LETTERS

TO THE EDITOR

The newspaper welcomes brief letters (generally no longer than 400 words) that express an opinion on a currently newsworthy topic. The writer’s contact information must be included for verification. Letters that contain defamatory comments, open letters, third-party letters, letters sent to more than one publication, and letters that would more appropriately be advertisements, including Cards of Thanks, are unlikely to be published. One letter generally is allowed per writer per calendar month.

THC is still THC

To the editor:

In an Opinion piece last week, the editor questioned whether one could get “high” on the low levels of THC in the beverages that were seized at Carlsons’ last week.

As an experiment, the staff of the Marion County Record might try ingesting a 10mg Delta-9 THC-infused beverage or a 15mg fruit-flavored “gummy” and see what the effects are.

I think it would be advisable to not operate mechanical equipment or drive for several hours. Maybe just watch some videos and lay in some snacks for when the “munchies” invade.

Delta-9 THC that is derived from legal hemp that as a plant tests at less the 0.03% THC was made legal under the 2018 U S Farm Bill during the first Trump administration.

In what may have been a failure to understand the nature of the plant and the science of extraction, it soon became a thing to extract the THC from the relative low levels in the plant into a concentrate that could be introduced to users through beverages, candy, inhalers, and other means.

What this did was to legalize a form of THC in every state in the United States regardless of the individual state’s laws regarding cannabis legality, even in totally illegal states like Kansas and Wisconsin.

A much more in-depth explanation can be had in a report on the 2018 Farm Bill by the American Enterprise Institute.

It concludes: “The farm bill’s definition of hemp creates a loophole that creative entrepreneurs have used to produce hemp-based products with active ingredients whose effects are similar or even identical to the effects of weed.”

Harry Bennett
Madison, Wisconsin