At the center of Missouri’s massive cannabis recall is a THC concentrate, or distillate, made partially from hemp.
Robertsville-based cannabis manufacturer Delta Extraction has denied accusations that it illegally imported cannabis into the state by arguing it actually imported a non-psychoactive hemp product that was converted into THC once in Missouri.
The commissioner overseeing Delta’s appeal of the recall and license suspension said the company will likely lose that argument because it’s illegal to add “hemp-derived chemically modified ‘converted’ cannabinoids” to cannabis products. But a lab in Florida — where Delta bought a good amount of product — says the commissioner’s description of “chemically modified” isn’t quite right.
JJ Coombs, owner and CEO of Arvida Labs in Fort Lauderdale, walked The Independent through the extraction process to make the concentrated THC-A, a cannabinoid that must be heated to produce a high — insisting it didn’t involve a chemical conversion. It’s a fairly new process, Coombs said, that involves breeding hemp plants to have higher concentrations of the potentially intoxicating property THC-A. And it’s a process neither the state nor Delta leaders could explain during the company’s appeal proceedings.
Unlike cannabis, hemp has very little psychoactive properties naturally — which is why it was taken off the federal controlled substance list in the 2018 farm bill. But since then, businesses like Coombs’ have been in a race to create ways to produce the most predominant psychoactive active element in cannabis, delta-9 THC, using the hemp plant.
Read more at missouriindependent.com