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Conveting CBD to psychoactive THC is relatively easy

JacksinPA

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I may have posted this before but it bears repeating because I'm not the only one who knows how to do this.

Converting CBD to THC: It’s Easy, Potentially Harmful & Raises Concerns About Current Approaches to Cannabis Regulation

The creation of THC from CBD needs very little workup. The process itself only requires a strong acid and heat to start, catalyse, and maintain the reaction. An untrained, interested novice with a simple set of instructions could very easily create delta-9-THC from CBD in a home lab environment. A trained chemist would be able to dramatically increase the yield and purity of the reaction products in the same home lab environment with no additional specialized tools, chemicals, or experimental setups. An optimized version of this conversion formula already exists in the literature, and is in the public domain, ready to be used by anyone who finds it.

Given that the process occurs in relatively tame environments, the barriers to scaling the technology required to perform the conversion are low as well. Large tanks, agitators, fluid transfer pumps, reactant loaders, heat exchangers, filters and metering/monitoring systems would constitute the bulk of the required hardware, which represents a far simpler factory for process engineers to design than traditional botanical extract purification facilities.
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High-grade THC from CBD would be a high value-added upgrade. Illegal of course. The Feds look at this the same as making heroin or fentanyl. But with the ready availability of CBD, a lot of people are likely aware of this one-step chemistry that can be practiced 'under the radar' with no dangerous or restricted starting materials being required, as with making meth.

cbd-thc-differences.jpg
 
I may have posted this before but it bears repeating because I'm not the only one who knows how to do this.

Converting CBD to THC: It’s Easy, Potentially Harmful & Raises Concerns About Current Approaches to Cannabis Regulation

The creation of THC from CBD needs very little workup. The process itself only requires a strong acid and heat to start, catalyse, and maintain the reaction. An untrained, interested novice with a simple set of instructions could very easily create delta-9-THC from CBD in a home lab environment. A trained chemist would be able to dramatically increase the yield and purity of the reaction products in the same home lab environment with no additional specialized tools, chemicals, or experimental setups. An optimized version of this conversion formula already exists in the literature, and is in the public domain, ready to be used by anyone who finds it.

Given that the process occurs in relatively tame environments, the barriers to scaling the technology required to perform the conversion are low as well. Large tanks, agitators, fluid transfer pumps, reactant loaders, heat exchangers, filters and metering/monitoring systems would constitute the bulk of the required hardware, which represents a far simpler factory for process engineers to design than traditional botanical extract purification facilities.
===========================================
High-grade THC from CBD would be a high value-added upgrade. Illegal of course. The Feds look at this the same as making heroin or fentanyl. But with the ready availability of CBD, a lot of people are likely aware of this one-step chemistry that can be practiced 'under the radar' with no dangerous or restricted starting materials being required, as with making meth.

Easy fix: Legalize pot. No one will ever do this.
 
I don't know. I'm generally against things being legal.

Coming from a Conservative, its no suprise. The genie is out of the bottle. Cannabis is not going way. If anything more States will be legalizing by ballot initiative Nov 2020. It is now legel in Canada, with Mexico to follow in a few months.
 
I cannot joke about anything anymore. :mrgreen:

No, you cannot, your forum presence is far too serious to engage in anything as frivolous as humor. ;)

I knew something was up, though, don't worry... :lamo
 
I may have posted this before but it bears repeating because I'm not the only one who knows how to do this.

Converting CBD to THC: It’s Easy, Potentially Harmful & Raises Concerns About Current Approaches to Cannabis Regulation

The creation of THC from CBD needs very little workup. The process itself only requires a strong acid and heat to start, catalyse, and maintain the reaction. An untrained, interested novice with a simple set of instructions could very easily create delta-9-THC from CBD in a home lab environment. A trained chemist would be able to dramatically increase the yield and purity of the reaction products in the same home lab environment with no additional specialized tools, chemicals, or experimental setups. An optimized version of this conversion formula already exists in the literature, and is in the public domain, ready to be used by anyone who finds it.

Given that the process occurs in relatively tame environments, the barriers to scaling the technology required to perform the conversion are low as well. Large tanks, agitators, fluid transfer pumps, reactant loaders, heat exchangers, filters and metering/monitoring systems would constitute the bulk of the required hardware, which represents a far simpler factory for process engineers to design than traditional botanical extract purification facilities.
===========================================
High-grade THC from CBD would be a high value-added upgrade. Illegal of course. The Feds look at this the same as making heroin or fentanyl. But with the ready availability of CBD, a lot of people are likely aware of this one-step chemistry that can be practiced 'under the radar' with no dangerous or restricted starting materials being required, as with making meth.

That's an interesting article but I'm having trouble figuring out why we should worry. I'm not sure why anyone would go to the trouble given pot is widely available, legal or not.

And I'm a former beer maker, and my father in law made moonshine when he lived overseas, and so I know the conversion of sugar to alcohol requires almost no equipment or expertise - just some yeast. And if you want moonshine, a 'still' is easy enough to construct, apply heat, and basic chemistry and at the end you have PGA or close to it. But why would anyone go to the trouble given you can just drive to the nearest liquor store and pick up a bottle? Why is this different?

Edit: I didn't read far enough. Looks like the argument is, basically, converting the product is very risky, and since CBD is now sold everywhere there is a huge stock of raw materials to convert... So the solution is easy - legalize pot, and regulate it like alcohol. Problem goes away.

Never ceases to amaze me how stupid we've been with pot for decades. I've found no argument or evidence that the unintended or intended downsides of pot bans don't completely overwhelm by several orders of magnitude any benefit that might have come about from the ban. This is another in a long list of examples. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
 
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I, as well, find that things being legal is generally a bad thing.
 
Just legalizing nationally and taking cannabis off the don't you dare list would do the trick. I've indulged for decades and now that cannabis has gotten to the point it's pretty much everywhere, why bother making anything when you can go to a store and just buy the product you want. Or maybe you may even be lucky enough to know someone who grows?
 
Jack

They can synthesize THC. One brand-named product is Marinol.

Yes, one day Alchemy might even synthesize common sense, but I doubt it.
 
Now I know what the neighbors are doing all night.

Legalize it. Time to move on. End of story.






as an aside, I have recently purchased a hemp night cream. Best thing I ever tried.
 
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