[HN Gopher] Congress accidentally legalized THC six years ago
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Congress accidentally legalized THC six years ago
Author : fortran77
Score : 132 points
Date : 2024-07-15 11:54 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theatlantic.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theatlantic.com)
| chomp wrote:
| Yep you've been able to buy bud, edibles, all sorts of stuff here
| in Texas from big name smoke shops, for now.
| AvieDeckard wrote:
| I've been very much enjoying these loopholes, as someone who
| lacks any personal connections in my state. I've been keeping
| an eye on these proposed reforms. It might be time to buy some
| up to keep for a rainy day.
| dtagames wrote:
| Indeed. The state health department tried to stop it a few
| years ago. The $8 billion hemp product industry in Texas ended
| that in about 3 days. The state was found to have no
| jurisdiction.
|
| Recently, there was an "alternative hemp products" expo here in
| Houston (that's the new word for this stuff). Just like the
| marijuana expos in Colorado when that first became legal, Texas
| is a dry state for pot with no legal states within an easy
| drive. This, combined with our huge population, makes it a
| natural market "alt hemp." I don't think it will be going away
| here anytime soon.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| The state was found to have no jurisdiction.
|
| I know politicians can justify laws coinciding with their
| belief system, but this strikes me as hilarious rationale. I
| thought the state was supposed to be the final authority.
| Does anyone have the ability to regulate the sale of plants?
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| The constitution (Texas' and/or USA's) is (theoretically)
| the final authority. It's possible that many things don't
| have constitutional authorization for state regulation.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| Regulating sale of crops (via taxes, quality control
| standards, defining a vegetable, or even the standardized
| size of a bushel) seem government rights with exceedingly
| long precedent. The constitution was signed when the
| economy was predominantly agricultural.
|
| I appreciate the outcome, even though I detest the, "I'll
| use it when it benefits my beliefs" kind of execution.
| lesuorac wrote:
| Does it?
|
| The original intent of the 5th amendment was that even
| your stuff couldn't be used against you in a court of
| law. The Founders were all wealthy businessmen committing
| treason; surely they'd have been in support of a very
| weak government when they later framed the Constitution.
|
| The USDA is 1862 and some of the more famous events like
| "The Jungle" [1] leading to food safety laws are well
| after the Constitution. Getting sick an dieing was just a
| fact of the old times and I don't think people were like
| "lets band together and use government to make use get
| less sick".
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Meat_Inspectio
| n_Act#Hi...
| whoitwas wrote:
| Yes, you can buy chemical extractions of not delta-9 cannabinoids
| that might make you a little almost high.
| wavefunction wrote:
| It will make you very high. Not necessarily in the same manner
| or experience that "normal cannabis" does but most of those
| products do contain synthetic terpenes and isomers of delta-9
| or what they market as "delta-10" or other product names.
| Paired with CBD in the admixture they can approximate the
| natural cannabis experience
| jajko wrote:
| Can somebody else confirm this? This stuff was and sometimes
| still is freely available in Europe, and so is CBD in various
| forms.
|
| At the end I don't care what chemicals do get mixed but trips
| from THC substitutes are not the same and not only for me
| subpar to the point of ignoring it (closer to being dizzy
| from alcohol than fun creative weed, also tolerance seems to
| be built much faster).
| kghjfdfjsugk wrote:
| delta-8 tends to be more mild than delta-9, but it
| definitely does the job. the bigger issue with delta-8 is
| you can only find it in extract form (i.e. vape pens), and
| it's hard to find a quality brand that doesn't taste like
| shit.
|
| another issue the article doesn't mention is the thca
| loophole.
|
| the farm bill only concerns itself with straight delta-9
| thc, and as it turns out most weed has very little delta-9.
|
| most weed is high in thca and fairly low in delta-9 thc.
| the thc-a is converted to delta-9 thc through
| decarboxylation by heat -- when you smoke, vape, or cook
| the flower, the thc-a become delta-9 thc.
|
| because of this, i can visit a hemp shop here in indiana
| where i buy what seems to just be plain old weed of pretty
| decent quality. it's labeled as thc-a and costs about
| $250/oz.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| Just drive to michigan and get the real deal for like
| half the price
| kghjfdfjsugk wrote:
| i mean, it's a 9 minute round-trip to the hemp shop, vs
| just shy of 9 hours round-trip to the nearest weed shop
| in michigan. the thc-a super silver haze i'm smoking now
| is indistinguishable from a solid mid-tier sativa found
| in any recreational state weed shop. the prices here are
| on-par with washington and way less than california.
| dole wrote:
| There's tons of delta 8, 10 and 11 vapes flooding gas
| stations and smoke shops, my feeling is that they only
| provide about 30-60% of the intensity and duration as 9
| does. If it's named "Chapo" it has to be good, right?
| whoitwas wrote:
| I don't agree. Delta 9 is restricted for a reason.
| thcthrowaway98 wrote:
| Not sure I follow. What are you suggesting?
| astura wrote:
| As TFA points out, you can also buy edibles and drinks with
| chemical extractions of delta-9 THC too. They are widely
| available, accept major credit cards, and ship to all states.
| whoitwas wrote:
| Yes. In concentrations up to .3%. Which is useless.
| rmorey wrote:
| consuming a 2g gummy which is .3% d9 THC is a dose of 6mg,
| which is small, but a real dose, especially for a non-
| regular user
| delecti wrote:
| And for size reference, 1g is pretty close to the weight
| of a single M&M. My homemade caramels, which I consider
| to be plenty strong, are definitely weaker than .3%,
| judging by the effects.
| boston_clone wrote:
| .3% THC-delta9 by weight for a large item is not
| insignificant.
|
| E.g., a 100g chocolate bar could have up to 300mg, no?
| advisedwang wrote:
| As the article points out, you can have 30mg of THC in a
| 10g gummy and get perfectly blasted
| astura wrote:
| From TFA:
|
| >Hemp-based intoxicants aren't limited to delta-8 THC. The
| Farm Bill also appears to authorize the creation of hemp-
| based delta-9 THC products as long as the total delta-9
| content is 0.3 percent or less of the product's dry weight.
| This turns out to be easy to do. Carolindica, for instance,
| sells a 10-gram gummy that contains 30 milligrams of hemp-
| derived delta-9 THC, which is exactly 0.3 percent of the
| gummy's total weight. The Florida-based company Crispy
| Blunts sells a cookie that weighs 22 grams and contains 50
| milligrams of delta-9 THC. At 0.23 percent by weight,
| that's well under the Farm Bill's threshold, but the total
| THC content is five to 10 times as high as the legal per-
| serving limit in many of the states that have legalized
| recreational-marijuana edibles.
| cthalupa wrote:
| Respectfully, you do not seem well informed on this matter.
|
| THCA, when decarbed, will convert into regular THC. A good
| chunk of what you are smoking with "regular" marijuana was
| likely THCA when on the flower, particularly if it is
| relatively fresh.
|
| I've been smoking for decades. The THCA products will get you
| just as high as a similarly potent strain of recreational stuff
| in a legal state.
| aoieu wrote:
| Are we sure this loophole in the legislation was accidental?
| Seems like a surprisingly convenient mistake to make.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Wouldn't be the first time. Dems in MN managed to slip a
| similar loophole through the Republican-controlled state senate
| a while back.
| https://www.npr.org/2022/07/02/1109576113/minnesota-thc-edib...
|
| Or Tennesee, where early versions of a law accidentally forgot
| to keep marrying a toddler illegal. (They fixed that one.)
| https://www.npr.org/2022/07/02/1109576113/minnesota-thc-edib...
| mywittyname wrote:
| > Minnesota state Sen. Jim Abeler, a Republican from Anoka,
| told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune he did not realize this law
| would allow THC-infused edibles of any kind and thought it
| would only apply to delta-8 THC products.
|
| It's almost as though people who are _experts in a field_
| should be in charge of making the specific regulations, with
| Congress tasking them with high-level objectives.
|
| Expect more of this with the Chevron deference ruling. Now we
| will have judges making these decisions using only technical
| input from the party in favor of looser restrictions.
| AmericanChopper wrote:
| > It's almost as though people who are experts in a field
| should be in charge of making the specific regulations,
| with Congress tasking them with high-level objectives.
|
| You're literally advocating for a technocracy, which most
| people don't want. We don't need a overclass of technical
| elites running our lives, we just need competent law
| makers. Legislators can and do consult with experts when
| writing their legislation. We don't need to do away with
| democracy just because some of them don't do a good job.
| Even if they are useless, we do at least have the lawmakers
| that we want to have.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > You're literally advocating for a technocracy, which
| most people don't want.
|
| No. They're advocating for what we've had since at
| _least_ 1984 in the US. (Longer, really, as Chevron just
| established SCOTUS precedent for what was already the
| setup for decades.)
|
| > We don't need a overclass of technical elites running
| our lives, we just need competent law makers.
|
| And unicorns! And cotton candy clouds! And a river of
| chocolate!
|
| Even the smartest and most well-intentioned lawmakers
| still have to function at a high level. They are not
| capable of getting down into the weeds on the breadth of
| issues applicable to an entire country of 350M people.
| Some will absolutely have pet issues they do a lot of
| research on, but understanding even the basics of
| _everything_ is... tough.
| AmericanChopper wrote:
| > No. They're advocating for what we've had since at
| least 1984 in the US.
|
| Are you suggesting this element of our governance has
| been well received by the population? Have you been
| satisfied with the government during that period?
|
| Just because a system managed to become the status quo
| for a period of time doesn't mean it wasn't technocratic.
| Because that is absolutely a technocratic way to
| legislate.
|
| The system described in the patent comment is also far
| more technocratic than chevron deference ever was.
| Allowing regulators some room to interpret legislation is
| completely different from giving them some high level
| objectives and carte blanch to implement them however
| they see fit.
|
| > Even the smartest and most well-intentioned lawmakers
| still have to function at a high level. They are not
| capable of getting down into the weeds on the breadth of
| issues applicable to an entire country of 350M people.
|
| They have never had to be, because that's not how laws
| are written. Laws are written by teams of lawyers and
| subject matter experts, and then voted on by legislators.
| If you want to remove the legislators from this process,
| or distance them from it to some degree, then you're
| removing/distancing the democracy from it.
| myvoiceismypass wrote:
| I am happy with a many of "the government" initiatives in
| my lifetime (which spans beyond your 84 threshold) that
| were enacted by one party (the one always cleaning up
| deficit messes), yes.
| jjk166 wrote:
| > You're literally advocating for a technocracy, which
| most people don't want.
|
| Technocracy is widely supported in the US.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| I'm sorry to inform you that Hacker News and Silicon
| Valley are not the entirety of the American landscape.
| petesergeant wrote:
| Thailand managed something similar, an attempt to reform the
| law to be slightly more cannabis friendly, and ended up in some
| kind of legal limbo where it's become unregulated in practice:
|
| https://time.com/6208192/thailand-war-on-drugs-weed-legal/
|
| Which is a big deal for a country that used to have
| exceptionally draconian laws about it.
| alephnerd wrote:
| They revoked it within 2 years and are back to the old laws.
|
| Outside of the tourist/expat/backpacker bubble Thailand is
| very conservative.
|
| Neighboring Myanmar having Balkanized into multiple mini-
| narco states doesn't help either.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| Considering the groups looking to close the loophole, I can
| believe it was unintentional. Especially since this started as
| a project from Mitch McConnell to support his home industry.
| The end of the article notes how Florida is continuing to fight
| marijuana. ...legislative battles at the state
| level. In early June, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis launched a
| political-action committee to fight a state ballot initiative
| that would legalize recreational marijuana. The very same week,
| he vetoed a bill that would have restricted hemp cannabinoids
| in the state.
| gnu8 wrote:
| I was wondering if the Supreme Court had legalized all drugs
| recently when they discovered that the executive branch agencies
| lack the power to create detailed regulations. Surely that would
| include the DEA's power to schedule drugs, wouldn't it?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| No; the ruling mostly moves _adjudication of disputes_ over
| regulations from the administrative agency into the courts.
| From one set of unelected bureaucrats to another.
|
| It's likely to result in a DDoS of the court system, but all
| existing regulations remain in effect until someone brings it
| to that one-judge jurisdiction in Texas with the judge that
| loves issuing nationwide injunctions.
|
| It's darkly funny to me that the Court, in this power grab,
| managed to illustrate how insane this is probably going to get
| directly in the opinion; it repeatedly mixed up nitrogen oxides
| with _nitrous oxide_.
| https://newrepublic.com/article/183285/supreme-court-chevron...
| mywittyname wrote:
| >It's likely to result in a DDoS of the court system, but all
| existing regulations remain in effect until someone brings it
| to that one-judge jurisdiction in Texas with the judge that
| loves issuing nationwide injunctions.
|
| But also SCOTUS shot down _stare decisis_ , so another court
| at the same level can make the opposite ruling and that
| ruling also holds.
|
| Someone is going to eventually take this ruling to it's
| logical conclusion: using "scientific mumbo-jumbo" to get a
| compound legalized/illegal. Hopefully it's something like,
| "SCOTUS bans all sales of all forms of dihydrogen monoxide",
| but there's the very real possibility of something far more
| sinister.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Whether or not they shot down _stare decisis_ is purely a
| matter of opinion.
|
| They have issued no formal ruling on the principle, and I
| am sure if challenged would insist that it still holds. It
| doesn't matter than you or I think that their actual
| rulings this term (not to mention Dobbs) bring _stare
| decisis_ at least into question, at most into the abyss.
| jcranmer wrote:
| > No; the ruling mostly moves adjudication of disputes over
| regulations from the administrative agency into the courts.
|
| Not quite. Chevron deference (what was struck down) says that
| if the statute is ambiguous, courts are required to accept
| the agency's interpretation of the statute. In practice,
| striking down Chevron deference is unlikely to make much of a
| difference--it now means courts don't have to find a statute
| to be unambiguous to ignore the agency's interpretation, and
| many courts have already been willing to do that.
|
| The bigger issue is that another case this term effectively
| guts the concept of statute of limitations for regulations,
| saying that the clock starts from when someone is injured by
| the regulation, even if the regulation predates their legal
| existence by decades. All you have to do to challenge a
| decades-old ruling is form a new corporation,
| congratulations, you are now newly injured by regulations
| that predate the founders' births. That's more likely to DDoS
| the court system.
| prophesi wrote:
| Wish they delved further into legal Delta 9 THC. The Farm Bill
| limits how much of the activated Delta 9 products may contain.
|
| Essentially, they grow hemp like regular marijuana, except it's
| grown in the shade and plucked early. This prevents the sunlight
| from activating the THC-A in the plant and keeps the federally
| regulated Delta 9 under the legal limit.
|
| Now breed the plants so that they have a higher level of THC-A,
| and you get to where we are today where THC-A bud you can buy in
| a smoke shop will be about as potent as recreational/medical
| marijuana.
|
| This is also increasing the potency of recreational/medical
| marijuana across the board as places will use the same plants
| harvested for THC-A; just grown in the sun instead.
| bitxbitxbitcoin wrote:
| There is a lot of misinformation here.
|
| THC-A is the acid form of Delta 9 THC. Marijuana has mostly
| THC-A that doesn't turn into d9 thc until it is decarboxylated.
| Look at any test result COAs of marijuana to see what I am
| talking about.
|
| THC-A hemp is just marijuana that isn't considered marijuana
| until it is burnt. Hemp is just cannabis. It is all cannabis.
| The same cultivars are being used for THC-A hemp as medicinal
| and recreational. In fact, there is genetic bottlenecking going
| on.
|
| As you said though, cutting early generally ensures that any
| cultivar doesn't "test hot" for d9 THC. Besides sufficient
| heat, THC-A turns into d9THC through oxidation as well as UV
| exposure so the sun isn't necessary. There is plenty of THC-A
| hemp flower being grown indoors too.
|
| Happy to answer any further questions.
| prophesi wrote:
| Thanks, that's why I wish they delved into the topic further
| as I'm certainly no expert in chemistry or growing cannabis.
| When I meant "activated" delta 9, I meant decarb'd as you
| said. Not sure where I'm giving misinformation apart from
| that.
|
| Would you say that vapes and edibles in this loophole
| inherently have to be sprayed with chemicals, due to how
| these inherently must be decarb'd, and due to the very low
| yield of other cannabinoids like Delta 8 in cannabis?
| notamy wrote:
| > In fact, there is genetic bottlenecking going on.
|
| Do you have more info about this? I've never seen this claim
| before (not saying you're wrong) and would love to learn
| more.
| mkatx wrote:
| You are mostly correct. But there are definitely common
| instances where hemp that is strain specific to be low in THC
| is sprayed with outside sourced thca. I have found this to be
| the case for most brands I see in texas, unfortunately. That
| and added synthetic terpenes imo bastardize the legal hemp
| industry as it is.
|
| It's this exactly that turned me off, especially after a
| sales person misinformed me that their products where
| definitely not sprayed with anything, when the flower brand
| website itself told me otherwise.
| ProllyInfamous wrote:
| >THC-A bud you can buy in a smoke shop will be about as potent
| as recreational/medical marijuana.
|
| Except it _tastes like dog farts_ , on account of its growing
| irregularities (e.g. lack of sunshine, as you pointed out).
|
| As a personal annecdote, test-sample size of _only a few ounces
| (of "legal weed" [THC-A])_, my Volcano vaporizer filter/screen
| looks entirely different when running illegal/legal products
| through it:
|
| For THC-A, the screens cake-up _quickly_ with a dense, black,
| tar-like substance; no green is left within the plant _even
| after fewer runs /hits_; the vapoo (depleted marijuana, thrown
| out) is left lifeless, stunk.
|
| For full-grown marijuana, the vaporizer screen is still dirtied
| brown, but it's fluffier (cottonlike) and accumulates much.
| more. slowly. The vapoo still has flecks of green, and nothing
| appears charred. It smells like popcorn instead of shit-stained
| bedsheets. "Trim" & "ditch weed" sublimate similarly, albeit
| for not as long/strong (but tastes better than legal weed,
| still).
|
| Perhaps the temperature needs to be lowered for THC-A? I don't
| know, but I ask the few friends I know that buy local (legal
| THC-A) weed to "bring me a gram of the next `good ounce` you
| buy from that store, and we'll see what Volcano can do." I have
| yet to see much deviation from my above-observations.
|
| ----
|
| Combusting THC-A ("legal weed") has never been an enjoyable
| experience [no sunshine == no terpines/flavanoids], but vaping
| it does still deliver some "high" _so I know there must be some
| weed in there_.
| haswell wrote:
| Anecdotally, some of the THC-A flower I've tried wasn't
| anything like what you're describing in terms of
| taste/aftermath, but does seem to stress the particle filter
| on my Storz & Bickel Mighty.
|
| I suspect this has a lot to do with the particular strain and
| grower. I was experimenting with products from Wildflower
| Hemp based out of Bend, OR.
|
| I'm in a legal state and prefer the predictability and
| quality of the "real" stuff, but was surprised by how decent
| the pure hemp experience was since I've heard people describe
| a range of experiences/results.
| deergomoo wrote:
| > depleted marijuana, thrown out
|
| Cook it! It remains pretty potent if you save up enough of
| it.
| klyrs wrote:
| > It remains pretty potent if you save up enough of it.
|
| That's... not what potent means
| bibliotekka wrote:
| Dog farts taste terrible.
| sgarland wrote:
| [citation needed]
| viccis wrote:
| I think it depends on the grower. Fairly certain some take
| some liberties like growing one of the plants under insane
| conditions to make this happen and then get their lab sample
| from it. My experience has been that the THC-A stuff I've
| gotten from high quality sellers (WNC for example) is
| substantially richer in terps than the stuff I can currently
| buy legally in my state, largely because that THC-A bud is
| grown in organic living soil, while the legal stuff is grown
| under insane regulations (common to medical-first states)
| that renders most of it dry, straw smelling, and leaving next
| to nothing in the kief collector. I would avoid buying from
| gas stations and similar outlets and look at user feedback
| online (r/CultOfTheFranklin on reddit is a good source)
|
| And since I'm replying here, I'll point out that the parent
| comment calls it "Delta 9", which is misleading because
| "Delta 9" is the common phrase used when people extract D9
| THC from "hemp" plants and then distribute it in edibles,
| which makes it legal because the bill specified "less than
| 0.3% Delta 9 THC on a dry-weight basis", and 10mg of THC is
| well below that for any gummy (or similar product like can of
| seltzer) that is > ~3g. The "THC-A" stuff makes use of a
| similar loophole in a very different way.
| TechDebtDevin wrote:
| They just grow regular marijuana and noone is checking. There's
| no regulatory framework to get licenses ect.
| hirvi74 wrote:
| What are you basing this off of? My state is one of the
| largest producers of hemp and has extremely strict
| regulations.
|
| You need to a have a license to grow, license to transport,
| license to sell, etc.. Seeds must be registered with the
| state and there will be periodic compliance inspections with
| steep punishment if violated.
|
| https://www.tn.gov/agriculture/farms/hemp-
| industry/hemp/lice...
|
| Not to mention the difference between marijuana and THCA hemp
| is a legal distinction and not inherently scientific.
| robg wrote:
| Clickbait, not weed but THC and CBD derivatives that when
| combined can approximate the subjective feeling of being "high".
| BugsJustFindMe wrote:
| The molecules are the molecules. There's no "approximate" here.
| robg wrote:
| Molecules don't equal the subjectivity of different strains,
| terpenes, THC levels, etc.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| There is a lot of push among marketing for entourage effect
| but actual evidence for it is pretty scant.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| It's probably a lot like wine, where blindfolded critics
| struggle to determine between red and white or $5 and
| $5000 wine but can claim to tell you which particular
| hillside of a vineyard in France the bottle came from if
| they can see the bottle.
| jajko wrote:
| If you never felt any difference between 5 euro and 50
| euro red wine, you are buying wrong wines and probably at
| wrong place. I only once had wine over 100 euros, but
| that was something else altogether. I put prices in euros
| as they are in France, where we often shop although not
| coming from there (and having no idea about prices across
| the pond), nor having kind of 'wine tradition' in
| family/region/country I come from.
|
| I can't judge price from taste, but for sure I can
| appreciate massive variations and types of taste
| experience in good red wines, bigger than any other drink
| I've experienced including whiskeys (again, never tried
| expensive ones but say up to 100 euro per bottle).
| Initial hit, body, aftertaste, how it changes when in
| your mouth. The higher ones are (near) flawless
| experience every sip, rich, smooth tastes I couldn't
| previously imagine a simple wine can hold.
|
| Not saying every wine deserves its price, most probably
| not, but there are gems even in mid tier category, at
| least for me (+ my wife who feels the same).
|
| Also, one of best red wine experiences was a random buy
| for 12 euros from some local bodega in Puglia, south
| Italy. Explosion of fruits and nuts, very very long and
| varied aftertaste that felt like a small symphony. I
| tried desperately after vacation there to buy it online,
| and its simply not out there... one of those local,
| (still) highly under-appreciated gems.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Unless you're doing rigorous double-blind studies, "I
| swear I can!" isn't all that meaningful.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_wine_tasting
|
| > In the course of their routine duties, he would
| sometimes present the judges with samples from the same
| bottle three times without their knowledge. The judges
| were among the top experts in the American wine industry:
| winemakers, sommeliers, critics and buyers as well as
| wine consultants and academics. The results were
| "disturbing"... "Over the years he has shown again and
| again that even trained, professional palates are
| terrible at judging wine."
| viccis wrote:
| >blindfolded critics struggle to determine between red
| and white
|
| This never happened.
|
| The source of this myth is typically a 2001 experiment (G
| Morrot, F Brochet, D Dubourdieu), in which they took
| oenology undergraduate students and had them (not
| blindly) taste wine and write down tasting notes. A week
| later they repeated it, but with a white wine and another
| white wine that they dyed red, given a list of their "red
| wine notes" and "white wine notes" from the prior trial,
| and asked to label the two wines using them. They found
| that the students were more likely to pick from their
| "red wine notes" to describe the dyed red wine.
|
| There are a couple of problems here. First is that a
| small (50) sample of undergraduate students were used,
| not "critics", and there was no requirement for them to
| have any wine drinking experience. I have met _very_ few
| college kids with developed wine palates, most (even in
| France where the study was done) I 've known drank
| whatever booze was cheap and available. Second is that
| the trial was testing visual biases to tasting notes by
| examining faked visual cues, which is not the same as
| "determining between red and white" wines blindfolded for
| example. It's a very specific thing and no one who brings
| this study up seems to understand that. They were neither
| neither "blindfolded" nor "critics".
|
| In my experience, for common varieties and wine regions,
| wine professionals can typically place it to the given
| region of a country and sometimes a given year based off
| a tasting. I've seen them practice for CSM exams doing
| this, and you would be pretty surprised at how often
| they're very close to correct (if not entirely so). Your
| average non-professional who drinks a lot of wine and
| pays attention to common notes can also usually place the
| grape and/or region pretty well, they'll just get thrown
| off by outliers like Eastern Europe orange wine or
| Tasmanian pinots or whatever.
|
| As far as $5 vs $5000, $5 is a price point that is
| impossible to meet without extensive use of additives and
| tricks like adding wine concentrate to a thinned out
| (read: cut) and deacidified wine, and then correcting its
| color with an additive like Mega Purple. I've never
| tasted a good $5 bottle. $20 and up is where you have the
| chance of getting great bottles, and then it is true that
| (imo outside of a few types like champagne) the only
| difference between high and low cost wine is the price
| tag.
|
| Of course, "critics" will tell you that one wine or
| another is good for all sorts of reasons. Maybe it is
| good, maybe they are afraid of offending a large
| producer, maybe their parent company has a stake in the
| wine being reviewed, maybe (in the case of Robert Parker)
| they are a lush that likes overly boozy and juicy reds.
| Either way, don't take wine critics too seriously, it is
| not an honest industry, and be especially skeptical of
| Parker-style numerical ratings.
| bitxbitxbitcoin wrote:
| The evidence is coming out now that real experiments are
| easier to do.
|
| See Russo's latest double blind work on distillate +
| specific terpenes.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| This paper? https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38498958/
|
| Only surveyed 20 people, subjective rating of effects, no
| word on existing tolerance in this cohort. Also double
| blind is pretty impossible to actually do when it is in
| terms of a psychoactive drug. Imagine testing drunkenness
| and having a cohort drink water, how useless that would
| be as a placebo, as people would know immediately they
| have not been given the drug and are still feeling quite
| sober.
| karaterobot wrote:
| I've never met a weed gatekeeper, this is kind of exciting. I
| wish I had some simple heuristics for determining whether I was
| _authentically_ high or just fake high.
| grubbs wrote:
| Is this the reason I could legally buy weed in Nashville, TN a
| few weeks ago? It sounded like there were some crazy loophole
| there.
| gs17 wrote:
| The same loophole is used to sell THC products in stores here,
| but any plant material used is usually hemp.
|
| There also used to (there still might be) be guys selling fake
| weed (as in no high) products to tourists on Broadway downtown
| where the "loophole" was that the product wasn't illegal and
| they only gave you an implication of what it was. As in it was
| the equivalent of a guy walking up to you to sell a bag of
| ground up leaves he says will blow your mind and it's just
| basil.
| is_this_valid_3 wrote:
| There are solvent extracts and there are CO2 extracts. State
| testing regulations in other states tests for solvents: the
| -anes; propane, butane, hexane,.
|
| Some fire extinguishers are tanks of CO2.
|
| Compared to a double-boiler reduction with flammable alcohol
| and oil on a stove, quality-controlled extracts are in the
| interest of public safety.
|
| There are much safer desktop infusion units with electronic
| temperature control, and then an ISO factory might have more
| consistent doses than sketch gummies.
|
| I don't think the sky is falling due to the lesser-regulated
| hemp consumable products. Quality control and banking would
| probably further reduce the cost to society.
|
| If the 'sin tax' on recreational isn't enough, then raise it
| to pay for substance abuse treatment and prevention.
|
| Practically, retail strain availability differs in states
| with only Farm Bill hemp products, in that the strains being
| selected for by the regulation don't have same or sufficient
| levels of the unscheduled cannabinoids which may also be as
| or more therapeutic than the terpene essential oils in fresh
| flower without preservative.
| bitxbitxbitcoin wrote:
| The solventless extracts (mechanical separation) are what
| the premium market enjoys for quality reasons.
| BugsJustFindMe wrote:
| My problem with this whole phenomenon is that the explosion of
| smoke/vape/candy shops has become something of a commercial
| nuisance in places. It has a tendency to degrade the character of
| a business district when seemingly every other shop is selling
| basically the same set of products. It can feel a lot like that
| Lewis Black standup bit about finding a Starbucks across the
| street from another Starbucks.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Same thing happened with cupcake shops and microbreweries in my
| area. Now it's happening with car washes.
|
| 75% of them will be out of business in a few years as the
| people who think "sweet, easy money!" discover it's less fun
| than they imagined.
| Suppafly wrote:
| >Now it's happening with car washes.
|
| Yeah, I don't know what the correct number of car washes is
| to have, but I swear my city has enough for every car to wash
| every day with capacity left over.
| madcow2011 wrote:
| Wait, do you live in my city? Holy cow, I thought it was
| just us noticing this bizarre trend of carwashes popping up
| on every street corner...
| fragmede wrote:
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-02-21/car-
| washe...
|
| TLDR; it's not just you, private equity and a subscription
| business model.
| sgerenser wrote:
| Around here (central NC) the joke is mattress stores.
| Although I understand they pop up everywhere there are
| suburban style strip malls.
| mindslight wrote:
| I have the same gut feeling. But I also realize it's because
| these types of shops are one of the few types of small retail
| businesses you can open these days and possibly be successful,
| with everything else having had its margins thoroughly squeezed
| by the highly centralized megacorps.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| That is a solid take. Until you can buy it at
| Amazon/Walmart/CVS the tiny corner shop is the only entity
| willing to handle the legal gray zone. You will get crushed
| once it is fully commercialized, but not impossible to
| imagine you can make a good business for a decade.
| MrSkelter wrote:
| It's a deliberate tactic. Saturate the market, lose money while
| your smaller competitors can't, then return to normal when your
| competitors are gone. Whomever is left standing gets an
| unchallenged monopoly. It's why Starbucks will open stores
| beside competitors.
| vizzier wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sg-J2TS13GA
| asdff wrote:
| That's part of it, especially when it is a national chain
| coming in that can afford to subsidize a loss to compete. The
| other side of the coin is that there are areas with non-chain
| liquor stores on every corner and they've been like that for
| decades. Maybe the customer base for these sort of stores is
| simply larger than you might have figured.
| asdff wrote:
| Its just indicative of customer desires. These shops wouldn't
| exist for very long if they couldn't bring in enough money from
| the local community to pay for their overhead and rent.
| ajkjk wrote:
| Well it's not _just_ indicative of that. It 's also
| indicative of the lack of regulation for something that
| didn't exist previously. The shops could exist in a less-
| unpleasant way... just, nobody has forced them to yet. It's
| coming, though. Everyone is pissed.
|
| (Also I remember reading an article somewhere about how smoke
| shops are an ideal "short-term tenant" for landlords.
| Basically they cost very little to set up and close, so they
| can get short-term leases while a landlord e.g. waits for a
| higher-rent client or for some macroeconomic winds to shift.
| No idea how true that is but it's floating around in my head
| from somewhere.)
| CogitoCogito wrote:
| > Well it's not just indicative of that. It's also
| indicative of the lack of regulation for something that
| didn't exist previously. The shops could exist in a less-
| unpleasant way... just, nobody has forced them to yet. It's
| coming, though. Everyone is pissed.
|
| I suppose people could also just get used to them.
| ajkjk wrote:
| Sure but why should they? Nothing wrong with people not
| liking something and therefore doing something about it.
| CogitoCogito wrote:
| Live and let live? But yeah of course people can also try
| to get these "unpleasant" things banned, if they don't
| have anything better to do with themselves.
| ajkjk wrote:
| Live and let live is for things that don't affect you.
|
| You seem to not be aware that people care about what the
| world around them is like? Or in denial? Or you think
| it's unjust? I don't get it. It seems like a good thing
| to me.
| CogitoCogito wrote:
| People buying THC products doesn't affect me, it affects
| them.
|
| That said, I don't plan on being drawn into this
| discussion any further. Keep fighting the good fight I
| guess.
| kstrauser wrote:
| Eh. There are a few liquor stores near me that are cookie
| cutter identical. The local weederies are no more of an eyesore
| than the alcohol stores.
|
| Which isn't to say I disagree with you, just that I don't think
| we should judge them more harshly than their more traditional
| competitors.
| dmix wrote:
| You could just sell it like cigarettes/booze at convenience
| stores and eliminate the whole need for weed shops on every
| corner, and just have specialty weed shops for higher stuff,
| like liquor stores.
|
| If the gov required a full store to exclusively sell candy
| there'd be one on every block too.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| As sleazy looking as the shops often look, they're usually
| locally owned. I don't vape or use any THC products but I'd
| rather suffer a bit of an eye sore and have money stay
| somewhat local instead of it going to CVS and 7-Eleven.
| rm_-rf_slash wrote:
| There is a logic in grouping the same businesses together.
|
| If a dispensary opens at, say, E 14th St in Manhattan, New
| Yorkers will know E 14th is the place to buy weed.
|
| So if you're looking to open a dispensary (regulatory hurdles
| aside), you probably want to locate at the place New Yorkers go
| to get weed: E 14th.
| kagakuninja wrote:
| Are you aware that there are many specialty shops that will
| sell you alcohol, many of them operating 24 hours a day? Many
| people find bars and liquor shops to be a nuisance; they also
| sell basically the same set of products!
| mastax wrote:
| I'm dumbfounded that this seems to have gone completely under the
| radar. Does being passed by Trump make it immune to the culture
| war? Does it just feel right to people that weed is loophole-
| legal, such that it seems totally unremarkable?
| lbotos wrote:
| Well, lawmakers are trying to close the loophole
|
| https://norml.org/news/2024/05/30/federal-house-committee-ap...
|
| May still allow for THC-A but time will tell where it lands.
| dtagames wrote:
| People vote with their wallets. It's clear that Americans
| either want weed or don't care if other people do. This law --
| a complete Federal law, tested numerous times and not a
| loophole -- survives because the public wants the product and
| this is the way to get it.
| galdosdi wrote:
| Sigh, it's probably because, for cannabis-naive people, it's
| far harder to tell if someone is super high than if someone
| is super drunk. There's not a lot of difference between a
| high person who's trying not to let on, and someone who's
| just rather tired or a bit dumb. It's not like with alcohol
| where past a few drinks it's pretty easy to tell. But that
| doesn't mean the effects are harmless.
|
| Legalization was one thing, but valorization is another.
|
| THC potency levels are going through the roof and
| availability of analogues is too. I feel like there will
| eventually be problematic societal consequences and a
| pushback a generation from now, much as happened a few
| decades after cheap hard liquor distillation was invented, or
| a few decades after we hit peak tobacco.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_Street_and_Gin_Lane
|
| Also, here's an ad from a century ago selling whiskey,
| claiming it is a medicinal cure all for any and every
| condition, much as is common today with cannabis
|
| https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-
| media.s3.amazonaws.com/filer...
| cartoonworld wrote:
| I belive your statement, "... claiming it is a medicinal
| cure all for any and every condition, much as is common
| today with cannabis" is really off base. Nobody who is
| serious thinks medical marijuana can cure any specific
| disease.
|
| In any medical state, there is a list of specific
| conditions for which you must have a medical diagnosis in
| order to get medical cannabis. No doctor will tell you it
| is a "cure" for anything and nobody is permitted to
| advertise this either.
|
| People tell each other that everything from homeopathy, to
| crystals, to keto diets to meditation can cure specific
| diseases all of the time. I do not believe that you could
| lump probiotics, to make another example, in with the
| absurd patent medicines of the 1920s.
|
| Additionally, there plenty of promising peer review
| regarding cannabis. We've had high potencey weed for
| decades.
| RandallBrown wrote:
| > Does being passed by Trump make it immune to the culture war?
|
| Marijuana is popular on both sides of the political spectrum.
| HanShotFirst wrote:
| My cynical and informed-only-by-observation take is that it is
| a win win for lawmakers of both parties. It allows people who
| want to buy weed to get it, without those local politicians
| seeming overly radical or permissive by decriminalizing fully.
| nerdix wrote:
| And now all the soccer moms in illegal states are buying delta 9
| gummies at CBD stores (and there isn't mass hysteria in the
| streets) so those states are reluctant to outright ban it. We'll
| see how long that lasts.
| mkatx wrote:
| Just legalize it.. There's so much to say..
|
| Yeah, you can buy thc-a hemp legally in most places, as it's
| federally legal, and few states restrict it specifically.
|
| But.. just a couple notes to keep in mind:
|
| This is indeed a grey area, even if it seems explicitly legal.
| Thc-a, through time, heat, oxygen, etc, WILL degrade into federal
| illegal THC. So if you buy a jar of thca hemp, the thca will turn
| into THC over time, and potentially rise above the legal limit of
| THC percentage.
|
| This could mean, in the worse case scenario, that if they
| confiscate your legally purchased hemp, and test it, then they
| could charge you for illegal cannabis possession because it has
| more than the allowed thc, and therefore is not legal hemp.
|
| Also, I've asked at hemp stores, and was told no.. But indeed,
| some growers spray thca liquid crystal and even non-cannabis
| derived terpenes on their bud. Pretty shady imo..
|
| This market, although a legal victory, is actually a detriment to
| the industry and legalization as a whole, IMHO.
| grecy wrote:
| > _Just legalize it.._
|
| It feels like the US needs to just make some really basic
| decisions that would vastly improve the quality of life for
| hundreds of millions of it's citizens so it can get on with
| actual important stuff.
|
| Legalize weed. Legalize abortion. Fix the severely broken
| healthcare system. Make education affordable.
|
| Bring the quality of life up to par with other OECD countries,
| then start actually making stuff better - renewable power,
| cheap and good public transit, fix crumbling infrastructure.
|
| So many arguments about petty stuff that should have just been
| decided and moved on from two decades ago.
| mistermann wrote:
| Marijuana could even catalyze such initiatives, especially if
| used strategically. Strategic cultural initiatives aren't
| exactly our thing here in the west (at the public level
| anyways), but marijuana could also catalyze changing that!
| viccis wrote:
| >This could mean, in the worse case scenario, that if they
| confiscate your legally purchased hemp, and test it, then they
| could charge you for illegal cannabis possession because it has
| more than the allowed thc, and therefore is not legal hemp.
|
| My attitude towards it when I lived in a non-legal state was to
| treat the THC-A the same as illegal stuff when it came to
| storage and use because cops aren't going to listen to some
| nerdy rant about the difference. They wouldn't even likely test
| it. Just charge you like they otherwise would.
|
| I lived in a decriminalized area, so it wasn't a big risk. But
| I'm not sure I would take that risk in some place where they
| still do nasty felony charges for THC possession.
| sharpshadow wrote:
| These edibles are even spreading over here to Europe. I was very
| conventional in the thinking about their potency potential but
| now I understand better how it works.
| kortex wrote:
| Yes, but actually no. If the DEA or local LEOs _actually_ wanted
| to crack down, there is plenty enough wiggle room in the
| scheduled substances act and all the related add-on laws (esp.
| Federal Analogue Act), there is enough molecular similarity
| between the various cannabinoids, and insufficient sensitivity in
| most chemical tests, plus the tendency of THC-A to decarb (eject
| a carbon dioxide molecule to give THC) under heating, that these
| agencies could absolutely give you a hard time and make your life
| hell for a while. Even if charges didn 't stick, you'd still have
| a bad time and be out thousands in legal feels.
|
| What's _actually_ happened is de facto, not de jure, legalization
| (in effect, but not in law), because of the unpopularity of
| cannabis prohibition. It 's just not worth it in most situations
| to go after these products at this point.
|
| There's still a strong need for _actual legalization_ at this
| point.
| mind-blight wrote:
| Totally depends on the product. The federal farm bill states
| that hemp products need to be under 0.3% THC to be considered
| hemp. How high you get depends on the milligrams. So, edibles
| (gummies, etc) can remain under a 0.3% THC by volume in the
| product while still having more than 5-10 mg per edible.
|
| You're not wrong about people being able to make your life
| hell, but the edibles absolutely fall under the letter of the
| law. (The one exception being the concentrate used to name the
| edible with have a large percent THC until it becomes diluted
| again)
| say_it_as_it_is wrote:
| no mention in the article of "Type I", "Type II", or "Type III"
| cannabis indicates that the research wasn't exhaustive
|
| the story here is that there was a hemp strain called Franklin
| that was getting cbd consumers high. it was considered a hot
| batch of hemp. growers cultivated additional Franklin derivatives
| and brought out higher THC-A strains. eventually, growers said to
| hell with Franklin, let's just sell high THC-A, low THC strains.
| this categories includes a wide variety of retail strains sold
| for recreational use today
|
| so, yeah. you can get real cannabis, no weird stuff, that will
| get you absolutely lifted and delivered to your house in most of
| the states where recreational remains illegal.
|
| if you're asking why you haven't heard about this, it's because
| loose lips sink ships. why am i talking about it now? it doesn't
| matter anymore!
|
| check out flowgardens and wnc-cbd
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