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Comment by kortex | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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)

A gummy isn’t a hemp product. A gummy is a candy infused with a hemp product.

The article’s claim about gummies is supported only by shops, not by courts.

https://www.fda.gov/news-events/public-health-focus/fda-regu...

I don’t follow. Even if the hemp product is still of sufficiently low concentration, eating enough of it will cause an effect.

put another way, instead of eating one (1) THC gummy, you get a bag of 0.3% gummy worms and eat the bag.

might get you fat in the process -- lotta calories in gummies -- but if you're getting that much THC you're probably gonna eat a buncha candy anyway

Initially I was thinking it was 0.3% by weight, which would be no big deal -- a gummy worm under 3.5g would be legal for 10mg of THC. But it's 0.3% by volume! What volume does 10mg of THC take up? Quick search didn't make it clear... but I think you'd need probably a little over a liter of liquid to get 10mg of THC at a concentration of no more than 0.3%. Not terrible, but I could see a silly product called "hemp water" that's just a 1.5L bottle of water with hemp-derived THC in it.

For an edible it'd probably be a bit painful.. a whole bag of gummies (and then some) like you suggest...

In the article it says "0.3 percent or less of the product’s dry weight"

I'm not sure if there was a specific article your trying to link me to - that's just a list of all FDA cannabis regulation articles.

I'll admit that I didn't read much of the article. My knowledge comes mostly from working in hemp from 2017-2019. I was asking back then went people weren't doing this since, based on my reading of the law, it seemed perfectly legal (if not very sketchy). I'm not sure if the regulations have been updated since then, but it seems like 'no' based on current behavior

The supreme court recently curtailed the latitude of federal agencies have in making rules - they were aiming for the EPA, but the blast radius is huge. The effects of that ruling wil reverberate for years to come.

That assumes US of A still operates under rule of law and there will be “no actually “ at some point resulting in Federal agencies that bother corporations to be gutted, but drug enforcement will keep going on as it was.

You're assuming that the courts will be consistent or sane with their rulings.

I’m expecting the outcomes to match the donations to their slush funds.

I'm a fan of decriminalization rather than legalization, mainly because I believe that people should be able to engage with it, but I don't want companies marketing it. Marketing in the US is too effective, and I don't want to load that gun with anything that makes people less well, because it'll find a way to maximize consumption.

Wouldn't it make more sense to legalize it and ban advertising it?

You try writing a law that corporate America can't corrupt.

To paraphrase Schneier: law is a process, not a product. The raw text of statutes and regulations is just one component in the overall system, and there is no amount of contemplating the One True Meaning of the text that will lead to a functional understanding of how that system operates in reality.

(see also [1])

[1] https://xkcd.com/1494/

Also: "The Myth of the Rule of Law"

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1I-JhqpU3_0r_HL06hP-5DABhEtG...

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