Last week the Bellevue Reporter, the newspaper of record for the city of Bellevue, did the unthinkable by publishing a sponsored article entitled, Best Delta-8 Gummies: Top Weed Edibles Review (2021). This article is probably familiar to many marketers who work in the Seattle area and who focus on cannabis – it, or other similar propaganda articles land in our email boxes daily, with the “authors” begging us to publish it on our brand’s blog sites in trade for a link to nowhere.

The Reporter not only took this lame SEO bait and even published an accompanying picture of teddy bear gummies, which basically signals the end of its journalistic intentions, it’s editors and publisher now have to stand behind a bad decision to publish a sponsored SEO piece promoting a potentially dangerous product in Delta-8

Technically Delta-8 is an extract of the hemp plant and it is billed as a ‘lighter’ version of cannabis. It comes in a few forms, but vape cartridges and edibles are the most popular. It is not regulated and therefore mostly sold in states where cannabis is illegal as a legal substitute, but the legal limit for THC percentage in those states is 0.3%, hardly a competitor to cannabis.

1. Delta-8 is not regulated. Because it is sold mostly online or by unregulated gas stations and smoke shops, there is no way of knowing exactly what you are buying and how it was made.

2. According to a report completed by the U.S. Cannabis Council, which randomly purchased products from unregulated stores in states where cannabis is not yet legal, almost half of the products tested positive for unsafe traces of chromium, copper, nickel, and lead.

3. That same report also found unsafe levels of the solvents used for extraction, which include hexane, methanol, dichloromethane, ethyl acetate, heptane, acetone, and isopropanol.

What about the state of Washington? Recently, the state’s Liquor and Cannabis Board (LCB) announced that ‘licensed delta-8 THC products’ must conform to state delta-9 THC regulations. That is a great step in the right direction, but like the states where pot is still illegal, the WA LCB can’t regulate cannabis products sold outside the state-licensed system, which includes gas stations and smoke shops.