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The research exists, but the products aren’t there yet.
People often ask me, “What’s your take on Delta-8?”
Candidly, I wasn’t familiar enough to comment. And that was usually my preface, followed by some sort of snarky response along the lines of, “Why not use the real thing?” If you had access to legal Delta-9-THC (the active ingredient in cannabis and whose concentration by net weight is the basis of legal hemp vs. legal cannabis classification), why would you need to experiment with a synthetic analog?
In college, we used to call analogs “Research Chemicals”.
This included both the spinoffs of psychedelics like LSD and MDMA, but also cannabinoid research chemicals, including the infamous JWH-018 (synthetic THC, of sorts).
During the end of my freshman year of college, I’d scored an internship at an ad agency through an alumni connection and was afraid of what might happen if I tested hot on a pre-employment drug test. (LOL at the idea of an ad agency actually caring if their employees are on drugs, but that’s a different rabbit hole). As a result, I’d quit smoking the real thing, and picked up what is now commonly known as Spice or K2.
