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Did the USDA Really Deschedule THC?

by Travis C | Jun 3, 2019 | 420, Blog, Broscience Mythbusters, Cannabis Law, Culture, Hemp, Hemp Law

The USDA did deschedule THC. Just not in the way people currently believe.

An article that has exploded within the cannabis community claims that the USDA quietly “legalized” THC last week. While this isn’t entirely wrong, it is incredibly misleading. This is because the descheduling of THC by the USDA only applies to THC in hemp.

For a quick refresher, The Farm Bill of 2018 legalized industrial hemp. This “legal” hemp is defined as any cannabis plant with a THC percentage of .3% or less. But if THC is still on the controlled substances list, how can that be?

The USDA on THC

In a memorandum submitted to the Secretary of Agriculture on May 28th, the USDA gives a legal opinion on provisions to the Farm Bill. They point out a specific amendment in the newest version of the bill that removed THC in hemp from the Controlled Substances Act (CSA).

By amending the definition of marijuana to exclude hemp as defined in AMA §297A, Congress removed hemp from schedule 1 and removed it entirely from the CSA. This means hemp is no longer considered a controlled substance at all. With the amendment to exclude THC in hemp from schedule 1, Congress has also removed THC in hemp from the CSA.

Now, that last sentence from the memorandum is what people are getting excited about. When paraphrased to say, “Congress has removed THC from the CSA,” it’s easy to see why. But the key words in the entire amendment is “IN HEMP”.

THC in Hemp

This is where the entire article claiming THC is legal falls apart. Hemp has a very specific definition, that being the definition requiring a THC content of .3% or less to be considered hemp. It makes perfect sense that THC in hemp would need to be legal, in order for legal hemp to be able to contain any amount of THC. In other words, because hemp can contain up to .3% THC, that THC needs to be legal for the hemp to be legal.

Now, because of hemps legal definition pertaining to any cannabis plant with .3% THC or less, surpassing the .3% threshold disqualifies the plant as hemp. Under this legal definition, anything above .3% THC is considered psychoactive cannabis, which is still a controlled substance that is federally illegal.

Why it Matters

The article that broke this story hinted at future possibilities with this newly legal THC, like simply breeding hemp to have higher THC. And that’s what makes this article lose all credibility.

Remember when I said that to be legally considered hemp, the cannabis plant must have a THC content of .3% or less? And remember what happens when the THC content surpasses that .3%? It’s no longer hemp.

While this article suggests that the USDA basically just added a magic loophole that will now allow breeders to grow THC rich hemp, it forgets to mention that by doing so, the plant will no longer be hemp. If the author knew the origins of the cannabis plant, they would know that most of the THC-rich strains we consume today were bred to have that high content from what originally was European Hemp with almost no THC to begin with.

What this article is suggesting, is basically repeating the entire history of cannabis breeding, so we can turn the legal hemp we have now, back into illegal cannabis. If you want The Real Dirt’s legal advice, we suggest that you don’t do that. THC has been legalized in the sense that as long as it is in hemp, and does not surpass .3%, it is legal. Once it leaves the hemp, or surpasses .3%, you’re entering some dangerous territory.

But hey, you can judge for yourself! Read the full USDA Memorandum right here.

CBD Laws Could Be Changing

by Travis C | May 31, 2019 | 420, 420 News, Blog, Business, Culture, Hemp

CBD has gotten too big for the FDA not to intervene. The question now is what are they going to decide?

Contrary to the hundreds of CBD products you can buy online and at your local health store that would suggest otherwise, CBD isn’t technically legal. However it isn’t technically illegal either. And that’s why there’s a problem.

CBD is a naturally occurring cannabinoid in the cannabis plant. A relative of the cannabis plant that was just legalized, hemp, also contains CBD. With hemp legal, people saw no problem in breeding hemp specifically for CBD to make products.

However, CBD was not included in the legislation that legalized hemp, and because it is also found in psychoactive cannabis cultivars, there’s some controversy over whether or not it should be legal. Now almost 6 months after legalization, the FDA is finally getting involved.

FDA CBD Laws

With economists predicting that the CBD industry could reach a market worth of $16 Billion by 2025, the FDA has no choice but to make a regulation decision. Compared to other non-FDA approved products, CBD is already much more well known and popular, and even dangerous, should the FDA decide so. Which is why their decision is so important.

During a hearing at the end of May, the FDA will be presented with remarks from manufacturers, consumers, health professionals, academics, and more on scientific data and information about CBD products that contain cannabis or cannabis-derived compounds, such as CBD.

Because of the wide range of uses for CBD, from foods and face creams to pills and oils, the FDA needs to regulate CBD more strictly compared to other ingredients that may just be used in one specific product. With now CBD laws specifically on the books, more and more pressure is being placed on the FDA to regulate.

Potential Outcomes

There are a lot of way the FDA could decide to regulate CBD laws. In the worst case scenario, they could ban CBD altogether. This is pretty unlikely, as the now ex-Commisioner of the FDA had stated in February of 2019 that the FDA would take a more “flexible” approach to CBD regulation.

What seems more likely, is the FDA regulating CBD to only be allowed to be extracted from legal, industrial hemp, while banning CBD extraction from cannabis, i.e. any other cannabis plant with a THC level over .3%. They could also permit CBD extraction from any cannabis plant as long as there is no THC included.

All we can do for now is speculate while the hearing takes place, but many CBD business owners and entrepreneurs will be anxiously awaiting the results.

The Future of the CBD Industry

It’s probably safe to say at this point that if the FDA did decide to ban CBD altogether, there would be massive, nationwide outrage. From the parents who use CBD as medicine for children with epilepsy, to the avoid CBD consumers who have made the cannabinoid an essential element of their daily nutrient routine.

While obviously the former would be most negatively affected by a full CBD ban, it would be the masses who consume CBD recreationally that would have the biggest voice in the matter. And with so many hopping on board the CBD bandwagon, we can assume CBD isn’t going anywhere.

The Truth About Living Soil

by Chip Baker | May 27, 2019 | 420, Blog, Broscience Mythbusters, Growing, Science & Technology, Stranger Than Fiction

I hear two really popular tag-lines about growing cannabis these days: living soil and no till.

In reality, these terms are really just old forms of magic poking their head into the new cannabis industry. Living soil is a term defined by Elaine Ingram, our godmother to biological understanding of the soil. The problem is, all soul is living.

The idea of living soil is that you nurture the environment within the soil and develop an ecological or biological ecosystem. Now, on the surface it sounds great. But how do we get there, and what does it really mean to have “living” soil?

Origins of Living Soil Ingredients

First off, living soil is no more environmentally friendly than rockwool.

Ok, 3/4 of the people reading this just threw their phone across the room or started cursing my name. But just think about where all those organic ingredients come from. Just because they are natural ingredients doesn’t mean they’re superior.

Almost every specialty organic ingredient is strip mined. Somebody rolls onto a piece of land, sets up conveyors and starts digging a hole. They get all the gypsum or bat guano or whatever else out and maybe they fill the hole back up. Maybe they just walk away. Not the most environmentally friendly.

For instance, bat guano is one of the most loved organic ingredients by living soil farmers. However they don’t just sweep up the fresh bat poop on the floor of caves. They find areas around the planet where bats are living, and tear them apart top to bottom.

High-nitrogen guano is the freshest bat poop. This is the first product that is swept up off the bottom of the cave using large excavators and front-end loaders. As soon as the fresh bat guano is depleted the hard soil at the bottom of the cave begins to be dug up. This is the high phosphorus bat guano.

The same destructive process is used for fossilized kelp, humus, gypsum and lime, creating eco-damaging strip mines everywhere. Kind of uncool if you ask me.

Real “Living Soil”

If you have a real commitment to organic farming you would use just compost and other waste products such as fish emulsion, bonemeal, harvested kelp, and composted agricultural waste. Compost has minimal nutrition in it and only biological life like weeds, seeds and other bugs.

I have made literally millions of yards of compost. Compost is usually made from green waste materials or sawdust. The whole point is to add nitrogen to the carbon-based waste product.

When you balance the carbon-nitrogen ratio, your compost is ready. This means all the nitrogen and most of the beneficial phosphorus and potassium has also been eaten up in the composting process. Therefore compost is mostly cheap filler. The only benefits you get from it is biological life, yet you have to deal with the bugs, pests, weeds and the seeds.

Living Soil and Cannabis

Besides the environmental impacts, living soil doesn’t really work that well inside. Living soil is often full of bugs, part of what makes it “alive”. Once a critter is introduced into an indoor environment there’s little chance that you’ll be able to restore your grow room back to its bug-less inception.

With modern cannabis growing, pesticides and pest control are of the upmost importance. Pest control is a heavily regulated area within the cannabis community. Pest control is so highly regulated that the introduction of pests into your room is the first line of defense.

Living soil doesn’t yield indoors and in most cases living soil does not yield much at all. It mostly serves as a magical term used by magical people to complete their Bro-science degree.

I’m not telling you it doesn’t work, I’m saying it’s like a hole-in-one. You can try as hard as you can, practice your swing all day. But a hole-in-one is determined as much by luck as it is determined by your skill. Living soil is the same way; it’s expensive, it’s never the same twice, you have to work hard at mixing it, and then only randomly does it actually work well.

At this point if you’re still reading you’re either intrigued or you totally hate me. Here’s the truth. I’m a sucker for organic, and if it says organic on the label I generally buy it. I’m a 25 year vegetarian, and even lived off the grid for numerous years. I am a tree hugger and a conservationist.

But if you want to grow the highest quality cannabis indoors, the above ideas don’t mash. If you want to grow consistently and not crap after crap, living soil will not work for you.

If you want to believe your bro science or your brother-in-law or your “Master” grower friend that’s always putting you down, go for it. But look at the quality of all of your buds without excuses and you’ll see living soil a little differently.

How to Pick Quality Hemp Genetics

by Travis C | May 23, 2019 | 420, Blog, Growing, Hemp, Science & Technology

With an exploding market and a high demand for hemp genetics, how can you tell if your genetics are high quality?

For the past 90 years, the only hemp that grew in the United States other than hemp grown in scientific studies for research purposes was feral. That is, it grew in the wild, mostly untouched by man. Now that industrial hemp has been legalized and a new market is quickly emerging, a lot of farmers are trying to transition from traditional row crops into mass-hemp production.

With very few means to process hemp fibers, husks and other materials that will be useful in the future, the main appeal for those entering the hemp industry is CBD. Cannabidiol (CBD) has become a craze in the US, with hundreds if not thousands of new CBD companies and products.

But where are all these people getting their hemp seeds from, and as a grower, how can you know if the seeds you get are quality?

Hemp Genetics Stability

Stable genetics are genetics that are uniform. This is essential for hemp farmers who are growing on a large scale. Having stable genetics give the grower confidence knowing that every seed they plant, will grow to look exactly the same, with same characteristics as the plant next to it.

On a large scale, this makes processing and managing your hemp much easier. Compare this to unstable genetics that would vary in size, structure, and potentially have other growth issues. Stable genetics makes the whole grow uniform, and therefore easier to manage.

You can tell the stability of your genetics relatively quickly, as you’ll notice differences in growth and structure as the plants vegetate. Stable genetics will grow to look the same, at the same time.

High-CBD Hemp Genetics

Like it or not, CBD is the name of the game in legal hemp right now. Until the market grows a desire for the countless other commodities created via hemp, CBD is the most accessible and sellable hemp product on the market currently. But when it comes to high-CBD hemp genetics, they are few and far between.

Cannabis has been genetically modified by humans for hundreds of years, with the most vigorous and highest yielding plants being crossed with each other to produce the high-THC strains we have today. Up until December 2018, hemp hasn’t had the same luxury. It has mainly grown feral around the world, with a main focus on extracting its materials in Europe.

But now that hemp is legal in the States, and everybody is looking for high-CBD hemp, cannabis breeders are making the transition to hemp. By taking traditionally low-THC cannabis strains, and breeding them over time with high-CBD feral hemp strains, the THC can be bred out, and the CBD bred up.

The end result is hemp that looks, smells and even tastes like cannabis, with .3% THC or less, and CBD content surpassing 12-15%. It’s important to do your due diligence in researching your hemp seed supplier to ensure they have quality, high-CBD genetics, and not some mid-grade hemp seed they pulled off some males growing the back yard.

You Won’t Know Til You Grow

The reality is you can buy the most expensive hemp seeds from one of the most renowned breeders and still not get quality results. Sellers with a reputation won’t always have the best stock available, and the only way to truly know whether or not you have quality genetics is to grow it through flower and test it.

Even if your genetics aren’t the most stable, and you have varying sizes and structures in your plants, they can still produce high-CBD hemp flower that can be processed. But the only way to test your CBD content is to wait until your plants are roughly 35 days into their flower cycle. This is when you can begin to test for CBD content effectively.

It is important to trust your hemp seed supplier, but even if they are a pro, they can still produce seeds that won’t perform as well as others. Just like cannabis, growing quality hemp is a process of testing, trial and error. Until you’ve been through a couple hemp harvests, you probably won’t truly know what to look for in your genetics.

That’s why it is important to study up with articles like this and others that help guide you through the growing process, and how to judge your own hemp genetics for quality.

Top 4 Reasons to Grow in Coco

by Travis C | May 16, 2019 | Blog, Broscience Mythbusters, Growing, Science & Technology

Coco coir is the medium you have been looking for. You just might not have known it.

It’s easy to just grab a bag of potting soil from your local grow shop and plant your cannabis plants in it. You’ll get results, they just might not be the results you were expecting.

The reality is, to grow better cannabis you need to be smarter about how you’re growing it. From the nutrients you use, to when you top your plants, to when you chop them down are all important factors. But a simple change you can make in your grow to boost your yields and quality is to just swap out your medium.

And there’s no better medium to add to your blend or as a standalone home for your plants than coco coir. Here’s the top 4 reasons you need to be using it in your grow.

Coco is Renewable

Coco coir is a byproduct. If it wasn’t for some genius discovering how great cannabis grew in it, that’s what it would have stayed. When coconuts are used for their husks and meat, in food to textiles mainly across Asia, coco coir is the loose stringy material that falls off during processing.

Instead of just throwing this byproduct out, it is recycled and batched into bags, then shipped across the world. Compared to other mediums that take hundreds, thousands, or even millions of years to collect its beneficial microorganisms and other decayed biological material, coconuts take much less time to mature.

The main source of coco coir comes from the Malaysian coconut tree, which has spread across most coasts around the world, making it the most available worldwide. After reaching full growth in 5-6 years, the coconut tree will continually produce coconuts for several more years.

While six years might seem like a long time to wait for some coconuts, it’s much faster than waiting for a peat bog to develop, and it’s much more environmentally friendly than mining for perlite and other media, considering just one coconut tree can produce over 150 coconuts in its lifetime.

Coco is pH Neutral

pH can be subtle, and also detrimental if ignored. Potting soils, peat and other organic media will either have a more basic or acidic pH based on what it contains. Because cannabis requires a specific pH acidity to grow, this has to be accounted for when you decide to use an organic medium and additional nutrients.

While it isn’t difficult to change you pH with some additives, you can avoid the hassle altogether by growing in coco. As a pH neutral medium, you have much more control over your plant’s environment. It is also easier to manage your feedings without having to account for rapid pH changes that could shock your plants.

It’s Great for Holding Moisture

Because of coco’s lightweight but still-absorbent nature, it can hold water extremely well while still maintaining its great aeration and drainage abilities. If you want to feed your plants more often while still ensuring your plants are getting as much as possible without overfeeding, coco is a great option.

When combined with other additional media like peat and perlite, you can create a high aerated blend that can still hold moisture. Or simply add coco into whatever soil blend you are using now to add some extra aeration, plus the final benefits of coco; its nutrient content.

Full of Nutrients

Think of a coconut like a giant seed. The way coconuts spread across the globe was by falling off of their tress and rolling into the ocean. After landing on a foreign beach the coconuts would shed their outer material through the journey and eventually result in the sprouting of a new tree.

The same organic, nutrient rich material that the coconut produces to sprout new trees is also in coco coir. By adding coco coir to your soil mix you get additional nutrients rich in hormones and bio-stimulants that encourage more growth. Compared to peat which is also full of nutrients, other than the obvious renewability benefits of coco, it also much stronger of a material. In fact, coco coir resists compacting and breakage to the point that it can last three-times longer than peat.

If you aren’t convinced that coco is at least a medium you need to try, then there just might be no convincing you. However if you’re already growing with coco, we’re just preaching to the choir because you know how great it is. For those of you hesitant to try it, check out this full Real Dirt Episode that takes a deep dive into everything coco.

And if you’re ready to try a bag of awesome coco-ey goodness, check out the High Porosity Blend from Growers Soil, The Real Dirt’s favorite soil blend.

Hempcrete: The Billion Dollar Building Material

by Travis C | May 10, 2019 | Blog, Broscience Mythbusters, Business, Hemp, Science & Technology

It could revolutionize home building and construction. If only people could get past the fact that it’s made from hemp.

Hemp is a nuisance. It has this way of growing into a wide variety of uses, from clothing, to paper, to medicine and yes, building materials. Suffice to say, the million-dollar corporations that run the paper industry, the textile industry and others aren’t a fan.

Some would even argue that it is hemp’s fault that cannabis ever became illegal in the first place, because it was stepping on the toes of the cotton and paper industries in the early 1900s. But nevertheless, we’ve entered a new age of hemp legalization, and the opportunities are vast.

While there is a very heavy focus in the hemp industry on CBD products, and hemp biomass for extracting that CBD, another hemp-derived product has been gaining traction. Hempcrete has been a word seldom tossed around among construction and home building circles since the mid-2000s, but it’s finally getting a little bit of the limelight (surprisingly, pun unintended).

What is Hempcrete?

What do you get when you add hemp and concrete together? Hempcrete. It isn’t quite that simple of course, as it’s not really concrete at all. It’s actually hemp and lime mixed together, and that’s really about it.

Hempcrete is made of the inner woody core of the hemp plant and a lime-based binder. It is the hemp’s higher silica value that allows it to bind well with lime. This creates a strong, lightweight product that has been used an effective and durable building material for centuries.

What makes hempcrete unique isn’t merely the fact that it contains hemp, but its potential applications in construction.

Hempcrete Applications

While there are hempcrete buildings dating back to the 6th Century that are still standing today, more modern usage has seen hempcrete utilized as insulation. Due to its light weight, it is not a standalone building material, and must be assisted with wooden beams or other types of support.

Modern day building materials are either mined from the earth or harvested from centuries old forests. Hemp can be harvested annually in perpetuity. One acre of hemp provides as much paper as 4.1 acres of trees. Considering trees take decades to grow and hemp takes about 4 months in comparison, the advantages are obvious.

Some companies have developed hempcrete bricks that account for its light weight and help it to stand on its own without added support, which is going to advance the applications of hempcrete as a building material even more.

Why Does Hempcrete Matter?

If you haven’t noticed as of late, housing isn’t getting any cheaper. This is in part due to the fact that construction costs are also increasing. Concrete needs to be made from scratch with a variety of raw materials that can become difficult to source, especially with so much demand for concrete.

With Hempcrete however, just the pure scale of its applications and potential replacements of other materials in construction will make a huge difference in the future of the housing market. Just think about the costs (and potential health risks) of insulation and how Hempcrete can completely revolutionize how we keep our homes insulated.

The passing of the Farm Bill at the end of 2018 has opened up the national hemp industry across the U.S. with untapped potential in Hempcrete. While many businesses are focused on the hemp plant or its derivatives like CBD, not too many people are capitalizing on the plant’s material applications.

There’s a lot of money to be made in the legal hemp industry, if you start working now. If you want a less saturated competitive space with the potential for widespread expansion, Hempcrete and other hemp materials could be your new avenue.

Learn more about the many applications hemp can have in a new legal industry on The Real Dirt Podcast.

Check out some of our Hempisodes here.