When I saw Mick’s name flash across my phone screen, I knew what was coming.

A longtime friend who’d just moved to Tennessee, Mick had yet to make a cannabis connection there and had been bugging me to send him herb in the mail. But he surprised me by saying that I didn’t need to worry about that anymore: He’d found edibles online, and they were going to be delivered to his door.

It had to be some scam or shady operation, I warned — but Mick was right. He’d discovered THC gummies offered by a legitimate CBD company, cbdMD. The brand doesn’t shy away from promoting its Delta-9 THC gummies, advertising them on websites, podcasts and other forms of traditional media. You can buy them online to be shipped almost anywhere in the country, and cbdMD promises that they have all the effects of gummies sold in licensed marijuana stores.

But how can CBD companies even sell THC products online?

The answer reflects a funny development from hemp’s federal legalization in 2018. Although hemp and marijuana are both cannabis plants, they differ in one key way: THC. If a hemp plant’s flowers or a final hemp product tests above 0.3 percent THC, it is considered marijuana by the federal government. Anything at that level or below is now hemp. A variety of hemp plants have been selectively bred to produce low amounts of THC and high amounts of CBD, a non-intoxicating cannabinoid with medical benefits. However, CBD can be modified into different isomers of THC, including forms that aren’t explicitly banned by the federal government. That loophole led to “newer” forms of THC like Delta-8 and Delta-10 THC that are technically derived from hemp and are popular on the internet in their own right.

Some hemp and CBD companies, such as cbdMD, are even bolder, selling Delta-9 THC edibles and capsules under the argument that they are less than 0.3 percent THC by dry weight. “Our hemp extracted Delta 9 THC products are high potency full spectrum products that are compliant with the 2018 Farm Bill,” the company’s website reads. That’s an interesting interpretation, for sure, but it doesn’t seem to have gotten the company into any trouble yet.

Living in Colorado, I don’t have much need for mail-order weed gummies, but they present an interesting opportunity for travelers or cannabis users in states where the plant is still illegal. I decided to try cbdMD’s Delta-9 gummies and see how they stack up against what we have in dispensaries.

The purchase

For $29.99, I bought a pack of twenty…