Let's Talk Hemp Cannabinoids at the Asia International Hemp Expo In this episode of the Let's Talk Hemp podcast, it's Day 3 at the third annual Asia International Hemp Expo, organized by the Thai Industrial Hemp Trade Association (TITA) and we are broadcasting live. We express our gratitude to all attendees and speakers who have contributed to making this event a success.
Let's Talk Hemp Cannabinoids at the Asia International Hemp Expo
In this episode of the Let's Talk Hemp podcast, it's Day 3 at the third annual Asia International Hemp Expo, organized by the Thai Industrial Hemp Trade Association (TITA) and we are broadcasting live. We express our gratitude to all attendees and speakers who have contributed to making this event a success.
Today, we delve into the topic of hemp cannabinoids, including CBD, CBG, and THC, while also touching on the innovative hemp derivatives emerging in the United States. Our guests include Eben from Maine, who has a decade of experience in the cannabis industry, and Mr. Kattanyu Kamnoi, a pharmacist from Salad Bioceutical Thailand, who is pioneering the cannabis industry in Thailand.
A significant focus of our discussion revolves around the importance of lab testing for cannabinoids. Eben highlights the challenges faced in the U.S. regarding inconsistent lab results due to varying standards across different states. He emphasizes the need for standardized testing methodologies to ensure accurate and reliable results, especially for international trade.
Mr. Kattanyu shares his experiences in Thailand, where the current lab testing capabilities are limited, often resulting in discrepancies in cannabinoid profiles from different labs. This inconsistency poses challenges for producers seeking to comply with regulations and accurately label their products.
We explore the potential solutions to these issues, including the importance of establishing harmonized standards and utilizing reputable labs with a global presence, such as Eurofins and Columbia. The conversation also touches on the role of genetics in cannabinoid production and the emerging market for various cannabinoids beyond CBD.
As we wrap up the episode, we open the floor for questions from the audience, addressing concerns about lab trustworthiness and the need for regulatory frameworks to ensure public health and safety. We conclude by inviting listeners to join us for our next session, where we will discuss the environmental benefits of hemp.
Thank you for tuning in, and we look forward to continuing the conversation about the future of hemp and cannabinoids!
Hey there, how we doing? Good, there we go. That was a response. Well, welcome to the Let's Talk Hemp podcast. This is the third day here at the Asia International Hemp Expo. The third annual, I would say. And it's great to have you. It's been a wonderful event so far. Thanks to TITA, the Thai Industrial Hemp Trade Association, and all the other wonderful partners that are putting this on. It's been, again, a wonderful event. Thanks for all the attendees showing up, all the speakers that have done a great job. And today, we're going to talk about hemp cannabinoids. The last couple of days, we talked about hemp fiber, we talked about hemp grain. Tomorrow, we're going to be here again, and we're going to talk about the environmental benefits of hemp. But today we're going to focus on cannabinoids, CBD, CBG, THC, and then probably some of the hemp derivatives that are going on in the United States where we take CBD and convert it to other novel cannabinoids that may have trace elements in the plant. But there's some interesting things going on in the United States. My co-host over here, how are you doing? Good.
: Okay, so shall we start with introducing our speaker again?
undefined: Yeah, well, we've got Eben here from Maine. Say hello.
undefined: Hi, everybody. Thanks, Morris, for inviting me up here today. Thank you, guys. This has been a really, really interesting event. A lot of information. It's nice to see where Thailand's headed and happy to talk about cannabinoids today. I'm sorry. I'm from Maine, United States. I've been in the cannabis industry for about 10 years in all different segments of the market. And yeah, I'm happy to be here. Thank you.
: From Maine to Bangkok, here we have the pharmacist, Mr. Katanyu from Bangkok.
undefined: Okay. This is the first time in international session for me. I would like to introduce myself and my company a bit. My name is Kattanyu Kamnoi. I'm a pharmacist of Salad Bioceutical Thailand. We are a part of the pioneer group who tried to die. Cannabis industry in Thailand. We operate around three and a five year school. So it means I can't fight with even. Yeah.
undefined: All right, so we're going to get going on this. After kind of observing what's what's going on here in Thailand, obviously, there's been a real push on cannabinoids. The first few years that I've been here, that's, it's kind of the dominant factor and the dominant category that's that's going on in this in this market. Eben's been in the space for a long time, and one of the things that we noticed that hasn't been talked about a whole lot here that's really important, and that's the lab testing aspect of cannabinoids and how they get to market and the accuracy of the lab testing and so forth. So why don't you expand on maybe what you've seen and what you've done over the last five to 10 years and how that looks in the United States?
undefined: Yeah, thank you for the question. It's very important right now, and this is the perfect time on the ground floor, really, of getting these. You have the opportunity to take advantage of setting regulations correctly, setting standards correctly. This is super important. It's easy. it's easy to overlook that, and then all of a sudden it becomes a problem. We're kind of experiencing this in the United States right now. Each state regulatory body is setting up testing limits, and that has to do with mycotoxins, all the way through to heavy metals, pesticides. So what's happening is these governments, or local governments even, are setting these regulations But the labs don't have a set standard. And that can be within the state. In the United States, it's nationally. So it's important to look at methodology for sampling. It's important to look at water activity, water content, when you're testing flowers specifically. And being able to standardize that means that you're not going to have different labs providing different results. This is called lab shopping in the United States, where you go to a specific lab to pass your pesticides and heavy metal testing. And then if you want a high THC or a high CBD profile, you go to a separate lab for that. So if you have these standards, you no longer have that issue. This is also important with international trade. So probably most everybody knows 0.3 THC is what we designate hemp versus medicinal high THC cannabis. So if you're looking at producing, and then your main goal is to export to another country, if you don't have a harmonized standard between these countries labs, you could produce a 0.29% THC product, export that and when it lands, and it tests point three 2%, you've now Completely broken the international law. So it's it's very important to set these standards now while you have the opportunity to and And and make sure they're harmonized across the entire country How about the standards in Thailand as you like pioneer?
: So is it difficult to find the flowers or? About the extraction. Could you like tell us about that?
undefined: Sure That is the thing that we got a pain for a long time, 3.5 years, about testing the lab in our products or our extracts. Before we getting a registration from FDA, Thai FDA, right, we need to get the certified test report from the government lab. Unfortunately, they can test just only two or three cannabinoids. When comparing with the American lab, they can test around more than 20-ish around there, I thought. Yes, this is a thing that we're encountering right now. We send some sample to one lab, we got one version of cannabinoid profiles. While we send to another lab, we get another version of cataminoid profiles. So the question is, what is the true value of it? We try to prove it for three years. For now, to be honest, we don't get the real answer of this. I don't know, to be honest, I don't know how many CBD or how many THC in the product in actual ways. We don't know. This is the, this is, I thought this is the pin point that Thai industry encountering right now. So if we can get someone who can help us or guide us to make a regulation and draw, go properly, it might be help us. Yes, that's it.
undefined: Well, yeah, it seems like you, just corroborated what Eben was saying there with the variance in labs where if you're going to take samples and you give it to one lab, two labs, or three labs, and you get two or three different results there, then obviously there's a problem and things do need to be standardized. And we faced that in the United States, faced it in Europe, and like Eben said, we have to have really harmonize standards if we're going to be doing international trade. And even beyond that, we just need to have standards where the labs are doing this in the same manner so we're getting the same results and we know the products that we're putting out in the marketplace and we can label them correctly and the consumer knows what they're going to get when they're going to buy it at the shop.
: And then in the U.S., how do you solve this problem that one lab, two labs, they have a different
undefined: So the answer is we haven't solved the problem.
: Okay, so Thailand is normal.
undefined: It's a thing across the board, that's why we're talking about it. And how do we solve that problem?
undefined: like reinventing the wheel, like what most cannabis tends to think they need to do. There's laboratories that do testing in industries all over the world that have harmonized standards already. So while you have to adapt those testing standards to phytocannabinoids, they're still there. So we can lean on other industries that are testing and try to mimic what they're doing with some minor tweaks for cannabis.
undefined: So there's a couple labs that have been coming to NOCO Hemp Expo for years. And one is Eurofins, and another one is Columbia. And both of these labs have setups all across the world. I think Eurofins is in 160 or 170 countries. So I would imagine that going to a lab like that, you're going to probably get pretty accurate results. I mean, they're one of the top labs And so is Columbia, when you've got these labs that are set up all across the world, and they test in dozens of different industries, dozens of different types of agriculture products. They really know what they're doing, compared to a lot of these fly by night labs that just set up and we're going to, you know, test in the cannabis industry.
undefined: That's a really good point to having the ability to access labs that are across, you know, that are global. is super important. When it comes to formulation, what we need to do is we take the raw material, which is typically an extract, and we test that at the lab for our cannabinoid profile, and then from those results, we formulate. Now, we have to take the end product back to that same lab, because we know we've got the same standards, the same methodology, to actually see, did we meet our targets? And if you can duplicate that internationally, such as Eurofins or Columbia testing, you know these standards are going to be the same globally. And that's going to be a safer bet for your import-export.
: And then, as you're doing extraction, so what are the products that are already launched in Thailand or in the US?
undefined: To talk about the product in Thailand in extract ways, we now have the district, right, you know, isolated and water-soluble products. I thought even someone in UK, USA or Europe may get more variety of the product than Thailand. Because Thailand is now in emerging market, right? Because we just decriminalized the cannabis for three to four years ago, right? We walk behind USA and UK more than 10 or 15 years.
undefined: So I think this really ties back to genetics and what's being grown in the country. As we've seen, crossing plants to push THC versus pushing CBD versus pushing CBG, you see a lot of these different genetics. And that makes the extraction process a lot easier. If you have a very high percentage versus a lower percentage of THC, if that's what you're going for. So I think genetics really leads the way in that what your country allows to be grown. And then that kind of trickles down to what's extracted and then trickles down into formulation.
undefined: I could not agree more with you, even. I thought the starting material is the real thing and the real deals. If we get the high-quality biomass or patent, yes, it will be leading to higher yields of the extract, high concentration of either CBD or TSC in an extract. That's it.
undefined: Since you just kind of mentioned the genetic side of things, let's, you know, beyond CBD, you know, there's CBG, CBN, CBC, how did these other cannabinoids and minor cannabinoids play into the role of creating new product innovation in the marketplace? And then even beyond that, some of the, let's say, the biosynthesized derivatives that we're seeing in the United States that now have intoxicating effects?
undefined: Yeah, so those are, I think, two really great questions that I could go on forever about. Really, again, falling back on genetics and research, you know, we're able to isolate, you know, there's over 100, I'm hearing now 140 cannabinoids in the plant. There's new information on the root system having cannabinoids that are not present or that we're just finding. So being able to isolate and test those and and see and how how humans are reacting to that that's You know as we know Certain countries can't do as much research as others. So it's a lot of evidentiary learning Which is great So yeah off track a bit. So really being able to test these specific cannabinoids and see how they're doing, like CBN we know is excellent for sleep. And then getting even further into research trials to see, you know, CBG is helping with Crohn's disease, really important. And then from the synthetic side of things, my perspective is that these cannabinoids never would have been synthesized. Basically an answer to prohibition, you know, we say okay point three percent Delta nine THC That's it. You know, but but the market is looking for a national answer and that market combined with the prohibitive regulations have brought the scientists to basically change a small bond on the tail and Call it something completely different that isn't Regulated and so now that can be a national Product and that's that's essentially what's happened is the prohibition has created this and we're looking at the farm bill coming next year in the US Some people say that is going to get more prohibitive. We're already seeing some states ban Delta 8 HHC so It's a cat-and-mouse game. The labs will create workaround cannabinoids that are psychoactive, and we call it legal highs. Then the government will ban that, and then they'll tweak it again to work around. So you've got this cat-mouse game, but what's happening is it's not in the interest of public health and safety because you're getting further and further away from the plant, the natural plant source, cannabinoid. So this is something I deal with in policy, and it's really difficult to make your regulators understand that, you know, can you show me when prohibition has ever worked in history? I don't know.
undefined: It hasn't.
undefined: It hasn't. So trying to make your regulators understand that is very important. It's very important.
: So I think just for kidding, so we should have our regulators have tried the hemp or the cannabis so they will see how to use or how to regulate. Because how can they regulate without knowing or how, when you apply it, how it feels like? That's my opinion, just my own opinion.
undefined: So you think that we should have the regulators try all these different cannabinoids to see how they make them feel?
: Maybe start with the CBD.
undefined: Yeah? Yeah. And then go to THC, and then the THCO, and THCP, and then the DMT, and LSD.
: Before they regulate, so they should know what they are doing, right?
undefined: Completely agree.
: Yeah, just the idea.
undefined: Why don't we open up the floor for questions? Do we have any questions out there from our attendees? Somebody's got to have some questions related to cannabinoids or lab testing or policy or regulations. I guess we did a really good job of explaining. Wow, we answered everybody's questions. No questions? Oh, there we go. Let's see, do we have a microphone? How can we trust the tests? From like the labs? Well, Eben kind of, well we talked about that a bit. It's like, it's hard to be able to trust the test when you take a sample, the same sample, and you provide it to three different labs and you've got three different results. So, One of the answers to that is taking it to a trusted lab such as a Eurofins that operates in 170 or 180 countries around the world that has been dealing with every type of ag product that exists under the sun for 60 or 70 years. And there's a few of those labs that operate in countries all across the world. You know, if, if we can, if we're going to have an international trade and, and export opportunity, then, you know, we're going to really have to lean on utilizing labs that operate in countries all across the world. I, I don't know any other way than, than that, honestly.
undefined: Yeah, no, that's, that's, it's definitely a good point. And just to tag on to that, I would say, get to know your local lab, really, it's a trust and verify process. Talk to your local labs, you know, really work with them. And you can kind of vet them to see if they do they know what they're talking about, you know, educate yourself on on HPLC. It's, you know, cannabis is a tough industry. And there's a lot of learning involved. I didn't know anything about lab testing 10 years ago. And now I can talk about it on stage, but that's all because I had to learn about it to be in the industry. And it's really making that relationship with your local lab and learning while they learn. Ask them the tough questions and really do your due diligence.
undefined: A young lady in the back, you have a question?
undefined: So there's several companies that do overarching testing of the labs. And NIHC verify would and partnered with a TLA to make sure that you get consistent testing within the labs. Can you speak to that?
undefined: Well, I think that that's a great point. So NIHC verify, which there's information about NIHC verify in a booth right back over here. And you do you have a network of labs, is that correct? across the world, where it's trusted you can go from one lab to the next to the next, and it's all going to be consistent based on their methodology.
undefined: Correct. Between the A2LA and NIHC verified check, those labs across the board should follow all of the procedures that are needed.
undefined: Well, I guess that we just solved the entire problem for the industry. Look, I didn't know that this panel was going to be so successful. Any other questions? Yes, please. Gentleman in the back.
undefined: What if, there we go. What if there was a accredited certification body that takes part of the chain of custody certification, so acts as a tool for the labs instead of some external part? take charge of the sampling and sealing procedure of the batches to guarantee the representativeness of the entire batch so that we know that, okay, there is the COAs that maybe is accredited by, you know, the 17 or 25, but also all the part that is behind that, you know, in forensic lab, for example, take part of the chain of custody, but that's what I believe is the, can be the solution to the question that's just been asked, so that's it.
undefined: Yeah, absolutely agree with you. And as I said earlier, like we don't have to reinvent the wheel. I mean, lab testing has been going on for a long time, and many different industries and absolutely chain of custody. And we can gather all these ideas and just adapt them to cannabis. But you're absolutely correct. Like third party sample collection, with a standardized methodology is probably the safest form of, of, of supply chain and custody.
undefined: Especially like, sorry if I continue, but impartiality plays a big part. I saw many associations that try to do what we actually do as a certification body. But when it comes to impartiality, I think this plays a big role. Because if I'm a producer, I can be the certifier myself. Because there might be competitors. So I think new entities that come in just for this thing, and just for this thing only. No consultancy, no producing, nothing. just taking this piece of, you know, of the pie. That's it. Sorry.
undefined: Yeah. And I'm sure there's companies that are, like I said, where they're already doing this for other industries. And it would be an easy pivot to add that, you know, add that on to their, their current business plan.
undefined: And you know many markets just to conclude in probably agricultural for the text of you know Certificate third-party certification, but they've been around for ages So I've not invented anything, but I think for the next step personally that could be the great answer to that Thank you Yeah, thank you. Thank you
undefined: Yeah, I just wanted to add that regulation has to come first. Because if you have these companies popping up, just like we see with the labs, without regulation, standardization through regulation, everybody does what they want to do. And it's not scientific, for one. And it's not a fair level playing field. And in the end, it's not good for public health and safety. So regulations, standard standardization through regulations is number one. And that's where Thailand is, is perfectly poised to do this correctly.
undefined: Now. Yes, I completely agree with what you have to say. Thank you. I don't want to take too much.
undefined: That's a great way to kind of wrap up this whole thing. You asked very good questions. Or do we have a question from Kentucky here in the front row?
undefined: How did you know where I was from?
undefined: Kentucky Fried Chicken.
undefined: I guess my question is, is everybody using the same equipment, the HPLC, or is there different stuff? Are there different brands? Are the brands compatible with each other? Is that where part of the problem is? Or, you know, is it something else?
undefined: So brand, and I'll let you answer, sorry. Brands, not so much, but definitely standards. Like, so it's typically HPLC and a little liquid chromatography, depending on what you're going after results wise. So brands are okay. I mean, you see Shimadzu is over here, which is pretty much an industry standard. But as long as you have moisture content, water activity, these certain benchmarks to sample your testing, whatever machine you use doesn't really matter. Does that make sense?
undefined: Yes. Let me explain a bit. For instance, one lab got an ISO 17025 the same method, use the same instrument, but different analysis. You will get different results. There are a lot of aspects that impact to your report, so that's why we… this is the thing that we need to figure out in the near future.
undefined: All right, well, I think that we're done here, and another great panel, and thank you all for showing up. Thank you to the guests here on stage. I appreciate everybody joining in on Let's Talk Kemp, here at the third annual Asia International Hemp Expo.
: Thank you very much, and then see you next session with you tomorrow, right? This time. Tomorrow, this time?
undefined: Yeah, 12 o'clock tomorrow, 12.30. I think 12 o'clock, so. We'll be talking about the environmental benefits of hemp. We'll be talking about carbon credits, climate change, soil remediation, and so on. Thanks again, everyone.
undefined: Thank you so much. Ladies and gentlemen, and that was a wonderful session here. As you all know, we're talking about cannabinoids. We want to say thank you to Mr. Morris, thank you to Mr. Eban, and thank you to Mr. Katanyu, and also thank you to Khun Sewita. Ladies and gentlemen, our next session here at the Hemp Talk area, we should start at 1.30 p.m. The topic is Agri-Solutions Asia and Grodin introduction of the new Grosensuit solution in Thai MJ market. This session, our speaker should be Mr. Dan Berker, Senior Content Manager, New Crops from MJ International. So ladies and gentlemen, see you again at 1.30 p.m. here at the Hemp Talk area. Ladies and gentlemen, we will take a short break. We will be back at 1.30 p.m. with AgriSolutions Asia and Growth & Introduction of the new Grosensuk solution in Thai-MJ market. Please join us at 1.30 p.m. at Hemtalk zone. Thank you very much.