the shelves of local gas stations and convenience stores before making a purchase?
What is Delta-8 THC?
Delta-8 THC is an ingredient of the cannabis plant and a “cousin” of delta-9 THC, the psychoactive component of cannabis – which gives users a “high”. In its purest form it can compete with delta-9; they bind to similar receptors in the body and both produce a high. But unlike delta-9, delta-8 only occurs in trace amounts in the factory, limiting manufacturers’ ability to use it commercially. This means that the delta-8 found in the local smoke shop is not the delta-8 found in nature.
The history behind the growth of the delta-8 market can be traced back to the Agriculture Act 2018. A clause allows growers iindustrial hemp, including extraction of CBD and other things in the plant that contain less than 0.3% THC. A glut of extracted CBD supply led to a plethora of modified products that use household and other chemicals to convert hemp cannabinoids into synthetic delta-8.
“They are literally atoms rearranged into arrangements not created in nature,” says Chris Hudalla, PhD, an analytical chemist and founder and chief scientific officer of ProVerde Laboratories, a cannabis testing laboratory based in Milford, Massachusetts. “They don’t even have a name because they’ve never been seen before; we have no idea of their toxicity.”
Hudalla’s laboratory tested nearly 5,000 delta-8 samples and 100% were contaminated, some with as many as 30 types of unintended secondary products of unknown toxicity.
“It’s a bit like Russian roulette: every chemist has a different recipe, and each recipe creates a contamination profile,” Hudalla said. “We literally know nothing about them. 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 that research from the 1970s and more recently by Johns Hopkins Cannabis Science Laboratory, has shown that delta-8 is about half as potent as delta-9, meaning you need twice as much to get the same effects.
But a double dose comes with a host of potential problems, including overdose and a syndrome called cannabinoid hyperemesis, where long-term use can result in repeated, severe bouts of vomiting that can land people in the emergency room.
People who take delta-8 “We may not notice the toxicity immediately, but we have no idea what the long-term consequences could be of having these products in your body,” said Russo, the founder and CEO of CReDO Science, an organization that consults with industry to help design and guide medical cannabis research and clinical trials.
By the way, the Biden administration recently proposed changing the way cannabis is handled in the Controlled Substances Act. The government is calling for the status to be moved from Schedule I to Schedule III, a category that includes drugs like ketamine and certain steroids that are considered to have “moderate to low potential for physical and psychological dependence.”
The realignment would mean scientists would have greater access to cannabis for research, potentially opening the door to later legalization of marijuana and therefore less consumer interest in delta-8.
Buyers’ remorse: a host of dangerous side effects
The FDA trusts it voluntary reports from consumers, patients, doctors and other health professionals to check for side effects of some products such as delta-8. Between December 2020 and February 2022, there were 104 reports of side effects from delta-8. Poison control centers also documented more than 2,300 calls about delta-8 THC exposure during the same period.
But when researchers began monitoring the social media site Reddit for self-reported effects of delta-8 – reports that never reached the FDA – they found that the numbers were significantly higher and included more than 2,000 side effects and more than 400 serious side effects, and found:
- More than 40% were psychiatric/mood-related (e.g. anxiety, delusions, panic attacks or paranoia).
- About 30% involved the lungs, chest, or throat (e.g., choking sensation, painful breathing, coughing, or tightness in the throat).
- 22% were of a general nature (e.g. tiredness; feeling abnormal, with symptoms such as heat and jitters; or having discharge).
- 17% were gut-related (e.g., stomach pain/discomfort, diarrhea, gas, nausea, or vomiting).
- Nearly 9% experienced an accidental overdose, and 7.5% reported increases in blood pressure, heart rate and weight.
Hudalla recalled the case of a young father who had used delta-8 gummies for months, but one day he decided to double his intake.
“He blacked out for a while and when he woke up he had a psychotic episode; he literally thought he had killed his two children who were sleeping upstairs,” Hudalla said.
Before you buy
Until the FDA and states start regulating synthetic delta-8, consumers can take a few steps to protect themselves.
- Do your homework. Discover how and where the products are made. Search the Internet for resources and ask directly about the key ingredients used to make the product and the reputation of the laboratory that produced it.
- Examine the label. A reputable product will have a Certificate of Analysis (COA), a document from an accredited laboratory that confirms that the product meets specific standards. This should include the product name, the company that ordered the tests, the batch number and the date it was made.
- Limit your purchases to regulated pharmacies. This could be a deal-breaker for people wanting to try delta-8 products, as most of these are sold on the Internet or in gas stations and convenience stores and through illegal channels.
- Be thoughtful.
But even with a certificate, delta-8 makers have no standard processes for testing potency.
“The major difference between delta-8 and other THC isomer products is that there are no testing requirements,” says Tracey Lancaster Miller, executive vice president of Maryland-based Peake ReLeaf Dispensary.
Not only is its potency unclear, but “it hasn’t been tested for contaminants, so you don’t know if it has mold, heavy metals or other types in it,” she said.
“These products should be banned,” Russo said. But “if they are to be sold, they must be properly analyzed with certificates of analysis, and must be properly and accurately labeled. Lack of information about danger is not the same as safety.”