with so much focus on launching the state's recreational Cannabis industry lawmakers may have overlooked regulating a similar substance Delta 8 is a THC compound found in hemp it's a psychoactive chemical that can produce a high though it's not the same level as cannabis products and it's entirely unregulated you can find it at a convenience store in the form of gummies and other candies now the legislature is quickly acting to ban Delta 8 so it no longer ends up in the wrong hands senior correspondent Joanna gagas reports this is available to your children in places that are around the corner from your house and it is very bad for them it's a substance called Delta eight a THC compound found in hemp products that mimics the effects of Delta 9 or cannabis and it's completely accessible to Children right now we heard testimony from a constituent of assemblyman Paul Moriarty whose 14 year old son almost died there's been a rise in calls to poison control centers because of exposure to Delta 8 more than 2300 from the start of 2021 to a little more than a year later and 41 percent of those calls involved kids under the age of 18. little children that are getting into it are getting into gummies and other Edibles and they become uh uncoordinated glassy-eyed they begin to walk funny talk funny some of them become very agitated it's very scary to a parent when your child is is essentially unconscious bound-responsive staring off into space we've seen seizure is occasionally and some of these small children who get into high doses of cannabinoid it's especially dangerous because there's no regulation over the process of creating the Delta 8 substance it's converted from CBD using a chemical process that can lead to the production of other compounds and can sometimes leave behind traces of the compounds that are used through the conversion which themselves aren't safe it's hydrocarbons and other things because it's not controlled in any way shape or form it's you know buy a beware uh we don't know it's always in them we don't know how much uh Delta a is in it versus other substances we don't even know if sometimes if there is Delta a in it we don't know what it's made out of where it's obtained so it makes it quite dangerous the problem though it's actually not illegal to sell Delta 8 right now something Senator Declan o Scanlon calls a failure of federal lawmaking the federal government uh legalized hemp production and just didn't see this loophole didn't see that these very low THC uh uh plants material could be distilled from them to make very high potency THC products he's introduced several bipartisan bills to both ban Delta 8 as well as to regulate it we need to do this now get these products off the shelf and if someone wants to continue to create them uh we need a a regulatory uh framework testing so that we know what's in it and then the consumer can know what's in it long-time cannabis Advocate and lawyer Bill Caruso supports the bills is that he says protect the rollout of the Cannabis Marketplace in New Jersey this is unfair competition and that's not the lead issue for why we should do this but it's certainly one of them you know we're trying to create a new industry here we shouldn't allow this outside competition we haven't even allowed yet regulated products of this type in the market and when we do we allow a true edible Market in the Cannabis space it won't be allowed to be at marketed to children like some of these products are the bills are working through the legislature now and oscanlin is hopeful he can get them to the governor's desk soon I hope we can get it done before the summer break and put a stop to it now before we have another full summer uh of these these incidents he only has two more weeks to make that happen for NJ Spotlight News I'm Joanna Gagis [Music]