6 June 8 - 14, 2023 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents Larew has several licenses to do what he does at his Bedford-based company, Wyatt Purp. He has a processor license, a handler license, a producer license and a couple of manufacturing licenses. He takes these measures to make sure he’s in compliance throughout the whole process. His edibles and hemp are made in facilities out of state. They are sent to a small office building in Lewisville to be shipped to customers across Texas. Larew originally wanted to manufacture delta-8, but early on the state said he wasn’t allowed to do that. After hemp was legalized federally and in Texas, he reached out to the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) to ask if it was legal to make delta-8 and sell it. The agency told him by email in July 2021 that this would be illegal and that all converted isomers were Schedule 1 con- trolled substances, which isn’t far off from what it sounds like the Drug Enforcement Administration is getting ready to propose. Larew feels he was misled at the time. DSHS in October 2021 posted to its web- site the opinion that these products were il- legal, effectively banning them and forcing their removal from store shelves. But that was challenged in court by the Texas com- pany Hometown Hero. That legal challenge is still working its way through the courts, but the company was able to get the ban stayed until the case is resolved. This prompted some companies to shift to mak- ing legal delta-9 products, using the same kind of chemical synthesis used to make delta-8. By then, Larew was already working on his own natural delta-9 products. “[DSHS] told me, after I’d already made plans to do delta-8, that I couldn’t do that and that only delta-9 THC at less than 0.3%, naturally occurring, was legal,” Larew says. “They were like ‘Sorry to kill your dream,’ and kind of laughed at me,” he recalls. “I don’t think they know what they just told me.” They told him what the law says, which is that hemp and hemp products with 0.3% delta-9 THC or less on a dry weight basis are legal. That’s just a fraction of the percentage of delta-9 found in the cannabis found in products in legal states or purchased from your friendly neighborhood dealer in Texas. But a moderate dose of delta-9 in an edible is just 10–15 milligrams, an amount easily con- tained in a standard-sized gummy or baked treat. For example, Wyatt Purp sells packs of 10 gummy candies with a combined delta-9 content of 100 milligrams, so depending on your weight and tolerance level, one or two gummies should do the trick. Texans can get legally high; they just have to consume more calories to get there. While some other companies today use a synthetic process to create their delta-9, Larew wanted to find another way. To do this naturally, he’d need a license for every single step of the process. This would allow him to be in possession of high levels of delta-9 THC. It’s all considered in-process material until he’s finished with it, he said. Legal CBD and CBD isolate are being manufactured for hemp and hemp products all over the country, including in Texas. Some companies take this CBD and put it through a chemical process to turn it into delta-8. Others sell regular CBD products that don’t get users high but have a number of purported health benefits. A byproduct of all this CBD isolate manufacturing is some- thing called mother liquor, basically just waste from the manufacturing process, Larew says. In this waste is all the excess THC. “Once I realized that everyone was just throwing away the THC, I was like ‘Holy shit,’ and I figured out how to gather this. There is so much of this stuff,” he says. He uses it to make his edibles. He’s been outspoken about his methods, but they haven’t been very widely adopted, and he’s not sure why. He thinks it may be because the method he uses can’t be pat- ented and, therefore, isn’t as potentially profitable. Wyatt Purp’s process also can be more expensive, but Larew thinks that if more people started doing it, a more effi- cient method would be developed. “But that’s not the way they’re designing this, and that’s why I’m kind of rebelling against this. I feel like they’re corrupting the plant, and I’m connected to it spiritually,” Larew says. “We don’t need to be creating all of these basically research chemicals and giv- ing them to kids to go smoke and see what happens when we have the real thing right here, and it’s totally safe. It’s totally natural.” (Natural or not, not everyone agrees that can- nabis is entirely safe, especially when it’s over-indulged or consumed by adolescents.) Hudalla has heard of others using a simi- lar method to make delta-9 products. “I’m actually a big fan of these products,” he says, “because … these do not have contami- nants.” Hudalla knows of Wyatt Purp but couldn’t speak specifically to its process. “If they’re using the loopholes in the laws to create a product which is essentially safe and high-quality, I would support that, and there are a number of companies that do that,” Hudalla says. Even companies like Wyatt Purp that take care to avoid synthetics and all the questions about what’s legal with them aren’t safe from the snares built into the state’s murky canna- bis regulation. Larew and Wyatt Purp co- founder Dustin Ragon began operations out of a closet and garage in Lake Dallas and have since turned a $5,000 investment into a mil- lion-dollar business, Larew says. Along the way, Ragon found himself in jail and threat- ened with felony charges while operating with state permits. “They came at us,” Larew says. Ragon says he had one bottle of the com- pany’s delta-9 THC syrup in his car on its way to being tested when he was pulled over last November because his vehicle registration had expired. He tried explaining to the police that it was a compliant product, but the cops hauled him to Tarrant County jail and at- tempted to file felony charges against him. Ragon says he spent a day sharing a cell with two capital murderers before being released. Larew went to the courthouse to make an appointment with the judge. “He finally talked to me in a courtroom and made every- body stop in the middle of what they were doing and said ‘Look sir, I commend you, but you have to understand, there’s a process,’” Larew recalled. “You’re probably the one out of a million in the city that really has a license or you wouldn’t be here talking to me. If they’ve railroaded you this way, I feel really sorry. But you have to get an attorney.’” The two lawyered up and eventually got the charges dropped after showing all of their licenses and certifications. The whole ordeal cost them about $4,000. It got Larew think- ing of something he’s heard many times be- fore from people in law enforcement. “Every single judge, every police officer, ev- ery law enforcement agency across the coun- try have all told us, ‘Your ignorance of the law is no excuse to break the law.’ And they put your ass in jail, or they fine you and you accept that,” Larew said. “Right now, their ignorance of the plant is no excuse not to uphold the law. That’s what I want to say because they have no idea what the fuck they’re doing and they’re violating everyone’s rights.” Things have been going great with the company ever since, though. Wyatt Purp has started selling THCa, a precursor to delta-9 that also falls in a legal gray area. “THCa is basically what marijuana is,” Larew said. “If they were smart they would’ve regulated THCa, not really delta-9.” THCa itself isn’t psychoactive, but when it’s heated (like in a joint or vape), it turns into delta-9. Manufacturers have recently started making isolated crystallized THCa that can be infused into flowers and other products to boost concentration. But not Larew and Wyatt Purp. Instead, the com- pany grows high-THCa hemp flower. This isn’t some compound that manufac- turers and Larew just recently discovered. In fact, as North Carolina hemp industry at- torney Rod Kight wrote in a recent article, most marijuana in legal states is actually just high-THCa cannabis flower. It may be ad- vertised as marijuana with some 20% THC, but most of that is THCa, not delta-9. Larew says he’s been able to grow something very similar with hemp. “A lot of people would say what I’m doing is wrong,” he says. “Under the laws, I’m the only one who’s legal, and it’s crazy.” Larew says the Drug Enforcement Ad- ministration has indicated that it thinks syn- thetic THCs from hemp are Schedule 1 controlled substances, and the agency is get- ting ready to propose new rules that could set this in stone. There have also been state and other national efforts to ban lab-created THCs. If that ever happens, Larew says other companies will have to change their practices and he’ll be ahead of the curve. But some people question the legality of his THCa products and think it’s irresponsi- ble to sell THCa to consumers because of how law enforcement agencies test for mari- juana. Zachary Maxwell, president of the Texas Hemp Growers, explained that there are two major ways of testing THC concen- trations: high-pressure liquid chromatogra- phy and gas chromatography. High-pressure liquid chromatography is mostly used on consumer hemp-products because it won’t convert THCa into delta-9, Maxwell says. But gas chromatography, the preferred method of testing for many law enforcement agencies, uses heat that will convert that THCa into delta-9. So, if you get pulled over with some THCa flower from Wyatt Purp or any other company and it gets tested by law enforcement, you could get charged with marijuana possession. That doesn’t seem to matter to Larew, who could face a similar fate if his place is ever raided. “If they [the police] test my cannabis, they’re going to call it marijuana and they’re going to say it’s 28% THC,” he said. Larew says he’d be ready to defend himself and prove his products are com- pliant. He contends law enforcement is manufacturing marijuana out of legal hemp when they test it using gas chroma- tography, and he doesn’t think that’s an accident either. “It’s a money-making racket,” he said. But Hudalla doesn’t think Larew’s argu- ment would hold up in court. Additionally, a few states have put specific restrictions on THCa in recent years. Hudalla also pointed to a portion of the 2018 Farm Bill, which federally legalized hemp, that lays out a U.S. Department of Ag- riculture (USDA) requirement that hemp crops have a total delta-9 THC concentra- tion of 0.3% or less as measured by a post- decarboxylation technique. But, attorney Kight argues that the total THC test has to take place prior to the hemp’s harvest, so this doesn’t apply to manufactured or fin- ished products found on the shelves Mike Brooks Larew and Ragon restock the shelves in their warehouse for Wyatt Purp. Unfair Park from p4 >> p8