Most of the USA strains seem to have quite a lot of THCa compared to the EU strains. Resulting in almost 1% total THC.. so certainly possible people are getting a mild buzz from it. We can't get away with more than 0.2% total THC in the EU.. I don't really understand the USA regulations/law properly.
Usa includes thca when testing for legality. To be legal in USA the test is done with decarboxation considered. So high thca is not legal in hemp. The thca turns to thc after it is decarboxylated.
Any high thca hemp strains being sold are illegal. The law clearly states that all testing needs to be done after decarbozylation or using methods that calculate the amount of thc after the thca has been turned into thc.
Although in usa there seems to be some leniency for being a little over the legal .3%.
Heres how you can calculate the total legal amount of thc.
"To get a
real potency value you need to consider both THCA and THC, but with a correction factor for THCA before you add in THC. To calculate THCTOTAL:
THCtotal = (%THCA) x 0.877 + (%THC)
0.877 is the molecular mass (mm) of THC divided by that of THCA; this factor boils it down to a simple formula: take 87.7% of the value for THCA, then add on the value for THC. This formula also holds true for finding the active CBD content (CBDTOTAL) because CBD and THC have the exact same mm. " -hightimes
I personally think that terpene play a larger role than thc in hemp strains. And also that terpenes modulate the effects of high thc strains too.