A New Face Of Synthetic Drugs

Since the Food and Drugs Act of 1906 in the United States, our country has grappled with defining and redifining just what a drug is, and classifying both natural and lab created substances to be regulated and controlled. Using the properties of the chemical or material, the federal government set restrictions and penalties. Those rules scaled with different levels of punitive measures for people holding drugs, and even those rules, regulations and laws were refined with time. Schedule I through Schedule V, there was an answer for many drugs, and for anything outside the scope of the original, there was probably an amendment to the Controlled Substances Act for it, a rare gem of the Nixon administration. 

Since the 70's, the Controlled Substances Act (introducing the above-mentioned "Schedule" classification) and its various amendments were the guiding light for police and federal forces in aiding with drug related charges, and the severity of the acts. 50 years has passed, and numerous legislation with it. One important and possibly conflicting passage was the 2018 Farm Bill that paved the way for a new flux of hemp related products to hit the market.

Marijuana, and its distilled desired chemical THC are a Schedule III drug, with some various medical uses. This is of course a federal level law, many states have legalized cannabis both medicinally and recreationally. But for products and companies trying to take the whole country by storm, you need something people can use everywhere. A provision of the 2018 Farm Bill is that hemp based products are legal, so long as they have a level lower than .03% THC. 

However, because 50 years has passed since the CSA, science has also greatly advanced, and it's allowed for technicalities to be found that sidestep these rules and still follow the 2018 Farm Bill. I mention above that Hemp based products are legal only with a certain level of THC, but the kicker is that it is only the most common naturally occuring form of tetrahydrocannibol, Delta 9 THC. That technicality has allowed a new type of business to take root, synthetic cannabinoids.

I make a qualification above, that Delta 9 is the most common naturally-ocurring THC. However, these trending cannabinoids like Delta 8, Delta 10, HHC and others are all naturally occuring, they just happen at an level that are not particularly easy to source. Unlike Cannabis, where you can grow it for its Sativa or Indica properties, or even CBD levels, you can not do the same to gain meaningful amounts of these variations of THC. Thus, it's fallen to labs to create in closed environments synthesized THC with different chemical structures from the Delta 9 THC that's regulated. Lab created drugs are nothing new, but legal ones often have the support of the FDA for testing, and quality regulation, and for good reason, for both drugs and food, it's a Jungle out there. The CBD and Cannabis industry infamously has none of this, and actively has to self regulate, leading to some very wide gaps in quality, and faith in CBD as a therapeutic product, which it very much is. 

It's not known yet whether or not there are any special properties to Delta 8 and Delta 10 aside the fact they'll skirt federal regulation because of their chemical bond being just a little different. It could be these are dangerous, it could be these are completely innocuous. All said, this author thinks it a safe assumption is that there is enough of these THC varients naturally occuring in any hemp or cannabis plant that we're still getting the benefit, even if its measure is lost among the more common Delta 9. And aside the highs provided by THC alone, there's the other affect of cannabinoids that gets less the spotlight, but less sought after as well, The Entourage Effect. 

As defined by Synchronicity Hemp Oil, The Entourage Effect is the combined effect of various individual cannabinoids which brings not a high, but a feeling of balance and calm. Synchronicity does not synthesize any cannabinoids to enhance their product. They can provide the ensemble effect with hemp extractions that don't leave out cannabinoids, but still fall under that federal safe zone of low THC levels. You'll probably find even trace amounts of Delta 10, HHC, and otherwise, all contributing to the larger effect cannabinoids has on the body, and more importantly, that our bodies are ready to interact with and make use of.

Leave the labs to extract, not create. Nixon's already rolling in his grave that an extra hydrogen atom is ruining his CSA, let's not invite any more scutiny into this.