Is Your Cannabis Real or Synthetic?

How largely unregulated, lab-made substances are sneaking into Michigan products

By Anna Faller | June 21, 2025

At Torch Cannabis Co. in Central Lake, the motto is: “Life is too short to feel anything less than your personal best.” For CEO and Founder, Kelly “Green Girl” Young, this translates to a storefront full of full-spectrum cannabis and CBD products, ranging from infused edibles to live resins, oils, and beyond.

But what if, instead of whole-plant products, your favorite cannabinoid gummies or vape distillates were made from chemicals synthesized in a lab, and you were none the wiser?

“Recently, we’ve noticed an alarming trend: fake weed is increasingly being sold in local dispensaries without proper oversight,” Young says, a practice that not only poses risks to patrons, but also threatens the regional market by disenfranchising local growers.

But how can consumers know what they’re getting is the real deal?

Plant Science

By definition, synthetic weed refers to human-made chemicals that imitate the active compound in marijuana, or THC—specifically, Delta-9 THCA, aka Tetrahydrocannabolic Acid. It’s found naturally in the flower’s resin (there’s an enzyme in the plant that makes it), and when it interacts with our bodies’ homeostatic regulatory systems, it works as an activator to produce that classic “high.”

Of course, once scientists discovered that THC had a physiological effect, they started developing drugs to study and mimic it. Per Dr. Codi Peterson, Chief Science Officer at The Cannigma and board member of Americans for Safe Access (ASA), this effort first started gaining traction back in the 1980s, in large part for commercialization and research.

It was then, in laboratories and test tubes, that synthetic cannabinoids first materialized. (“For research,” Peterson emphasizes). By the late 1990s, though, California had legalized medical cannabis, which is when we start to see the first traces of synthetics entering the consumer space. Early designer terms were K2 or “Spice,” and those synthetics are now illegal in Michigan.

Fast-forward to the Agricultural Improvement Act of 2018 (aka, the 2018 Farm Bill), which legalized hemp and everything derived from it—including cannabinoids, extracts, and isomers, along with a handful of other substances—so long as they contained no more than 0.3 percent Delta-9 THC.

Anything more potent than that fell into a separate “marijuana” class and required checking legal boxes like licensure and tracking compliance to sell.

But this legislation created a loophole for crafty consumers, who quickly set about finding other ways to enjoy weed’s psychoactive potential. One of these was Delta-8 THC, an isomer of Delta-9 (it’s identical aside from one double-bond). Another was growing hemp legally under the bill and extracting THC from CBD.

“People said, ‘oh, I can sell this thing that still gets people high, and I can sell it in any old gas station or smoke shop because it falls within this carve-out.’ Now, we’ve made a new THC that’s entering the market,” Peterson says.

Diminishing Oversight

The boom in synthesizing and converting naturally-occurring compounds paved the way for a litany of lab-grown cannabinoids to be falsely labeled as marijuana when they didn’t come from a plant at all.

“I keep going back to [the fact] that people voted for the plant,” says Young. “[That’s] what people think they’re getting, but these aren’t researched or regulated.”

Some bureaucratic context here: In Michigan, marijuana facilities—including dispensaries, both medical and recreational; as well as growers, processors, retailers, and the like—fall within the operational scope of the Cannabis Regulatory Agency (CRA), which requires them to meet key benchmarks, like obtaining appropriate licensure and compliance with Michigan’s seed-to-sale tracking system, Metrc.

Synthesized cannabinoids operating via the hemp market, though, aren’t beholden to the same legal channels that would enforce product quality and safety benchmarks (like testing standards, regulations, and packaging specifics) that producers and sellers of “capital M” marijuana must meet.

Consequently, many hemp retailers whose product pedigree falls outside the realm of a system like Metrc may have synthetic products on their shelves.

“You can’t tell by looking at [the product]. You’d have to send it off for a special lab test to know whether it came from a marijuana plant or a synthetic source,” Peterson says.

Strange and Unwanted Effects

And the effects of synthetics? “They’re just not the same,” Young adds.

Put it this way: A marijuana plant contains over 200 molecules. Two of these are THC and cannabidiol, aka CBD—the “mama and papa” particles, as Young’s dubbed them—and underneath those, a host of smaller molecules, like chlorophylls, phyto-cannabinoids, and terpenes, or essential oils.

When you take a puff of flower smoke or consume a full-spectrum CBD product, you’re taking in the whole cannabis plant and with it, the benefits those smaller compounds provide. Isolating or chemically synthesizing just one of those components, by contrast, eliminates those benefits.

Chemical additives can also result in sky-high or fluctuating potencies, which can offer an inconsistent experience or even be dangerous to consumers’ health.

Because the market largely remains unchecked, these products also put consumers at higher risk for issues like contamination, both in terms of processing cleanliness and the presence of abnormal particles. Peterson says he’s been seeing “a bunch of weird stuff that doesn’t pop up in nature showing up in these products.”

Various adverse side effects have also been reported. Per John Lohner, Wholesale Purchasing Manager at Lume Cannabis Co., these can include anxiety, paranoia, and even hallucinations, though Peterson notes that these concerns remain mostly speculative.

Know Your Growers

With so many unknowns in the market, this begs an even larger question: How can consumers be certain that their cannabis products are real?

As a first step, Peterson encourages consumers to steer clear of the hemp market, whose lack of federal regulations makes lab-produced cannabis difficult to spot. Instead, he recommends getting your supply from a properly licensed dispensary; even better if they can provide a Certificate of Analysis (COA) that verifies their products’ purity and cannabinoid content.

“It’s definitely a buyer-beware situation,” he says. “It’s not a perfect solution, but [synthetic and converted] products are more likely to show up in extra-marijuana channels.”

Other easy safeguarding practices include sticking to brands and locations you trust, as well as leaning into flower, which is far less likely to be synthesized than something requiring lab creation (aka, oils, comestibles, vapes, and the like).

Powders Instead of Plants

As for the future of synthetic cannabis on the Michigan market? That remains to be seen. Though it’s unlikely these products will vaporize anytime soon, Young highlights that they pose a real threat to cannabis businesses statewide, many of which are struggling to compete with the industry’s declining production costs.

New legislation is another question mark; in particular, a GOP-led House bill that could effectively illegalize hemp products with even trace THC, or any future changes to the language of the 2018 Farm Bill, which is on the docket for extension this year.

Further, Lohner and the folks at Lume highlight the potential of synthetic cannabinoids to sow distrust in the regional cannabis market, citing its safety issues and lack of consistency as deal breakers for scores of consumers.

If, like Young, you’d like to see some reform? “Write the CRA and file complaints with the governor and the attorney general,” she says. “We need information, and people need to know that they’re buying powders and not plants. Enough said.”