Silver City has had an unresolved controversy about the Grateful Living Cannabis Company on Bullard, but the slow simmer may soon come to a boil.
Let me start by saying that many questions could be easily answered if I were a real journalist. I would simply go to the store, buy some product and see how stoned it makes me. But I am a columnist, not a reporter. I leave the true investigation to Daily Press reporters. I do opinions, not investigations.
I rarely interview sources, although I did make some email inquiries for this column. I have to say I was shocked by the claim that Grateful Living is unlicensed. If they’re not regulated and paying taxes, why didn’t the Cannabis Control Division bust them?
Recently I read stories that might explain the situation. Or maybe not. The store may be selling hemp, not cannabis, and hemp — even intoxicating hemp — is legal and unregulated. But if this is true, you wouldn’t know it from their website, silvercitydispensary.com. They advertise cannabis with very convincing pictures of pot buds.
Back in the old days, the difference between cannabis and hemp was illustrated like this: If you wanted to get stoned from hemp, you’d have to smoke a joint the size of a telephone pole. Apparently, that argument was successful, because in 2018 President Donald Trump signed the Agricultural Improvement Act making hemp legal. But nobody counted on American ingenuity.
Yes, the level of intoxicating Delta 9-THC is low in hemp, but it also contains small amounts of Delta 8-THC, which is also intoxicating. Through the wonders of chemistry, hemp entrepreneurs have found a way to extract enough Delta 8-THC to create psychoactive edibles and oils that are apparently legal. Those products are being sold in states where cannabis is still illegal.
So are those buds in the Grateful Living advertising real cannabis? Or are they hemp flowers sprayed with Delta 8-THC oil?
The question could be easily resolved by buying some of their product and testing it, and apparently that’s what happened in early June. Mayor Ken Ladner sent me a copy of correspondence with Cannabis Control Division Director Todd Stevens. But shockingly the product has still not been tested.
Stevens said the lab that tests cannabis was trying to recalibrate their potency test and would probably be able to test again by the end of July. Bizarre! Why call your department Cannabis Control if you can’t do your most basic job?
Stevens said the town could get another sample and get it tested at a private lab for $60, but apparently that didn’t happen.
I exchanged email with Andrea Brown, communications director for the Regulation and Licensing Department. She made these points:
• Grateful Living is not licensed to sell cannabis.
• Delta 8 is hemp. The Environment Department regulates hemp-derived products.
• She didn’t respond on whether Cannabis Control is concerned about psychoactive hemp undermining cannabis taxation and regulation.
• The compliance division collected Grateful Living samples, and the testing report will be back “very soon.”
• If Grateful Living is selling unlicensed cannabis, there could be an administrative action with fines. Law enforcement could also charge a crime.
So “very soon” we’ll discover what Grateful Living is really up to. There are two possibilities: Maybe they are directly flaunting the cannabis taxation and regulation system by selling unlicensed cannabis. They don’t believe there will be significant consequences. So far, they’ve been right.
Or maybe Grateful Living is advertising cannabis, but selling psychoactive hemp. They’re more likely to be prosecuted for fraud than for cannabis violations.
If there’s another possibility, I can’t think of it. This is where a real journalist would compare getting high on Grateful Living products to getting high on real cannabis from one of our many legal stores. But not me. I already grew a lifetime pot supply, as I wrote in a column two years ago.
Instead, I read an article by a “pot sommelier” who reviews and compares different strains of pot. After trying Delta 8-THC gummies, he said Delta 8 is milder than high-quality pot, but it does get you stoned. He thought most consumers would go for the real thing if they had a choice.
But maybe he’s not counting on the geezers who say the new cannabis is too powerful — not like the mellow weed they remember from their youth. Even if Grateful Living is selling an “inferior” product, they may have a market here.
Some town officials are upset with Grateful Living and want consequences. Others seem to think any action is up to the state. Maybe there will be a resolution if test results ever come back.