Legal for all: food with THC traces

Yes, there is legal THC consumption. It is also legal to sell certain products containing THC. However, the limits are so low that psychoactive effects will never occur (and of course that is the intention of these regulations).

Whereas the limits used to be up to 50 mg/kg, the highest permissible value is currently 20 mg/kg:

Expressed in percentages, we thus arrive at values of 0.00002 to a maximum of 0.002% THC. These are the THC doses without intoxicating effect that are allowed in food.

Low THC flowers are also offered as smoked products. There, the THC content may then be up to almost 1%.

If someone regularly consumes legal hemp products with traces of THC, a urine sample may well indicate positive for THC degradation products, even though this person has not smoked pot at all. This puts the significance of urine tests into perspective.

In blood, however, a forensic institute can also determine the THC content quantitatively and no one comes with food to the values that, for example, regular joint smoking produces.

The testing machinery is constantly improving and becoming faster, but this does not change the fact that THC can also be consumed legally – and that traces of THC degradation products may have formed even without illegal consumption.

Nevertheless: Because the proof of abstinence is still controlled by urine samples or the THC degradation product (THC-COOH) contained therein, one must completely renounce the intake of THC, even legal!

• What does a THC test measure?
• Urine Testing

Incidentally, there is a similar phenomenon with poppy seeds: anyone who eats poppy seed rolls can test positive for opiates. Accordingly, there is also a limit for morphine (the active ingredient in poppy seeds, calculated as a base), which is 30 mg/kg for poppy seeds, somewhat higher than for THC.

For comparison, the current narcotics law defines all products containing at least 1.0% THC as illegal narcotics. The cultivation of the legal varieties can therefore result in problems: When prosecutors order a measurement, individual results may be slightly above the 1.0% THC – whether due to good weather conditions or natural fluctuations. Even if courts have already acquitted affected farmers: Such criminal proceedings alone mean a large amount of additional work.

Whoever grows legal hemp in Switzerland will pretty much have to talk to the authorities, experience (senseless) thefts - and also the neighborhood has to be reassured…

Despite these inconveniences, legal hemp production has never completely disappeared.

Hemp cooking oil can be found in many health food stores, not quite cheap, tart-nutty and often only refrigerated storable. hemp seeds for eating are also offered there and now also by the wholesalers, especially the peeled ones are popular. These products are also produced in Switzerland, but then have their price.

Cords made of hemp can be found in office supply stores, mostly from foreign production, as well as hemp braids as sealing material. Such products are made of 100% hemp. Depending on the fabric, hemp fabrics for clothes are also made entirely of hemp, there are also mixed fabrics with cotton content. Hemp dresses can be found in natural textile stores. Hemp curtains are also offered.

Wholesale distributors offer various teas and ice teas, a small part of which is made from hemp and mixed with other tea herbs. There are beers in which the hops (the closest relative of hemp, by the way) are partly replaced by hemp flowers and leaves.

New products are constantly being added here, although the effective hemp content is often not too large (e.g. cream cheese with hemp pesto, mayonnaise with hemp, hemp pizza dough or spread with hemp). Shampoos, hand creams and other body care products are also enriched with hemp.

All these products are not narcotics and do not drive in. The foods contain only trace amounts of THC - the little bit of THC that everyone is legally allowed to consume.