Here’s What Butter Learned About Delta-8 THC (While Consuming Delta-8 THC)

Eight years ago, Keisha Lance Bottoms told a crowd at a mayoral candidate forum she wasn’t in favor of decriminalizing marijuana in Atlanta. Today, cannabis (/marijuana/weed/gas/Keisha) in Atlanta is a very normalized thing; Mayor Bottoms of course came around.

Yet in Georgia and at the federal level, delta-9 THC — the stuff in weed that provides the high — remains a Schedule 1 drug, according to the federal government, pretending DC is so far away from the rest of the world it can’t smell what the whole country is putting in the wind. That’s wack and dumb, because America has spoken, and we want weed. 

Some of us have weed, as we always have. But others of us don’t like to run afoul of laws pertaining to federal drug enforcement, which is understandable. For those who like life on the more square side of things, but still want to experience the benefits of cannabis, whether in the medicinal sense or just to vibe out, there’s delta-8 THC: something many Atlantans have heard about and even tried, yet even more are perhaps not aware of.

The popularity of delta-8 THC has grown in Atlanta and nationwide since the passage of the 2018 Farm Bill, which legalized hemp in the U.S. Although delta-9 THC — the cannabinoid molecule in marijuana (cannabis) that creates the “high” feeling — remains a Schedule 1 controlled substance according to the federal government in 2021 (meaning it’s illegal), the majority of U.S. states, including Georgia, have not outlawed delta-8 THC, which has similar effects, which means you can consume delta-8 without fear of legal consequences, at least at press time in December 2021.

That of course doesn’t tell you everything. For instance, you may not have noticed, but there are gas stations all over the city that sell delta-8, and hopefully you’ve learned that when it comes to “gas” at the gas station, it’s not always what you want.

What even is delta-8? How does it make you feel? Why do people call it “weed lite”? And how did it become a thing that you can buy in a store, get a receipt, and consume without fearing that the feds are going to tackle you from behind?

These are good questions, and we wanted good answers before we just started chewing up gummies and taking hits from delta-8 vape cartridges. So we asked a couple of our friends who are in the industry to tell us about delta-8, and to donate some that we could try, on-camera, as we get to the truth.

Watch as Butter.ATL’s editor-in-chief Mike Jordan interviews Matilda Adu of The Green Goddess Bakery, and Joe Salome of The Georgia Hemp Company (who was featured in The New York Times not long ago), in the Butter.ATL studios, to find out more.

And please be aware, we consumed delta-8 while we talked — you’ll see it. So yeah, things got a little weird, but we definitely answered a few questions that will hopefully aid your decision-making when it comes to whether or not delta-8 is for you.

Still got questions? Fortunately there’s a lot of information to go with all the delta-8 that’s out there already:

But in the meantime, as the famous saying goes, do as thou wilt. We think it’s fine, as long as you trust where it comes from and what’s in it. And yes, it’s fun, but if you have to take and pass drug tests for any unfortunate reason, you probably should chill (in the non-weed sort of way). And if you don’t like the psychoactive feeling of weed, you may or may not like delta-8.

We certainly did. ?