How We Got Here

If you woke up from a decades-long coma or were dropped onto Earth by aliens, you’d be forgiven for assuming that weed is legal in the United States. It seems like every gas station, corner store, and smoke shop from Miami to Montana is ready to get you some kind of stoned whenever you’d like. Gummies, vapes, pre-rolls, it’s all there with neon weed leaves in the window. 

Of course, cannabis is not legal in the United States. Despite plenty of regulated and taxed state-legal weed sales, the plant is still a Schedule I narcotic in the eyes of the federal government. Hemp, on the other hand, is so legal that you can run it through chemical extractions to synthesize minor cannabinoids, turn it into oil and spray it all over gummies, and hemp pre-rolls and pack it into vape carts and sell it anywhere you want.

Delta 8, Delta 10, HHC, THC-O, THCP, and the rest of the hemp weed pretenders have popped up everywhere for one simple reason: people like to get high and they’ll often take the most convenient and cheapest route to that elevated destination. But as we look forward to a time when weed – real weed – will be legal nationwide, we should already be establishing norms for cannabis that push back firmly against the products of hemp bill loopholes, no matter their legal status.

When the 2018 Farm Bill was signed into law it legalized hemp – defined as any cannabis plant or product that tests at levels lower than 0.3% Delta 9 THC – and set the stage for the eruption of the CBD market. It seems like a lifetime ago now, but CBD edibles, mints, salves, ice creams, lattes, and bottled water were everywhere for a couple of years, advertised as a super supplement that could do everything to make you feel better…except get you high. That was a problem. People got tired of paying $20 for a pint of CBD ice cream or $12 for a CBD latte that didn’t get them high. They wanted to get high.

No worries, the loopholes in the Farm Bill are big enough to fit a Mac truck, it could certainly accommodate a little intoxication. So the hemp green rushers with thousands of acres of plants and vats of CBD extract started getting creative, remixing the CBD with solvents, converting the chemical makeup through isomerization, and spitting out chemical cousins of THC. Delta 8, HHC, THC-0, THCP, the list goes on. They get you high and they’re below the 0.3% THC legal limit, problem solved.

Why Gas Station Weed Sucks

With convenience retailers across the country already used to hawking CBD in every form factor imaginable, the switch to hemp-derived was seamless. And while you, dear High Times reader, likely know better and prefer real weed derived from real weed, there are plenty of people who see weed leaf packaging and the letters THC at the register and see no difference. 

Not only are these minor cannabinoid products synthetically derived from industrial hemp, but they are done so with no oversight, regulation, or consumer protections. From contaminations in the production process to mislabeled products that contain much less or much more cannabinoids than advertised, there is no telling what you’re actually getting when you buy hemp-derived cannabis products. Those certificates of authenticity and lab reports that you can find online? Those are really easy to fake. 

As we’ve seen with synthetic weed aka spice, vitamin e-tainted vape carts, and bogus psilocybin chocolates, if the only goal is to get you high as cheaply and conveniently as possible, bad actors will thrive. 

In an interview with Chemical & Engineering News, Christopher Hudalla, president and chief scientific officer at analytical testing firm ProVerde Laboratories said that after thousands of tests of products labeled as Delta-8 he was horrified at “consumers being used as guinea pigs.”

“My concern is that we have no idea what these products are,” Hudalla said. “So far, I have not seen one that I would consider a legitimate delta-8-THC product, there’s some delta-8 in there, but there’s very frequently up to 30 [chromatographic] peaks that I can’t identify.”

Stoners Have to Stand Up For Real Weed

We have arrived at a point in American culture where it is socially acceptable to sell intoxicating products labeled as weed on gas station counters, and so as real weed continues to legalize state-by-state and eventually nationwide, it will be on the cannabis culture to push back, not only to make sure our fellow consumers are safe, but also to make sure that real weed growers and sellers – legal and illegal alike – can continue to survive in the changing industry.

From stoners to cannabis brands and figures in the culture to pro-legalization lawmakers, we need an all-hands-on-deck push back against loophole weed. Make sure your once in a blue moon smoker friends know the difference, make sure your parents know the difference, make sure your customers know the difference, and no matter how economically appealing it may be to jump at the bag of money, don’t put your weed brand’s logos on Delta 8 vapes to cash in at corner stores. 

Cannabis has always been about more than just getting high – especially when the one note high from Delta 8 is unreliable and simply not the same – it’s about exploring the plant’s expressions through terpenes, cannabinoids, and the people that make it possible. 

Buying real weed is easier and cheaper than ever before. There are delivery services in every major city, not to mention some form of legal dispensary, unregulated bud boutique, or good old fashioned weed dealer open in every zip code in the country – handing any part of the market over to faceless edible and vape companies turning industrial hemp CBD extract into unrecognizable synthetic cannabinoids doesn’t do anyone any good.

Mids, exotics, outdoor, deps, indoor, new strains, old strains, brick weed full of seeds and stems – we deserve a weed industry, culture, and public reputation that centers the plant and rejects Delta 8 and its frankenstein synthetic cannabinoid cousins. 

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In Freetown, Sierra Leone, a cheap smoking mix that causes a powerful high—made up of cannabis, fentanyl, tramadol, formaldehyde, and reportedly in some cases, ground-up human bones—is sweeping the city and nation as a whole. It’s less a “new drug” and it’s rather more like a new drug mix made by drug manufacturers cutting drugs with cheaper substances that cause an effect. Locals roll the ground-up blend of drugs into joints and share them with friends for a long-lasting high.

Like the “zombie drugs” you see in the U.S. that cause addicts to be frozen in pose on the street (fentanyl or tranq), West African nations report their own version of a “zombie drug” that causes locals to be in a coma-like state. Sierra Leone leaders declared an emergency due to the prevalence of people, mostly young men ages 18-25 who are smoking “kush.” 

Unlike the landrace strain from Afghanistan and the Hindu Kush mountain range, “kush” in Sierra Leone means a constantly changing mix of drugs in a smoking mixture that probably contains potentially physically harmful ingredients—namely various opioids or human bones.

“One of the drug’s many ingredients is human bones—security has been tightened in cemeteries to stop addicts digging up skeletons from graves,” BBC reports. Smoking crushed human bones contributes to the drug’s hypnotic high that lasts about six hours. (Smoking human bones in a separate drug mixture also gained popularity in South America.) A disturbing now-deleted Reddit thread provided information on smoking human bones. 

The reports of grave-robbing added to the nation’s frenzy over this drug, which reportedly took popularity about six years ago. It drew the attention of Sierra Leone’s president. “Our country is currently faced with an existential threat due to the ravaging impact of drugs and substance abuse, particularly the devastating synthetic drug kush,” said Sierra Leone President Julius Maada Bio.

The country is also concerned about potential long-term effects, mostly due to the addictive properties of the “kush” mixture.

Sierra Leone Psychiatric Hospital, the only hospital of its kind in the country, says that between 2020 and 2023, admissions specifically for “kush” addicts surged by almost 4,000% to reach 1,865. Dr Abdul Jalloh, head of the Sierra Leone Psychiatric Hospital, said that the President’s emergency declaration is “the right step” and will be “crucial in addressing drug use.”

Options for locals are limited. There is reportedly only one drug rehabilitation center in Freetown. The 100-bed facility was “hurriedly set up in an army training center” earlier this year. Locals, however, say it’s more of a holding center than a rehab center because of its lack of basic facilities.

Locals hope the “kush” craze dies out and other, less harmful, drugs replace it.

Is There Truth Behind Smoked Bones?

The demonization of drugs may also play a role in the reality of how much “kush” actually contains human bones. However, seven cemeteries in Freetown reported grave-robbing for valuables in 2016.

Experiments with various substances that either produce a high or prolong a high have been introduced. Ground-up human bones also have been added to mixtures containing cocaine in other parts of the world.

Vice reported that people in South America are also smoking human bones to get high. The drug mixture in this region also contains extremely harmful ingredients in some cases. Vice reported in 2022 that “Basuco” is now considered the cheapest drug in the world—about 20 cents a hit. It’s made from low-quality cocaine, brick dust, volcanic ash, sulphuric acid, kerosene, and sometimes ground-up human bones. Basuco is described as an epidemic in Colombia. As it contains cocaine, smoking it causes the smoker to compulsively crave another hit. The high for this drug is also shockingly addictive, reported as an epidemic of basuco dependency in South America. 

So where exactly is “kush” being smoked? Mostly in countries in West Africa, where other types of drugs are scarce. The Conversation reports that the drug is reported in both Guinea and Liberia, which border Sierra Leone, making trafficking the drug easy.

Kush costs around five leones per joint, and they’re typically shared between people, with up to 40 joints being consumed in a day. About twenty Sierra Leonean leones (SLL) equals a U.S. dollar. The annual income per capita is around $630.

Drug mixes are common in some African countries, as drugs are cut with cheaper drugs.

Another drug mix, “white pipe”, is a mixture of the hypnotic sedative methaqualone (Mandrax), cannabis, and tobacco, and the drug is smoked in South Africa. South Africa is the leading consumer of Mandrax worldwide, with between 70% and 80% of the drug ending up in this country.

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Portugal approved the decriminalization of synthetic drugs, The Portugal News reports. Portugal has had the most liberal approach to all drugs across Europe for decades. The drug strategy, put in place in 2000 and enacted in July 2001, was initially created to reduce the HIV/AIDS toll stemming from intravenous drug use cases using a harm reduction model. (In 1999, Portugal had the highest rate of HIV amongst such drug users in the European Union.) Their policy included decriminalizing personal drug possession and would influence similar efforts in places such as Oregon. And it worked, at least at drastically reducing HIV rates. As The Washington Post reports, HIV transmission rates via syringes plummeted. 

However, while drugs are decriminalized for those who enjoy them, their policies maintain criminal penalties for drug trafficking. So basically, you can get in trouble if you supply, but not if you use. Anyone familiar with how drug culture works can understand that while the goal is admirable, this approach is far from perfect if the true goal is to protect the public’s health. People will always find a way to get drugs whether their suppliers get arrested or not. But what such suppliers are selling is changing. 

Synthetic drugs are artificially modified from naturally-occurring substances. For example, fentanyl is a synthetic opioid. The new law equates the legal approach to these substances with that of “classic drugs” like cannabis, heroin, and cocaine. The debate regarding synthetic drugs that led to their decriminalization centered on these new substances’ adverse effects on communities. While Portugal’s laws offered hope to harm reductionists worldwide, as The Washington Post notes, unfortunately, due to more recent and deadlier drugs, and other factors, the country still has drug problems. Drug use is apparently more visible on the streets than ever, and interest in offering help for substance use disorders seems to be dwindling. 

“At the end of the day, the police have their hands tied,” said António Leitão da Silva, chief of Municipal Police of Porto, adding the matter now is much like the years before decriminalization was implemented in 2000.

“Twenty-seven years later, it is necessary to change the current legal framework in order to cover this new and harsh reality,” social democratic deputy Sara Madruga da Costa said, calling back to the 2000 law, adding they plan to provide a “faster response and more effective response to this complex and alarming phenomenon” which mainly affects Madeira and the Azores regions in Portugal.

Madruga da Costa says that the distinction between consumer and dealer “is fundamental” to combat the horrors of synthetic drugs by applying their current laws to newer drugs. In addition to decriminalizing synthetic drugs, the text further eliminates the criteria based on the number of doses, or amount of drugs, to distinguish between consumers and traffickers (i.e. who can get arrested). However, it still aims to differentiate one from the other, so suppliers can’t relax yet. 

Cláudia Santos, deputy of the PS (Portuguese Socialist Party), noted that 23 years ago, the “historic decision” was made to decriminalize the possession of drugs for consumption in Portugal. Despite this legislature, from 2009 onward, the number of citizens convicted of crimes of consumption went up. “With this project, we want to reaffirm the option made for the prevention and treatment of consumers,” said the PS parliamentarian, considering that possessing drugs for consumption “should not be a crime,” The Portugal News reports.

Part of Portugal’s drug policy has always included treatment, and they hope to offer care more than ever, as psychiatric hospitalization due to unhealthy use of synthetic drugs has spiked, Business Insider reports. However, their system is far from perfect. There are currently year-long waits for state-funded rehabilitation treatment. 

You should know that while the country developed a progressive drug policy reputation early on, cannabis remains illegal. 

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The number of deadly overdoses from fentanyl surged between 2016 and 2021, according to a disquieting new report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The report, which was released on Wednesday, found that 69,943 died of a fentanyl-induced overdose in 2021 at a rate of 21.6. That is up considerably from 2016, when 18,499 died of an overdose from fentanyl at a rate of 5.7.

According to CNN, the Centers for Disease Control typically “reports overdose data by broader drug categories.”

“Fentanyl, for example, is grouped with other synthetic opioids like tramadol and nitazenes. But for Wednesday’s report, researchers took a closer look at the specific drugs that are included on death certificates for people who died of overdoses, highlighting demographic differences,” CNN reported.

Caleb Banta-Green, a research professor at the University of Washington School of Medicine’s Addictions, Drug & Alcohol Institute, told CNN that specifying the drug that caused the overdose is crucial for researchers.

“We need to know exactly what people are dying from so we know what services they need to stay alive,” said Banta-Green. 

The report found an increase in deadly overdose from several other drugs as well. 

“The age-adjusted rate of drug overdose deaths involving fentanyl more than tripled over the study period, from 5.7 per 100,000 standard population in 2016 to 21.6 in 2021, with a 55.0% increase from 2019 (11.2) to 2020 (17.4), and a 24.1% increase from 2020 to 2021 (21.6). The rate of drug overdose deaths involving methamphetamine more than quadrupled, from 2.1 in 2016 to 9.6 in 2021,” the CDC reported. The rate of drug overdose deaths involving cocaine more than doubled, from 3.5 in 2016 to 7.9 per 100,000 in 2021. The rate of drug overdose deaths involving heroin decreased by 40.8%, from 4.9 in 2016 to 2.9 in 2021, although this decrease was not statistically significant. The rate of drug overdose deaths involving oxycodone decreased 21.0%, from 1.9 in 2016 to 1.5 in 2021.” 

“In 2021, the age-adjusted rate of drug overdose deaths was highest for deaths involving fentanyl (21.6 per 100,000 standard population), followed by methamphetamine (9.6), cocaine (7.9), heroin (2.9), and oxycodone (1.5). Patterns were similar when stratified by sex,” the report continued.

The CDC said that it “analyzed literal text from the National Vital Statistics System mortality data for deaths occurring in the United States among U.S. residents.”

“From 2016 through 2021, age-adjusted drug overdose death rates involving fentanyl, methamphetamine, and cocaine increased, while drug overdose death rates involving oxycodone decreased,” the CDC reported. “In 2021, the age-adjusted death rates for males were higher than the rates for females for all drugs analyzed. Among those aged 25–64, the highest rate of drug overdose deaths involved fentanyl; although a similar pattern was observed among those aged 0–24 years and 65 and over, no significant differences were observed between the rates. Fentanyl was also the most frequent opioid or stimulant drug involved in drug overdose deaths for the race and Hispanic-origin groups analyzed.” 

As CNN said, “[p]harmaceutical fentanyl is a synthetic opioid intended to help patients, such as those with cancer, manage severe pain.” 

“It is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine and typically prescribed in the form of skin patches or lozenges. But most recent cases of fentanyl-related harm, overdose and death in the United States are linked to illegally made fentanyl, according to the CDC,” CNN reported.

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Toxic exposure to dangerous drugs that mimic the structure and effects of THC fell in states that legalized cannabis, according to a new study—confirming the idea that nature knows best, and that cannabis is far safer (and more popular) than spice.

It’s not the leaf matter, but the powdered drug sprayed on smokable plants. In the U.S. and Canada, it’s called “spice” or “K2,” and in Turkey it’s called “bonsai.” In Japan, different varieties of compounds are popular called “dappo.” But all drugs in the class are essentially the same: synthetic compounds that mimic the intoxicating effects of THC. In the U.S., damiana is the most common herb the drug is sprayed on, while nearly all varieties are sold sprayed on mixtures of smokable plants.

There are at least 450 different chemical compounds now being sold—often synthesized by amateurs, with dangerous consequences. People who turn to them risk their own well-being just to pass a drug test for cannabis.

The drugs gained popularity in the 2000s and reached a boiling point by 2015. Over 42,000 cases of toxic exposure from spice drugs were reported between 2010 and 2015, according to the ToxIC Case Registry. By 2016, spice use was considered an emergency situation in New York City. In 2017, experts estimated that half a million people in Turkey were regular bonsai smokers.

Can the situation get worse? Actually it can. In 2018, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a warning that the U.S. blood supply is contaminated with spice drugs and that the spiked blood can cause further effects in the people who receive donated blood. That scare, however, was caused by spice drugs being laced with brodifacoum.

Fortunately, legal weed appears to be making spice less popular.

What the Data Shows

The study, titled “Synthetic cannabinoid poisonings and access to the legal cannabis market: findings from US national poison centre data 2016–2019,” analyzed data spanning three years, and was published online on August 8.

What they found was a significant drop in toxic exposures to spice drugs, presumably because people prefer the real thing.

“Adoption of permissive state cannabis policy was independently and significantly associated with 37% lower reported annual synthetic exposures,” researchers wrote, “relative to restrictive policies.”

States with adult-use cannabis were associated with 22% fewer reported quarterly exposures—and the opening of retail markets was associated with 36% fewer reported exposures, relative to states with only medical cannabis.

“Adoption of permissive cannabis law was associated with significant reductions in reported synthetic cannabinoid exposures,” researchers wrote. “More permissive cannabis law may have the unintended benefit of reducing both motivation and harms associated with use of synthetic cannabis products.”

One reason that people turn to spice when cannabis is clearly a safer bet is that people want to avoid failing drug screens for cannabis for pre-employment tests or other purposes.

CNN reports that the study shows the popularity of spice is declining, particularly in states that legalized cannabis. Tracy Klein is assistant director for the Center for Cannabis Policy, Research and Outreach at Washington State University in Vancouver, Washington. “These products are made in a powdered format and could be sprayed on or added to something that looks exactly like natural cannabis. So, in a party situation, I could see that someone could use this unintentionally,” Klein told CNN.

WTF is Spice?

“Synthetic cannabinoids,” if you want to call them that, are nothing new, but one particular compound took off as a recreational drug.

JWH-018—the original spice drug compound—began as a research chemical for medical purposes. John W. Huffman, for which the compound was named, synthesized JWH-018 in 1995 as one of many synthetic cannabinoids.

Then circa 2004-2007 JWH-018 suddenly started appearing all over the internet—often marketed as “bonsai fertilizer.” Most likely the bonsai fertilizer tag was simply a front.

Lewis Nelson, a medical toxicologist at the NYU School of Medicine, said that it’s a poor decision to call these types of drugs “synthetic cannabinoids” as they behave far differently from organic cannabis.

The drugs are still popular, and proof is in the news. In New Haven, Connecticut, for instance, over 100 people overdosed on a batch of K2 in 2018. But as more states legalize cannabis and reduce drug testing for cannabis, spice use is falling.

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As the wholesale price-per-pound of legal cannabis plummets in some states bordering Mexico, cartels in the country are shifting to more lucrative drugs: fentanyl and other synthetic drugs. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced this week that fentanyl is now the leading cause of death for Americans ages 18-45, thanks in part to criminal involvement in multiple countries.

Texas is the only state bordering Mexico without adult-use cannabis, and it shows in the prices. Mexico’s cartels once relied on organic farms of poppies and cannabis to produce drugs, but the times have changed. Illicit cannabis eradication in Mexico was slashed in half in recent years—aligning with the timeline of pot legalization up north.

Mexico’s Secretary of Defense, General Luis Cresencio Sandoval said that for cartels, cannabis and other organic drugs like opium-rich poppies are out, and fentanyl is in. 

The Associated Press reports that according to Sandoval, seizures of fentanyl soared 525 percent during the first three years of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s reign, who took office December 1, 2018, compared to the previous three years. 

During that time period, law enforcement agents seized 1,232 pounds (559 kilograms) of fentanyl in 2016-2018 and 7,710 pounds (3,497 kilograms) in 2019-2021.  

The reason for the switch is that the bottom line improves when cartel operations shift from organic opiate to synthetic opioids, which are cheaper to produce. “There was a change in consumption, there was a change in drug markets due to the ease of producing synthetic drugs,” Sandoval said. Cartels no longer have to pay for manpower to grow poppies and slowly scrape the opium that oozes from the poppy bulbs. The same could be said about the growing/trimming/curing process for cannabis.

But the synthetic drugs don’t originate from Mexico. Mexican cartels can order fentanyl online from Asia at wholesale value, then cut it up into doses ready for the street. Labs also produce drugs like meth, which is also more profitable than organic cannabis or opium. “The laboratories that have been discovered or seized in this administration have had larger capacities, which has allowed us to seize a larger quantity of methamphetamine products,” Sandoval said.

Meth seizures soared from 120,100 pounds (54,521 kilograms) in 2016-2018 to nearly 275,000 pounds (124,735 kilograms) in the last three years—a 128 percent increase. On November 18, a record-breaking amount of meth and fentanyl were discovered being delivered from a trucker at the Otay Mesa port of entry in San Diego, according to a report by the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of California. Border agents found 17,584 pounds of methamphetamine and 388.93 pounds of fentanyl in the truck.

Mexico’s data matches recent documents updated on October 14, and compiled by the Congressional Research Service (CRS), which operates within the Library of Congress, working directly for members of Congress. “Despite early supply chain disruptions, U.S.-bound illicit drug supplies appear to have returned to pre-pandemic levels; illicit fentanyl flows in particular appear to be thriving,” CRS reported. Just a year earlier, the CRS admitted that legal cannabis in particular is hurting cartels in another document. “Authorities are projecting a continued decline in U.S. demand for Mexican marijuana because drugs ‘other than marijuana’ will likely predominate,” CRS wrote. “This is also the case due to legalized cannabis or medical cannabis in several U.S. states and Canada, reducing its value as part of Mexican trafficking organizations’ portfolio.”

Meanwhile, Mexico’s Senate is on track to endorsing recreational cannabis.

Still, some cartel operations plan on selling cannabis, legal or not. The Daily Beast reports that the Sinaloa cartel are already working on infiltrating the legal pot market in Mexico, according to “cartel operatives.” It’s unclear how the cartel plans to move forward, such as muscling its way into licensing.

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