Tommy Truong and Josh Swider
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Intro: [00:00:00] Welcome to Kaya Cast, the podcast for cannabis business, looking to launch grow their operations.
Tommy Truong: So the most controversial man in the extraction industry. Before we start, can you give our listeners us a background about yourself?
Josh Swider: Yeah, so my name's Josh Swider I'm the co-founder and CEO of a company called Infinite Chemical Analysis Labs. We're a testing cannabis and hemp testing facility in California as well as Michigan. Then around the industry for. A decade now. Um, I'm an analytical chemist by trade and, uh, kind of out here looking at the public safety sector and differentiating, you know, what illicit cannabis was a long time ago to legal cannabis, and the biggest difference between the two was a testing protocol for safety for consumers.
Tommy Truong: So you've, you have such an extensive experience in California now, uh, and on the other side of the country, [00:01:00] testing extractions, right? For synthetics.
Josh Swider: Yeah, so we've done a lot of synthetic work in, uh, in the past, I would say four years. That's where the, we started to see the hemp industry change into, I would call it, to synthetic production of cannabinoids or cannabinoid, like structures that are synthetic drugs. Um, and then being produced and sold under a thing called the Farm bill.
And then, uh, making it out to consumers unknowingly sometimes, and, uh. The, the effects of that could be detrimental in the long run.
Tommy Truong: You have some wild stories. So what is the current state of the industry with regards to synthetic?
Josh Swider: Yeah. So as far as the, the industry has grown. So the hemp industry, I would say is not the hemp industry of four years ago or five years ago. The hemp industry used to be a, a, primarily a CB, D based industry. Low, low, um, THC numbers. Now the hemp tree sign has changed into the cheapest cost provider into anything.
That looks like a cannabinoid or is a [00:02:00] cannabinoid. So what we've seen with synthetics over the last four years is the biggest, the biggest synthetic one popping up into all markets is synthetically created Delta nine, THC. Uh, people say, well, it's still THC. Well, it doesn't mean necessarily that the other things that come over during the synthetic process are safe to consume.
This is why when you do synthetic production of. Chemicals for human consumption. You have people like the, the FDA regulating it 'cause those regulations are vastly different than what you'd see in the extraction facility or extracting cannabis, so cannabis or hemp. So when, when doing these types of things there, there's different sets of protocols and safety.
Uh, considerations you use. And we've seen a lot in, uh, this realm from, you know, it used to just be Delta eight production to growing to Delta nine production. I have a story on that if you want to hear it, to exotic cannabinoids, the simple ones with sort of the T CV production to THCP, to HHC to [00:03:00] name a three four letter soup and you got it.
And that's the new oid, the WE, T-H-C-X-T-H-C. This that, yeah.
Tommy Truong: How do these new cannabinoids pop out of nowhere? Like who? How does that happen?
Josh Swider: I mean, honestly, there's online groups and forms. So the, the thing is, a lot of this stuff is there's, there's some synthetic organic chemists that, that, uh, kind of dabble in this, the arena or industry, and do things on the backend. And then a lot of people are just learning from either an online form, like if it's not like a Reddit form or watching videos.
And so. The safety I implications of that sometimes can be very alarming and scary. Um, and a lot of it's trial and error. So what we've seen too is over the years, I mean it goes back to like Delta eight, when people were trying to make Delta nine THC from extracting, um, cannabis or hemp, they would make.
Delta eight by accident, and then they realized they were doing something and then they found it successful. And then just like Delta, I said Delta [00:04:00] nine synthetically being produced. They were making Delta eight and it had low levels of Delta nine in it. And people back then would consider anything below.
Above 0.3% Delta nine, THC, to be considered cannabis. And they didn't want that. So DD nine production, they would say, I'm, I gotta keep this below 0.3%. And a laboratory that's always, we use accuracy and precision on anything we do in testing. They would call us and say, Hey Josh, this has 1%. Delta nine in it.
This is impossible. Another lab says it's zero, and I'm like, well, they're probably not separating it. Uh, I'm not sure why it would say zero. It's, uh, definitely has it and go through the ring, ring roll that, uh, as far as a testing lab and a client, and then I remember this one day, this has to be like four or five years ago, a client called and they had 13% Delta nine.
They were yelling at me and telling me why I don't know what I'm doing. An animal chemist is impossible. You know, he, he quenches reaction. He sure he read on a form that this is the way to do it and he told me pretty much it was an F off moment at the end [00:05:00] to me and hung up and the next day I get a phone call back from him.
Hey Josh. Actually, you're sure it's 13%, right? How can I make that go up? And I was like, whoa, what do you mean? And he is like, well, I can create Delta nine synthetically and I can do it. And so then that, I feel like this is about four or five years ago, the race started on how to now not just make Delta eight, but that's the intermediate between the normal.
The normal production of Delta Delta eight production will end up with some Delta nine is to make the reaction in favor of the Delta nine pathway and to stick with Delta nine THC. And that's what you started seeing? Yeah.
Tommy Truong: So walk me back. What, what is syn synthetic like? What does that mean, and how do you derive Delta eight and Delta nine through a synthetic method?
Josh Swider: So, so synthetic. So the way I do it, I, I look at it as a, a chemist perspective and there'll people with different opinions on it. The hemp industry is one of 'em. Um, synthetic chemistry is taking one compound, doing a chemical com chemical [00:06:00] reaction and creating another. One. So this is primarily done with CBD as a starting material.
So when I say primarily, it depends the, the end product, some of the, these hemp cannabinoids can't ever start from a. C, BD molecule, they're starting from other molecules. So they have nothing to do with hemp in the beginning. So a very common C, B, D to delta eight or delta nine reactions and acid catalyzed reaction.
And they do this acid catalyzed reaction to create their product. So, you know, you, your chemistry class, you take one thing, mix another one, mix 'em together. One plus one equals C and D, you know, different products. So that, that's what they do, is that they try to control chemical reaction to create a favorable product.
And in this case in point, it was CCB D to delta eight or delta nine.
Tommy Truong: So when you're doing, when you're creating a, a cannabinoid, synthetically, what else do you create in that process?
Josh Swider: Lots of things. So that's the thing. So organic chemistry or synthetic chemistry. Is an interesting thing [00:07:00] because we never get what we want. I'm not a synthetic chemist myself. I'm a little chemist, but I have a lot of. Synthetic chemist that work with me, a business partner has a PhD in synthetic chemistry.
Organic synthetic. So the, these are these things that happen is when you, when you're trying to make a product, you might make 90% and you did a good job. The other 10% of the products are unknowns or they're, uh, unknown. So a lot of times when we do these synthetic reactions, these things called byproducts are made.
Byproducts are, they're your unintended, unintended result. But it always happens. And so when we look at like a plant like cannabis or hemp. Okay. We have a whole industry in CHE chemistry called Sym, uh, natural Products Chemistry. And there's a lot of chemists out there that try to mimic plants and we're just not as good.
So why I bring that up is when you, when you create Delta nine THC on a plant, you're using something called THCA SYNTASE to create Delta nine, THC. And the wonderful part about, like say, on a [00:08:00] cannabis plant, it always makes. The same exact product. And so when we say THC, the interesting part most people don't realize is THC, even Delta nine, THC comes in four flavors.
There's four things called isomers of 'em. There's two in anti EMRs. There's a cyst in the trans. Then they have two different spins. So it's kind of your hands, other super holdable images. It's the same thing as chemistry. Sometimes these things, even if there's the same formula or chemical makeup, if it's done in a different rotation or the way it's structured together, which is a 3D model, one can kill you, one can cure cancer, and this is the same thing with like thal as example you heard in the industry.
Chemistry or this hemp chemistry where one created per birth defects and one was a great birth control and they didn't realize they were creating both kind of left and right-handed molecule 'cause no one did the separation analytically. So when you look at these things, one thing you notice about, um.
Cannabis L sativa, true Type one plant is, it makes [00:09:00] negative negative trans Delta nine. A hemp plant lacks TCA synthase A type three plant. It makes a emmic mixture of, not emmic, it's a little bit off, but um, of cysts and trans Delta nine. And then chemical conversions always makes CYS in trans Delta nine.
But the thing about the chemical conversions is they make byproducts. There's some of 'em are un or some of 'em are unknown, some of 'em are unknown. And every time you switch your reaction parameters. You get more byproducts and different byproducts and so a lot of times when this synthetic production of chemicals are done, you have someone like the FDA there to make sure that we we're consuming these things appropriately.
One, you need to look at the analy study, so, okay. Ana analyze study that we're trying to make here, let's say is Delta nine, THC. Okay. We live on the fact that Delta 19 C may be safe to consume. Right. You know, we're gonna stand on that. And then the next thing is, what about all the other things you, that you used or me during that process?
So you'll have those byproducts. Any byproduct, over 0.1% composition would have to be, have a a, [00:10:00] a studies, two studies, done an efficacy and safety study. So to make sure it's gonna affect you, not affect you differently, and that's safe to consume. Those studies have not been done on these pipelines. And that, that's a very important thing to, to note.
And a lot of these contaminants or byproducts are well above 0.1%. I've screened synthetic delta nine THC, and I've seen 60 byproducts over 0.1% in one. In one reaction. How many of 'em figured out? I figured out a few of 'em. There's other ones. I don't know what they are still, that's a lot of work. I mean, we've been doing this for quite some time.
These, these are done normally at universities that have funding 'cause of free grad students and they do the work for whole years, four years, and they figure out one of these byproducts and things like that. So as an industry, we are trying to do this as quick as possible, um, because the, the amount of byproducts that are being consumed by consumers and some, a lot of times unknowingly.
Tommy Truong: That's a, so correct me if I'm [00:11:00] wrong, is every hemp derived extraction product. They're all synthetic.
Josh Swider: CBD used to not be, but there is CBD now being manufactured by the barrel load and they're not even starting. They're synthetically making it. And that gets shipped over in barrels from overseas. Um, and that's a lot of times it's starting material to make these other cannabinoids, um, the most of are synthetically produced in the hemp industry.
Uh, not all of 'em. I could honestly say most, and each, each analyte has a different way. So, like my laboratory two years ago was the first laboratory in the commercial cannabis and hemp testing industry to get a regulated certified method where I can distinguish the difference between Delta nine T.
She's origin. So what I mean by that is did it come from a cannabis plant? Did it come from a hemp plant or was. Synthetically produced. So I say Delta nine, 'cause Delta eight. I can tell you too. T-H-C-V-I can tell you everything has different [00:12:00] byproducts and different, different telltale markers of where it came from.
Um.
Tommy Truong: What is THC eight and TC nine are, are
Josh Swider: Delta nine. It's, it is where, it's where your, your hydrogen is. So you're just moving it and you'll get different binding affinities to your receptor. So like delta, delta nine, tcs, it, it'll less high. It doesn't stick around on, on
Tommy Truong: oh.
Josh Swider: your, your receptor as long. And that's kind of what, what the difference is between it.
And normally when you increase a tailed length on a compound, so like how long the carbon chain is on land, the more sticky it is you can think, the more sticky it is, the longer the chain is, the more effective. Yet. So why, you know, a lot of times with drug, I'm gonna say this in context of drugs, 'cause this is something they do, is like, you have Percocet, you have heroin, you have, um, fentanyl.
Why is fentanyl so much, so much more effective to the, the, the users? Because you have a longer chain on it and it sticks to those receptors a lot longer and people get a higher from it, more or less.
Tommy Truong: Oh, that makes
Josh Swider: This is why you hear things [00:13:00] like THCP, right? So Delta eight, delta nine is just gonna be pretty much the same exact chemical formula, but you're just switching it where a chemical bond is.
And then A-T-H-C-P is a different compound, it just has a longer chain. So you have your backbone of the the ca uh. THC and you kinda think they keep adding, adding to that chain. And these are why you're starting to see so many different, um, analogs or THC analogs, and I call 'em synthetic drugs because a lot of these things have not been proven to be found on plants.
There's like just a case in point THCP, there's people that argue on this, that they found it once in 1970. Hasn't really been reproduced. I can tell you from hundreds of thousands of samples we run yearly that we're not seeing it in plant material and hemp, or the counter division, THCP. So my determination, I'm not seeing it, I can't find it.
So that's why I would call it a synthetic more. And then the other, the industry also uses this terms called semisynthetic, where if it is starting from a cannabinoid like CB, D and going to another known [00:14:00] cannabinoid, then we call it semisynthetic. But the chemist in me calls that. Synthetic chemistry. I mean,
Tommy Truong: Just it's synthetic. Is, is this a problem in the cannabis industry as well, or is just hemp
Josh Swider: Oh no. This is, this is infiltrated into the cannabis industry. So the cannabis industry, you're seeing these, these, um, being used and it's not always bad synthetic. So this is a very, very high level thing. I would say synthetic does not equal bad synthetic done, done wrong equals bad. I normally know. I said I save that saying that to who I'm talking to.
And maybe I shouldn't be saying it to the general public. 'cause I'm not saying synthetic not equal, bad. It it can very well, you have to do it right and you have to do it correctly. And this is one of those scary games you play with, with it as if it's not an acute thing, as in very dangerous, very quick.
You're not gonna see an onset. But these are those things you find out after 10 years of someone consuming something. Oh look, this caused cancer. Byproduct. Oh, [00:15:00] too bad. Everyone that's been consuming it, we didn't know. And that, that's the thing. We don't want to do
Tommy Truong: How do you know as a shopper today and, and these compounds where they use it? Is it in gummies, edibles, and also vaped or what? Everything. Even flower
Josh Swider: flower. Yeah, no, no. 'cause flower. A lot of the flower and the, okay, there's THCA flower, which. Is really cannabis. 'Cause again, there's, I, I distinguish, so I go to meetings and I ask questions sometimes that are more difficult for people. So a lot of times when I, when people are giving presentations or having round, round robin or discussions on stage, they'll throw terms out like hemp, cannabis, synthetic don't derive.
And I always just go, can we go back to the basics? Everyone on stage who just use all those words, what does that mean? And no one will ever answer. These questions 'cause people are very scared to say what they are. So I define cannabis as a, a type one plant that produces THCA sym through THCA synthesis, uh, [00:16:00] type three plant would be more of your, your hemp plant and then any of these hemp derivatives or synthetic drugs for the most part.
And you can create synthetically any of the the cannabinoids, but it's just gonna be coming onto efficiency
Tommy Truong: So why would, why is this a problem in the cannabis industry if the plant itself has CCA.
Josh Swider: Yeah, so, so, because you can do it cheaper. So here's an example. Uh, CBDA long time ago, I mean, I remember A CBD rush came out with the hemp industry, right? CBD kilos were like $20,000 a kilo. This is CBD isolate. That price has. Drop down to like $200 over the course of six or seven years. Um, so when they start with that CBD material, at $200, they can do this acid catalyze reaction cheaply.
And if they don't do the appropriate cleanup stuff to remove the byproducts and also the, the chemicals they use to do the production, you can make this stuff for $300 a kilo. So now your cannabis industry would do an [00:17:00] extraction and you're, you know, extracting cannabis plant. You know, using 10 pounds, 10 to one trim, you can kind of think, you use 20 pounds of trim to make a kilo or so.
Um, it's, it, it becomes more cost prohibitive and your price on that, with the largest scale manufacturer, somewhere in the six to $800 range per kilo. So now you just undercut the price. But I'll say this, I do know people that make Delta nine THC the appropriate way. Their price of production is $20,000.
'cause the production is not the expensive part. It's the cleanup to make it compliant under FDA standards of removing the chemical byproducts and also removing the chemicals reagents that you. Used those can be the expensive steps of this, not the production. So it infiltrates the cannabis industry 'cause they can undercut the price.
Sometimes the cannabis industry doesn't know, like sometimes I tell all people in the cannabis or infantry. So the deal is too good to be true. It probably is. If someone's [00:18:00] underselling a price to something, it's probably not the same thing. They're really selling.
Tommy Truong: How do, how do I as a consumer, if I'm in the store, know if I'm taking in something that's not synthetic versus synthetic?
Josh Swider: So you can stray so synthetic. If you were concerned about synthetic, you can say if you don't, if you haven't heard the, if it's not Delta nine, T-H-C-T-H-C, or CB, D, things like that. And it's these new exotic ones. They're synthetic hands down. Uh, Delta eight is synthetic because Delta eight is produced so lowly on any type of plant, the extraction cost of it would be $50,000 a kilo.
When you go buy a vape pen for $10 for a gram, well 50,000, that'd be $500 a gram vape pen, unless you're paying $500 for that Delta eight pay vape pen. It's not real. It's synthetically produced 'cause he couldn't have extracted it. Do you see what I'm saying? So when you go into the this market, you can assume that if it's exotic [00:19:00] new type of thing, it's gonna be synthetic.
And then if it's a traditional conoid, if it's synthetic or not, you, you have to go to the brand and the trust and the value of that. So what I mean by that is people that go above and beyond, there's organizations started out there that are, that are doing this. A STM, it's an international standards recognized thing.
There's new stickers that they've been working on to talk about synthetic. There's a, a standard to make synthetic OIDs that I was heavily involved in for the last year and a half to set a bar of, if you're gonna do it, do it right. That's being under review. Um, so it's hard as a consumer, but I'll tell you this, as a consumer, if something is cheap.
Being low cost, the more likely that synthetic is greater. Um, the things I've seen left over and synthetically produced OIDs scare me. It scares me for people's health. I'm not saying all hemp material is bad, but a lot of times I recommend to my family [00:20:00] not to consume hemp. Because today's hemp material is not the hemp material of yesterday.
There's very few. There are good comp, there are not good bad. There are companies out there that do true CBD products and true hemp products, and I tell, you know, you have to find a trusted source or a trusted vendor and that's who you stick with. You don't go out and venture out and buy random products from cheaper sources, but then that, that's again, risk management on health.
Right.
Tommy Truong: So you've, you are sounding the alarm. You saw this as a problem. And you sounded the alarm on this. Are, are the regulators on this? If, if cannabis re reclass the schedule three, is it, does it now, now does the FDA review it or.
Josh Swider: So the f d's known about this for a long time. So I'm a part of an organization called, uh, A CIL. It's American Council for Independent Laboratories. It's about an 87-year-old, 90-year-old division. Um, it's a bunch of analytical chemists, some of the biggest labs in around the United States [00:21:00] that don't test cannabis.
This is analytical chemistry that we've been working with on the background with FDA doing, talks about this stuff and what's being seen in the market for a long time. So they're very well aware of it and they're, they, if you read how the FDA every FDA has nothing to do with hemp right now. Uh, there's no regulation that demands.
Or no law, no legislation has been passed. The USDA has the only one has anything to do with hemp, but you gotta remember the USD a's hemp material is only the plant material grown and that is regulated according to the USDA as total THC. Anything above total THC of 0.3% is cannabis and that is not actually hemp.
And any of, you'll have a lot of lawyers that don't, will try to argue this. All I could say is go on the USDA's website, and there's a very spelled out equation for you that says how to calculate total THC. Any USD agro [00:22:00] hemp would have to be tested by A-U-S-D-A approved laboratory that must be using this calculation.
So that's why THC file is actually all cannabis. If it's above 0.3% total THC, and it couldn't actually be sold under the USDA's guideline or the farm bill in. My opinion as far as following the train of me testing product and following regulations set up like USDA. Um, that's a long-winded answer.
Tommy Truong: You are blowing my mind right now. So if
Josh Swider: Stop me if you need to.
Tommy Truong: you know these states that are not legalized for cannabis and you are ingesting in hemp, you gotta make sure that you're buying it from the right vendor.
Josh Swider: Right vendor and a lot of times, I mean, I go all over the country to conferences and other things. I stop at stores, gas stations, everything, and most of the time in the states. That don't have legalized cannabis. They're the worst as far as the products on the shelf. I'll buy 'em, I'll test them. I'll find [00:23:00] contaminants in these things that no one should be consuming.
A lot of 'em are mis, mis, uh, dose. You know, you buy a package that says, you know, these, these are the cannabinoids in it. They're so far off on 'em. I've seen 'em go up or down and what the scary part is like. When, when you look at this kind of stuff too, it's like, okay, let's say, let's say I, I decided I'm gonna consume TCP and I bought this gummies and it says 10 milligrams THCP in it.
And I buy it and I eat one and I don't feel anything. So then I go ahead and I eat two next time and I eat three. And that package was actually wrong. There was only one milligram TCP in it. And I say, you know, I'm gonna go ahead and venture out. I'm gonna buy a new vendor. And this one says 10, but it really had a hundred.
These are real case scenarios that I've seen, and now I eat my five gummies, like I'm used to eating holy problems. So like I work with doctors around the country, nurse groups, organizations that send us samples of people like children that went into a [00:24:00] coma for consuming THCP gummies and
Tommy Truong: I, I get so confused when I hear THC something P eight.
Josh Swider: Yeah, and it's scary. So this, this is like the text. What it's facing is like the amount of stuff on the shelf that matches the product label and everything else. It's scary. And then they, they're just mixing all the synthetic OIDs together, selling it as a product, calling it hemp, and then there's no enforcement behind it.
So what you need that is people say, well, if it's illegal, you know, it's legal. It actually, the FDA says you can't put it in anything. So these products can't go in food. If you're buying a dummy that's not Farmville compliant technically, 'cause the FDA couldn't say it's 'cause the FDA's never, you can't put that in that food product.
So the, these are those catch 20 twos. It is just, the thing is there's no one enforcing it. So if a law, if there's a law against something and no one enforces it, guess what? It's seen as legal. That's how my personal opinion on it.
Tommy Truong: So what is the status of the industry on where we are [00:25:00] today?
Josh Swider: It's, it's all over the place. That's as each state to state's different federal's, different states are going back and forth. Legislation was getting passed to, to ban intoxicating hemp. Uh, and then it gets overturned and it goes back. It's just a volleyball. Going back and forth here. And what we're seeing is you're starting to see at the federal level, more talks about this and think, you said Schedule three, Trump was talking about it last week or this week, I believe.
And it's like, it's this thing. It is just all he did was say the word and now the industry blows up with 5,000 different publications saying, oh, he is saying it. Oh, he talked about it. Oh, it's gonna go legal. It's like, this has been the, the, the news for the last like seven years, I feel like, and no one really knows where it's going.
Tommy Truong: I feel like the cannabis industry and the silver market very, very much alike. You know, any news is good news.
Josh Swider: Yeah. And it and it
Tommy Truong: onto it.
Josh Swider: it go, it go. Yeah. That's what it is. It goes anywhere. I mean, you are starting to see a lot of, a lot more coming [00:26:00] out with the, the banning of intoxicating hemp, clarifying what the farm bill is. We gotta remember like. You have lawmakers that their whole job is to do what make laws and legislation.
So, but the thing is, what happened with this farm bill is like, it's kind of been mocked. These people that wrote this thing created a loophole. That's what everyone says last time I checked you. Don't mock the people that made the laws and then ask them to be on your side. Um, so that's what's kind of happened, I would say, over the last five years and like, it's been taken too far and I wish in so many different ways.
You an inch was given in a mile, was taken in the, the direction we've gone, the mile in is scary is for public safety. You know, I really hope people take that into account. 'cause a lot of times when I look at this as a big picture thing, when you start to look at negative health effects of. An item or a new product on the shelf, you know, so you say, okay, we're gonna look at the negative health effects of cannabis potentially.
These studies are ongoing, ongoing right now, and then a lot of times when it's nurses and doctor groups, they look at the ER or things that are [00:27:00] coming in, and what happens is they find a vape pen in someone's pocket. What do they, how do they determine what does vape pen. The physician says, oh, this is a cannabis vape pen, and this person had this problem.
What if that was a hemp product? Or vice versa. So like it is a dangerous game where you are given an inch with the legalization of cannabis products in. And by state decision. And then you're muddying the water by going into the hemp division, making all these synthetic drugs and synthetic compounds and calling 'em hemp and then selling 'em into the thing.
And then when we look at negative health effects of any of these products is it will happen. I mean, anything we do studies to check the negative health effects after we legalize it. And where it goes back to is. Are we ever gonna be able to distinguish if someone consume this hemp product, this cannabis product, this synthetic?
No. It's all gonna be classified as the same thing. Hemp and cannabis created this negative health effect, and that's where the, in my personal opinion, it becomes scary for any industry. I personally believe in THC cannabis [00:28:00] material, uh, that it should be legalized. It has benefits for people, and these could get taken away because we're taking a mile on the other end of it.
Tommy Truong: You are, you're so right because nobody is gonna care about the nuance. It's just a headline, and this product is bad. And even though it's synthetic and it's not, not synthetic,
Josh Swider: Yeah.
Tommy Truong: that no one's gonna care.
Josh Swider: No, no one will. And the, the outcome of it, and I, I, I pray to God that, you know, it doesn't come out this way, but the, the odds, the statistical odds of this going bad, great. Get greater and greater. Every new synthetic compound we do, every unqualified chemist making these things or making 'em, and, you know, throwing the, the bottom dollar in front of public safety, the odds that this turns out poorly for us as a society is greater and greater
Tommy Truong: You're, you're blowing my mind because I had it on my list [00:29:00] to go to say Minnesota and check out some drinks. Right. And uh, you know, hemp beverages are the thing right now that's kind of at the forefront of, of the beverage industry and. I don't know if that's a good thing to Kazoom.
Josh Swider: So again, so trusted providers. So there are trusted providers in the hemp beverage industry where.
Tommy Truong: can you share names?
Josh Swider: I'll, I'll, I'll share pro uh, pro producers. There's two large producers of all the emulsions for these beverages that throw into the primary. It's vert is one and they screen make sure they're not using synthetic.
They've been doing that for years and that that they hold a higher bar to testing and making sure they're sourcing their stuff. And then there's um, oh my gosh. There's one other large producer and it goes into these, a lot of beverages. And then this is always the question. It's like, so then you talked about beverages too, as a scientist.
This is Maya, not a medical doctor. As a chemist, if I was say [00:30:00] the mode mode of, um. Uh, ingestion. The safest mode of ingestion would be eating it, not not, not inhaling it. So if you're gonna do a hemp beverage, it's probably the assist mods. It is gonna be negative health effects. It would be less than doing the things like inhaling them or large consumption of them.
So it's a less consumption. So it's probably gonna be safer and long. I'm not saying it's safe. I'm not saying if it is or if it isn't, but if I said risk-based analysis, that would be the lower end of the totem pole. Does that make sense?
Tommy Truong: Yeah.
Josh Swider: If you are consuming it synthetically. Yeah, but then the need or the, the consumer should be demanding it.
Consumers. I wanna ensure that this product isn't, there is testing for beverages that you could do for to determine if it's synthetic or not. If you want to consume. So this is where the tricky is, where'd the THC come from? Let's not play that game. 'cause I told you that maybe we're all consuming cannabis beverages and we call 'em map 'cause I can tell you if it's hemp or cannabis, THC.
Um, so I'd rather see that being done and a demand for that by the consumers that they hold the. The [00:31:00] producers and production of these beverages or any of these hemp products accountable to, to ensure they have the safety and if they don't want to, then at least give the people the notice. I think that the people should have the right to choose and know what they get gonna
Tommy Truong: The problem is, is people don't know. You know, they don't know. I, you know, I hear synthetic, I know it's bad, but the byproducts I had, I had no idea of what the byproducts being. That's the issue.
Josh Swider: So here, here's a, here's a case study that we've done for many a times. So we, we talk about byproducts. Byproducts scare me, unknown scares me on these things, you know, synthetic production. But then another thing that's not as unknown, that's even more scary. Is like a lot of times when, when you do these things like synthetic delta CBD, Delta nine T HC conversion, a common reaction that was used is, uh, an acid catalyzed reaction with PTSA.
That's peritol snic acid, right? And this acid is extremely harmful to [00:32:00] your lungs if you don't wanna inhale it. Or excuse me, breathe it. So if you, if you as a chemist, you have something called safety data sheets, and they're very warning about this stuff and they're, one of the scary part is this PTSA can be found in a lot of the synthetic, um, Delta nine produced, and they, I've seen it up to 3% in a vaporizer pen.
So you're getting these vaporizer pens, people are inhaling PTSA and that, that's gonna be a long term thing. It's not gonna be instant, but your degeneration of your lungs will happen. Over time if you consume this stuff. So this is stuff like, this is a known product, a known contaminant that is health.
But guess what? The hemp industry doesn't have to scan for safety because it's not required. But there are hemp companies out there that do go above and beyond, and
Tommy Truong: Or is the cannabis industry required to scan for safety?
Josh Swider: Not PTSA, but safety stuff, there's different ones. But again, the cannabis industry was built on regulations.
So this is where I go back to what I was originally talking about. Every type of [00:33:00] chemical reaction or any type of production of these things for human consumption has to undergo a different protocol of testing. So the appropriate protocol of synthetic production of cannabinoids is not the appropriate safety protocol.
Testing for grown extracted cannabinoids, those are two different safety. Safety production methods that you need. So an FDA or a synthetic production, what you would do is you would work with a lab, a producer. They would disclose everything they used in the production of said analyte. Let's say, call it T delta nine, THC.
That lab would have screening protocols for those residual chemicals, one byproducts like we talked about, and then they would have to meet a criteria to make it onto the shelf. All that is being skipped for the most part. So we took out the safety part of the production of Synthetic,
Tommy Truong: Oh my God.
Josh Swider: and then you'll hear people, oh, well, they make vitamin C.
Yeah, they do make vitamin C and they have figured out how to do it safely and they have screening protocols internally gotta do it. And they're following a, a standardized [00:34:00] method to do so. So like, it, it's always, it is funny but that, that the arguments that the other side of it, and I know the consumers don't know a lot of this 'cause they're not chemists, they're not around it.
And that, that's one thing I've noticed in the industry is like industry people that are heavily been involved in this industry for a long time. We start to, even, I find myself guilty of this, you start to like, think everyone knows this stuff just 'cause you, you're, you're ingrained in, you're surrounded by it and you're like, oh, this is common knowledge and you realize it's not common knowledge.
And this is those things that, that people should know. And that's why I come 'em, these types of things. And I, I'm willing to always talk and educate from my perspective of what I see and what I see. And I mean, I've seen a lot of things being in this industry. People say a decade, it's not that long for a career or anything else.
A decade in the cannabis and hemp industry. You're like a hundred year old dog. It's, it's a, it's a long time. You've seen a lot of things.
Tommy Truong: Gosh, now, I, I don't vape. I'm not a vaper, but if I did, I would buy local. I would visit the place that that makes it, I would make sure that [00:35:00] it's extracted from actual real plants and it's not synthetic.
Josh Swider: So in the state of Michigan, in the legal cannabis industry, I'll talk about this study openly. We, uh, there's an organization that I work with called meco. It's Michigan for safe consumer access of cannabis products. Uh, it's screened the top 30 brands from headset data, headset data. Categorizes like how much sales are done by each of each, uh, product or a vendor.
So it took the top 30 of 'em chose 22 of the brands out of it, two skews from each of 'em. 56% of those brands were synthetic Delta nine on the legal cannabis industry in the state of mission. And then out of the 56% that were failing for synthetic, about 30% of that contain PTSA.
Tommy Truong: Jesus,
Josh Swider: So this was a study done in quarter.
Two of 2025. So this is not that long ago.
Tommy Truong: Wow, that's, so you would just avoid vapes [00:36:00] altogether and just smoke flower.
Josh Swider: So, yeah, as long as any of this stuff, it scares me. I'm not saying to avoid a product. Again, you can find the, the producers going above and beyond to to produce a clean product or, or to, I mean, I work with people that produce in California that go so far above the regulations to make sure their product's safe, that those are the people that should be doing, being most successful in this industry.
'cause they are looking out for the future of the consumer and do using everything they can to keep them safe.
Tommy Truong: I wanna, I wanna pivot just a little bit 'cause I, you, you have really, really extensive background on helping companies. Yield better extractions during, you know, during the extraction process, yield better outcomes. If I was a, a producer today and, um, I wanted to get better yield, what should my thought process be in, in addressing this problem?
Josh Swider: Yeah, so, so this, those things that we [00:37:00] helped out, so. I've always seen, so we're an analytical lab and we're a bunch, we're a bunch of chemists. So we're a chemist owned company, chemist ran company MO 80, 75% of my staff hold bachelor's degree in chemistry or higher. Um, so we always consult and help out with this kind of stuff.
And when I, when I take a look at yields or anything else to be more productive or more successful for our clients, I've never charged anyone a dollar for consulting because I feel if they're more successful with their test, more product, I'm more successful. And I also find it that I have. A good amount of PhDs and advanced level, uh, staff, and they find as chemists, we always find problems and troubleshooting fun.
That's just, we're weird people. We like to look into things unknown. So I find it as entertainment value for my employees. So I always give it away for freight. Um, but as far as yields or anything else, it starts with like, if you're doing any kind of production of anything, you gotta look at it as a macro thing.
How can you produce more, how can you be more efficient? And you would have to go back and testing all the different methods. Doing [00:38:00] so. So like we've been working with people doing this for, like I said, a decade now, and the, it starts with having accurate testing. And I'm not just saying that 'cause I'm a testing lab, but if you're trying to calculate how your yields could increase and you, you use five different testing labs and they're giving you five different results with very large variances, you can never do so.
You would need to make sure that your yields are coming out consistent. So I, I would say like if I was extracting THC from a product, right, I would track the THC in milligrams from the plant material to the extracted material to the final product, and then you would calculate your overall yield up end and then you could change some of your production methods.
Uh, one at a time and say, what happens to that yield? Did my 80% yield become 90? I've taken, we've helped people a long time ago, this is back when the people were doing white film, white film distillation, and warehouses with a hundred of 'em running. It's just like where the industries come and we've seen people go from 50% yield up to 80% yield in a week.
' [00:39:00] cause they, they could just get better efficiencies at doing it. And all we did was give 'em some suggestions on parameters to change and they changed. I mean, a lot of people have done this in over the years now, but that, that's one thing we, we look at and try to help our clients, uh, get more efficient at what they're doing so they can still be profitable in this industry.
Tommy Truong: And 90% is bonkers.
Josh Swider: Yeah,
Tommy Truong: That's
Josh Swider: that's a lot. This is like 10 years ago. Yeah. Oh yeah. Profitable. That was back when people were selling leaders of cannabis for $10,000, you know, for a kilo. And you know, that was a major profit change for them.
Tommy Truong: What are some of the biggest common mistakes that that companies do during the extraction process?
Josh Swider: I would say not tracking what you're doing. Um, the biggest, so biggest waste mistakes is let's say you're doing an extraction process. You're not. S uh, screening for contaminants appropriately in the beginning. Like they're buying the trim material and just, just taking the trim and going to [00:40:00] extraction and spending a lot of money on that.
And they, oh, look, that trim material was pesticide written and now I have very high concentration of pesticides in my final product and I can't sell it on the shelf, so I'll sell to the hemp market. Sorry, I probably shouldn't take that job. Um, that's what I've seen before. But as far as. What we see is simple things like that.
Creating a protocol on what to do when you're intaking a sample, sampling the sample, and then going from there and then using the appropriate use the same laboratory that gives you consistent results to be able to track this stuff so you can improve. I've seen so many people that in production, that they run down the wrong path and start running down the rabbit hole to get a better yield, and they're following, you know, the, the.
Testing for the COAs or their analysis and they think they got a better yield. So they keep changing something in the wrong direction, getting further and further away from it. And I've seen people waste so much money on this, like I'm talking millions of dollars going down the wrong pathway. I remember, this is a weird story, but it is funny, this is like a million of them.[00:41:00]
There was a chicken farmer that thought he could feed CBD to the chickens and then CBD would be in the eggs. So he was creating CBD eggs and they, there was a lab out there telling him he was doing it. And lo and behold, he wasn't feeding a chicken Ccb D and getting ccb D coming on the egg is, that's totally thing.
It doesn't happen. So like this guy spent years of his life, me chasing down, going down the rabbit hole because of a mis quantification by a laboratory.
Tommy Truong: That.
Josh Swider: It's just funny. Was there, there's a million other road, but
Tommy Truong: Well, yeah, that makes sense. I mean, if, if you are, if you're in the business of extracting one, you gotta make sure that the product going in is clean. So you make sure that you, you properly test the product going in. And throughout each phase, you know of the process, you have to test each phase to see where if you're marching towards the right direction, and you can isolate the processes of, uh, that you're looking to fix.
Josh Swider: yeah. Setting up a parameter on testing and changing [00:42:00] one parameter at a time, and checking that next stage to where we got to see if you're getting increased yields and things of that nature. That's an important part of doing it. And then,
Tommy Truong: It's meticulous and there's no, you just have to do the work or you're gonna pay the price at the end.
Josh Swider: Yeah, that's why we always consulted for free. 'cause a lot of us are chemists and we, we are very meticulous at doing these things. And we've done 'em in other divisions other than cannabis extraction. And we've, we know the rigor, rigor that goes into this synthetic production or, or any kind of chemistry process.
So, so we can do this kind of stuff.
Tommy Truong: Josh, before I let you go, anything else you want to talk about? You've scared the shit out of me
Josh Swider: That was not, not the intention. I, I think the, the only the other things I, I would say or talk about is like, I, I think if people wanna see this industry continue, let's hold a higher bar. Let's, let's hold, let's hold some higher standards to what we're doing. Ensure that, that the companies that you're working with or consuming or buying from are doing something to, to [00:43:00] make sure they're creating a safe product for you.
The last thing, we want this industry to end up. Is, is a shutdown industry 'cause negative health effects came to it. Or, or children growing up without their parents. 'cause they consume this product for so long that they're no longer around for 'em to, to grow up with. And that, that's the, that's really what pushes me to continue in this industry and continue to.
Expand safety testing on Kemp hemp cannabis products to look at more of the the unknown sometimes and the standard things out there. And I would say anything else as far as that. Always happy to work with people. Always happy to talk if anyone has differing opinions. I'm more than happy to jump on a phone call, talk about it, go on any kind of meeting or anything.
I don't have to. Uh, as a chemist, we all don't agree as anything with absolutely everything or as a person. And I'm happy to hear other people's opinions about why they thought I was wrong or right on any of this stuff, or if they support it or if they think, um, there's things that could be done better or any other problems out there that they think need solving.
Tommy Truong: Josh, before I let you go, how can our [00:44:00] listeners find you?
Josh Swider: Uh, so you can know, always find our website. It's infinite cal.com and on there there's different ways to chat between it. And you can get ahold of me through, through that website pretty easily.
Tommy Truong: Thank you so much for joining us today.
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