Recently the Green Market Report newsletter focused on the hemp vs cannabis issue and what could be a rough road ahead for cannabis businesses. It turns out in 2023 the Illinois State Police seized approximately 12 tons of cannabis valued at $63.7 million. As a result dispensaries are losing business as unhappy cannabis consumers, frustrated with the quality and price of the product, go back to buying their weed from unlicensed street dealers. Data from the International Cannabis Policy Study estimates that nearly 36% of the Illinois cannabis market is from illegal sources. There’s also the alarming increase in the use of “artificially synthesized CBD” being added to the product adding to the “quality” problem.

To sort this out we turned to Mike Robinson, the founder of the Global Cannabinoid Research Center/Nanobles Corp.in California, and a highly regarded expert on the scientific differences between cannabis and hemp and why they should be considered two different things.

Here’s a bit of what Mike told us:

If everyone had listened to Jack Herer, things would have been different. He was very outspoken about his opposition to a new hemp industry that didn’t free all cannabis prisoners, to the point of vulgarity at times over men in suits taking over the industry and selling products while POWs of the legacy cannabis world sat in jail. I think the hemp industry needs to realize that it has a massive market in comparison to cannabis THC; it can flourish in rebuilding the world with so many kinds of products it’s overwhelming to think about. We can save the world with Hemp, as Jack said. Why compete with the dispensary-laden world of cannabis when you can do that? It’s short-sighted for the love of money, and not for the care of the people or planet.

The hemp-derived semi-synthetic cannabinoid market has been out of control for years, producing so many different analogs of THC with no safety studies or stability testing. The purpose of safety studies is to ensure what people are using is safe enough not to cause injury or harm. Many will argue back that THC cannabis has not undergone any safety studies, but this is untrue both in synthetic Marinol that’s been a pharmaceutical for 30 years, or with Sativex, created by GW Pharmaceuticals and Bayer that’s been on the open market for quite some time, launched in 2011 in the EU and prescribed, as a 1:1 THC:CBD.

The issue is far beyond whether or not extracts are safe, as once people started having problems from ongoing use of D8, D9, THC-O, THCP, and a myriad of analogs, they wanted THC. Some in the hemp industryresponded by making pretty clean extracts, arguing the Farm Bill allowed it, and to this day still sell them. Others took it a step further and started growing any THC seed they could find, and by keeping the plants from being more than .3 THC itself, again argued that the Farm Bill allowed for THCa Cannabis. Appellate court decisions and a thin line are all that is allowing this to continue. As the days go by, many in the industry are voicing concerns over the lack of regulation on who knows how many thousands of pounds of THCa cannabis sold daily – that’s called “hemp.”

My own position on this is that we don’t have any direction from the government. The hemp industry should be growing what it sells and have a happy hempy day, just as the THC cannabis industry does under state laws that have existed for decades, and the newer ones. There are many who grow ‘Hemp THCa’ that do not have a USDA Farm Bill license for Hemp, so they have no oversight at all. The entire ‘semi-synthetic’ and Hemp THCa debate is coming to an end eventually, and nobody knows exactly how the dominoes will tumble. It’s highly unlikely a Farm Bill would allow THCa flower to be sold as the Federal Government looks at tax revenue from rescheduling, I don’t think the crowd hoping for a Farm Bill that frees the weed will be satisfied in the end.

You can read his full commentary on the Yourcanna-Club.com website:

You can read the Green Market Report’s analysis here: https://link.greenmarketreport.com/view/6601cf168d1d2209bd8784dfm48a6.cqv/0f49396</a

Learn more about Mike click HERE.