How Hemp Becomes Psychoactive Drugs

by Robert Korczynski

Author of The Best Little Medical Marijuana Handbook.

On May 1, 2026, the DEA officially assigned hexahydrocannabinol (HHC) its own Schedule I drug code (7220), a move targeting the states with illegal marijuana where Delta 8 THC products were popular but had been made illegal. Marijuana Movement's article on the subject claimed that you can hydrogenate CBD into HHC, when what is really happening is that they are taking the precursor to both CBD and THC called cannabigerol or CBG and turning it into Delta 8 THC. This allows them to bypass the laws in states that still have illegal marijuana which has the main psychoactive ingredient of Delta 9 THC. Then, when the laws focused on Delta 8 THC, they hydrogenated it and made HHC.

The 2018 Hemp Farm Bill sounded like it was going to be for growing hemp for fiber and hemp seeds for food, but no one has grown any of that kind of hemp in the United States, so we are still importing hemp seeds from Canada. Since The Hemp Farm Bill passed the entire hemp industry has been growing hemp for drugs, at first they grew high CBD hemp strains that looked identical to marijuana; they were just high CBD instead of high THC, often reaching 20% or higher in CBD. It was all to extract the drug CBD because it was marketed as a non-psychoactive miracle drug for humans. But by 2020 research showed that while nearly 70% of Americans had already tried a CBD product, most did not keep using them.

The reason CBD doesn't work for people but does work for dogs comes down to biology. While humans have a slight advantage due to our body shape, meaning we only need about half the dose per kilogram that a dog needs to reach the same blood levels, dogs have at least 15 times as many cannabinoid receptors in their brain. When you do the math, for a 15-pound dog an effective dose of CBD is only about 13.5 mg, and for a 60-pound dog it's about 54 mg, but because people weigh significantly more than most dogs and have brains that have 15 times fewer cannabinoid receptors, a 150-pound person would need to take over 1,100 mg of CBD to feel the same effect. An owner sees their dog get relief from $1 or $2 worth of CBD extract, but would have to drink half the bottle at a cost of $40 - $50 a day to achieve similar results. People tried CBD, realized it didn't do anything for them at recommended doses, and stopped buying it. Because humans would require such massive, expensive doses to achieve similar effects as their dogs, people were not willing to buy or take enough for it to have any effect. All of the farmers growing high CBD Hemp strains were left with mountains of unsellable product, and no one was going to keep an entire industry going just for dogs.

But then I assume that the people who made Delta 8 THC gave the hemp farmers a call and said that they would buy it all from them if they could extract the CBG. At the time, CBG levels probably averaged between a half a percent and 1% in most high CBD hemp strains when finished. Once they started testing different strains, they found a few strains where the CBG was already around 3% when finished, so they got to work breeding up high CBG hemp strains, and pivoted to selling CBG hemp to the people making synthetic cannabinoids to sell in gas stations. This loophole exists because the legal definition of hemp is simply any Cannabis sativa plant that tests below a 0.3% threshold for Delta 9 THC. By keeping the Delta 9 levels legally low, the industry was free to breed a whole new kind of hemp that never existed before. By breeding plants that stop at CBG the industry has literally created a brand new kind of hemp.

The Rise Of High CBG Hemp Strains

While the media continues to write stories about CBD hemp, breeders moved on to CBG hemp years ago, and created multiple high CBG strains. These plants are specifically bred to express high levels of CBG rather than CBD or THC. In 2026, industrial strains are hitting 18% to 23% CBG consistently. These include:

Double Black Label (DBL): A strain testing as high as 23.63% CBG.
Super Glue CBG: A strain testing as high as 22% CBG.
Lemon Cream Diesel: A strain testing as high as 20.7% CBG.
White CBG: A strain testing as high as 20% CBG.
Jack Frost CBG: A strain testing as high as 18% CBG.

CBG is sometimes called the mother cannabinoid because it can transform into either THC or CBD using the same enzymes that cannabis uses. In cannabis plants enzymes eventually turn almost all of the CBG into THC in marijuana plants and into CBD in hemp plants. By breeding plants that stop at CBG the industry has literally created a base feedstock source that can be turned into any number of psychoactive synthetic cannabinoids.

Playing Whack-A-Mole With The DEA

The recent focus on HHC is just the latest chapter in this story, since 2008 authorities have identified over 500 different synthetic cannabinoid chemicals that have been sold in gas stations and smoke shops. Because manufacturers constantly alter chemical structures to bypass legal bans, the list of specific compounds is vast and ever-changing.

Common Chemical Names

These represent the scientific designations for the psychoactive compounds sprayed onto plant material:

JWH-018, JWH-073, JWH-200 (The original series)
AM-2201
UR-144 and XLR-11
AB-CHMINACA and AB-PINACA
5F-ADB and MDMB-CHMICA
HU-210

Common Retail Brand Names

These are the "street" or "brand" names often found on colorful packaging labeled as "herbal incense" or "potpourri":

K2 and Spice
Black Mamba
Scooby Snax
Mr. Nice Guy
Cloud 9
Joker
Kush
AK-47

So farmers grow fields of 20% CBG Hemp plants under the protection of the Hemp Farm Act, then labs extract the CBG and use acid catalysts to finish it into Delta 8 THC.

The Hydrogenation Dodge: When individual states or the feds moved to ban Delta 8 THC, the labs took Delta 8 THC, put it in a high-pressure chamber with a metal catalyst like palladium and hydrogenated it into HHC or hexahydrocannabinol. HHC is just Delta 8 THC wearing a new chemical hat to stay one step ahead of the DEA.

The entire Hemp Industry continues to talk about CBD Hemp when they switched to CBG Hemp years ago to produce psychoactive drugs, and all stories including the Marijuana Movement story continue to misinform the public that somehow standard Hemp or even High CBD Hemp can be transformed into any kind of THC. They use the name CBD as a shield because everyone knows that CBD is not psychoactive, so it sounds safe and legal. They do not want to admit they are industrializing the CBG to THC pathway because that looks exactly like what it is: a clandestine lab operation scaled up for gas station shelves.

This endless cycle of chasing loopholes, whether it is Delta 8, HHC, or whatever hexa compound comes next, is a direct result of marijuana's federal legal status. Even after the DEA moved medical marijuana to Schedule III in April 2026, it remains illegal in approximately half of the states. They are doubling down to ensure these synthetic derivatives are just as illegal in all of those states.

There is only one way to stop the madness. The United States must legalize marijuana federally, or the states where it is still illegal can finally make it legal on their own. Half the states have already fully legalized it, and in those states nobody needs to sell Delta 8 THC on a gas station shelf. Delta 8 THC frequently ends up in the hands of kids, and the only reason labs are creating psychoactive Delta 8 THC or any other synthetic cannabinoids is to provide a psychoactive alternative to marijuana in the states where marijuana is still illegal. When you legalize the real thing, which is marijuana with Delta 9 THC, the demand for synthetic cannabinoids, Delta 8 THC, and any of its derivatives will disappear overnight, and marijuana can be sold to adults in all US states. Maybe then we can finally start growing hemp for fiber and hemp for food.

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