HoF 2025 Ventura highlights the hemp derived cannabinoids in California’s cannabis supply chain
This 2025 Hall of Flowers Ventura recap is going to be a little bit of a brain dump. I’m at a current stage in my writing life where my style has been defenestrated and its pieces picked up and compartmentalized. This is stream of consciousness Caleb writing crossed with making a point writing and event recap writing has been selected away from but might still be present. For anyone seeking a more concise event recap with better pictures and significantly less expletives and angst, check out Rachelle Gordon’s recap on GreenState or Christina Wong’s recap on BeardBrosPharm.
If you’re here to see who my whistle is being blown at, do continue on.
The first time I rolled up to Hall of Flowers in 2022, I was wide eyed, I hadn’t lived in California since the 215 days and drove over from Nevada in the van to cover the event. 2025 was different. This was my first California industry event since Benzinga had doxxed me as a trees mod, and I had spent every Hall of Flowers between asking growers what their longest flowering cultivar was because I genuinely never knew before going to the show. This time, I already knew what the longest flowering cultivars present in the entire fairgrounds were going to be: Band Aid Haze #7 and The Pearls cut of Destroyer. Things change fast in a handful of years: knowledge bases, reputations aka face cards, the market, the regulators, etc.
Back in 2022, I tried everything that was presented to me and smoking in the inside portions was still a common occurrence – not so much anymore. From what I remember of 2022 – there were no hemp derived cannabinoids, there wasn’t any bubble hash worth a damn, there weren’t cultivar specific edibles, and there wasn’t a single thing that I smelled that rang a bell as something different.
Instead, I found all sorts of edibles and drinkables and vapeables that seemed new to me at the time, but I’d quickly discover were largely poor imitations of the cultivar specific and effect driven products that I was looking to highlight.
I got my first tastes of heated discussions with BDT providers as they were the most visible part of what I considered the fake cannabis. I had already seen the spray terps in the UK and on the East Coast, and I feared for that new subculture of ganja smokers because no peer reviewed research existed on the long term effects of combusting and ingesting certain additives. I wasn’t so concerned about the impacts on the market for cannabis genetics, yet. I didn’t know any active farmers in the Emerald Triangle and had actually spent the better part of the last decade smokin’ through every grade of ‘indo available.
I actually distinctly remember that first Hall of Flowers because it was the first time that I got to meet one of the reviewers that I had been featuring on this site: cali_bud_reviews. That trend has continued at events since. This year, I got to meet Jaz_reviews_ca. It was an honor!! Cali_bud_reviews gave me a crash course in how to get coupons and specifically to avoid long lines or brands that would only sell to buyers. The way to identify such a brand? Long lines or Buyer Boxes. Brands really do all this work, just to reach the one rep from that one chain of dispensaries in that one region where the brand has no presence currently. The rest of their year depends on it, and any time wasted talking to a “custie” is time wasted. Any sample sold to someone that isn’t going to turn around and order a box for the shop is a sample wasted.
Never forget: there’s business going down. Each year, there’s always booths that I know I should avoid because they’re just going to be too busy. This year, I waited in such a line for the first time – at CBX – because I really wanted to try some Heirbloom flower. They only had SFV OG and Super Silver Haze, and started with the same amount of both. As I watched buyer after buyer buy 6 OG, 2 Haze, or 4 OG, 4 Haze, or 8 OG – I realized I was watching the market’s preference in real life. The people behind me were getting sad as they watched the amount of OGs dwindle to the point that they knew they might not get one. I got 6 Haze and 2 OG – and was the only person I saw going thataway. Stay tuned on Budist to see my thoughts on those cuts but suffice to say – the market still likes old school cuts. I’m glad they’re around but I’m generally onto the other known markers of long flowering varieties which have been introgressed into shorter lowering varieties nowadays. Ie. I’m obsessing over Ocimene dominant cultivars and finding out when that was first introgressed. Special shout out to CannaCountry Farms’ CannaCountry #26 via Redwood Roots as well as Greenshock Farms’ POG now available through Solful and NABIS. These were the standouts I got reacquainted with this year.
I remember the coupon system and the original single distributor model which would eventually cause a bottleneck of long lines to purchase towards the end of the day, and always a scene of buyers maxing out on purchases and only walking out with a small percentage of the samples that they thought they were going to get. The coupons would litter the walkways – thus the legend of cheap samples for everyone at HoF was born. Any random John or Jane Doe, including fairground staff, could pick a legal limit’s worth of coupons off the ground and make an order. Hell, I remember in 2022, I watched someone from the city of the trappers and the scammers take an entire booklet of coupons from an abandoned booth, buy the samples, all without interacting with the sales reps from the company which is now no longer with us. Suffice to say, there were issues with the on site dispensary model.
Ironically, the way the event is now set up in 2025 – every buyer is generally able to buy as much as they want at each booth – but only if the brand they’re looking to try jumped through the hoops to legally be able to sell samples through a compliant POS. This led to significantly more streamlined experience for buyers and sales reps who would be buying at the brand’s booth instead of the partner on-site dispensary – allowing for the deployment of some interesting marketing collateral featuring Budists like yours truly:
On the buyer end, everyone could theoretically end up with more product than they’re legally allowed to leave the event with. Generally speaking, this is a great example of the kind of rule bending that is at the core of California’s legal market. Stay tuned for an example from the other side of the moral boundary.
There were some brands that I’d come to always expect to be at Hall of Flowers which weren’t there this time. Many of the biggest brands are now beyond searching for new buyers and focusing on servicing existing relationships. Similarly, given how segregated the NorCal and SoCal markets are, sometimes brands from down south only go to Santa Rosa HoF or vice versa. Or maybe too many brands have been getting biffed at events to make it worth it. As each brand does their internal calculus, HoF remains a mainstay event for them to drop in and out of as needed.
Fully understanding the impact that the right connection at Hall of Flowers means to new brands and mom and pops, I made a conscious decision to avoid buying samples from certain brands I otherwise would really want to – specifically so limited stock would be available just in case that one special buyer came along. I’d like to think this made a difference but chances are it didn’t.
At the end of Hall of Flowers Ventura 2025, not every brand sold out of what they had brought. Some had it stolen, and some – like Budularo – sold out of all 200 eighths they had brought. If you truly love something, you’ll let it go.
At the end of the event, I heard someone happily remark that they “actually have some invoices to write!” Good for them.
On the other end of the HoF experience spectrum, I went to a booth that had told me they would have something to sell me on day 2 only to find out that their vehicle had been biffed in the middle of the night in the Crowne Plaza VIP parking lot. They reportedly didn’t bring the goodies into the hotel because they were afraid of repercussions from the hotel (my read between the lines: a smoking fee from the smell of unsmoked weed). When I say we still have a lot of destigmatization left to do, I mean it
Whenever I needed a break from walking the floor I’d check out the yap-yap section where top notch panels were attracting industry leaders from around the state to sit and listen. I made sure to catch David Bienenstock, Todd McCormick, and Kevin Jodrey’s First Smoke of the Day Live! Broadcast at Hall of Flowers.
I’ll share one last story before getting to the naturally derived meat and potatoes of my 2025 HoF Ventura recap. I remember a conversation with the 8BITBUD team where I was asking about their genetics choices. After they had claimed to breed everything in house, and I asked them about how they bred the Lemon Cherry Gelato they just handed me, in response they straight up invited me to leave by saying:
“You know, you’re asking a lot of weird questions.”
Newsflash: that’s my fuckin’ job. I will forever cherish those words of affirmation.
DCC blissfully unaware of hemp derived cannabinoids at Hall of Flowers
I cherish every sign of rebellion to stupid rules that I see. I see these as instances of the culture leading the industry – as it always has been. But when does rebellion or plain ol’ rule bending get co-opted by greed and become something heinous and worthy of calling out? Perhaps when the rules that get broken actually serve a purpose.
Story time!
In 2024, while walking the floor I ended up at Happy Fruit’s booth and started asking some of my patented weird questions… Mostly about their “strain specific” “rosin-only” gummies which also purported to have THCV in them. They were allegedly Tropicanna Cookies gummies, but when I asked what percentage THCV their cut of trop had, they looked at me like my third eye was blinking. Eventually, a sales rep admitted to me that yes the gummies are not actually rosin only, or only containing cannabinoids and “terps” from one cultivar and that in fact the minor cannabinoid content – specifically the THCV – was a hemp derived cannabinoid isolate that started as CBD distillate.
Over the next several months, Happy Fruit went on a rebranding mission and now refer to their rosin gummies as “rosin forward.” As I continually harp, truth in marketing is not the strong suit of this industry though it sure seems to be something Happy Fruit became hyperaware of once called out.
There are actually multiple brands in the California market like Happy Fruit that also have nationwide hemp sister brands but my experiences are just with this one licensee. The Department of Cannabis Control has made it exceedingly clear in their 2023 Hemp Update that hemp derived cannabinoids aren’t allowed in the California market; yet, here they are! Year after year. The final click happened for me this year, when I realized that the DCC genuinely had no idea. So I got the bright idea of walking over to tell them.
When I got in front of DCC employees at HoF to discuss this potential health issue (for more, read Geci, Scialdone, and Tishler’s 2023 piece) and blatant rule breaking – they invited me to submit an anonymous tip. To that all I have to say is this: I’m not a fucking snitch, I’m a whistleblower.
Talking with others about this issue revealed a wide range of well-grounded opinions. One side which seems to have a lot of proponents are the people are pushing to criminalize the hemp side of the industry in states where both industries exist. Florida has SB438 and there is an AB8 in California seeking to expressly make illegal as felonies and misdemeanors respectively, unregistered hemp activity.
I honestly can’t support either of these initiatives because unlike the average regulator, I understand that for mom and pop operators, there is only one market. Instead of criminalizing this activity and leaving it to the well trusted law enforcement agencies (/s) to handle it, I’d much rather see the community (that’s culture+industry) lock arms and shun the bad actors the way it might have happened back in the day on Shakedown street.
There are mom and pops on the hemp side and the marijuana side (crude differentiation but generally well understood); the legal side and the illicit side (also a hazy differentiation). There is one differentiation that’s usually less hazy though – at least to counterculture observers. For mom and pops, hustling that bends the rules is generally celebrated by the culture and looked down upon by the industry. The same rules, bent to breaking by someone that isn’t a “mom and pop,” somehow draws a different reaction. Highlighting that by the counterculture’s moral standards: it isn’t always just about the rule being broken but rather the reason why. Rules blatantly broken for profit reasons, impotent regulations, and a whole lot of regulators playing catch up is par for the course for California.
Let me be clear though, Happy Fruit is not a mom and pop. They’re a cancer that needs to be removed from the California market.
Really, the issue with companies like Happy Fruit putting hemp derived cannabinoid isolates in their products boils down to the leaky METRC system and impotent regulators that allows untracked products not just out the backdoor, but in the front door.
Meanwhile, the regulators are so far behind even after whistles are blown… And that seems to be the only reliable way to make them move. This is the issue that is between/behind the lines of the California Cannabis Pesticide Testing fiasco and is the exact same issue at play here. I asked the DCC if they had started testing for the banned pesticides that were discovered in products by WeedWeek and the LA Times. The way that the DCC employee told me that “no” they do not “test for banned pesticides” really conveyed to me a belief that because something is banned, it can’t possibly be around and doesn’t need to be considered.
Similarly, they don’t test for banned hemp derived cannabinoids and have no plans to.
When I asked how long it would take for them to start regularly testing for the pesticides that were identified in that groundbreaking report, they couldn’t say if it was even ever going to happen. I’m not holding my breath for even more expensive (synthetically derived or natural cannabinoid) tests to become a regular thing. Though, the DCC was recently revealed by WeedWeek to have spent nearly a million dollars contracting the Department of Toxic Substance Control to teach them how. I’ll keep the faith that media pressure is the one thing that is able to move things in this complete flustercuck of an industry.
When I asked if they had ever done an investigation into a licensee that they’d discovered was making/using hemp derived cannabinoids, they told me about the single case thus far. The CDPH had flagged the shipment of hemp flower from Oregon to California and informed the DCC who then investigated.
As of March 20th, 2025, the DCC seems to have no idea that at least one licensee has been selling hemp derived cannabinoids at licensed retailers for over a year and the closest they ever got to investigating the whole vector was because another agency had forced them to.
The Highest Critic has reached out to the DCC about this concern – first brought up in 2024 – and no official comment has been provided at time of publication.
Why do I care so much: hemp derived cannabinoids warp cannabis industry incentives
There’s a market demand for THCV and CBG and CBC and CBT and other not minor, but RARE, cannabinoids. The natural way for this demand to be met is by breeders breeding for cannabis cultivars that contain meaningful amounts of these compounds to be grown and then to be extracted as a whole plant. In doing so, they are also selecting for and presenting to medicinal users hundreds of other genetically linked chemicals which have yet to be properly researched for their contributing effect.
If instead all of these rare cannabinoids are being presented solely as single molecule isolates synthetically derived from hemp distillate sourced from biomass and possibly not properly cleaned up along the way, we have yet another genetic bottleneck pressure and vector for untested for pesticides to be entering our system. It’s all I see nowadays – the cracks in the so-called legal industry glimmer at me, always reminding me that there is only one market; additionally, all of the regulators and most of the players do not know enough about the Cannabis plant or the global cannabis culture to make rational decisions.
So given an impotent DCC, what’s a brand owner to do? Take advantage for profit while bending or breaking the rules? Which rules? Or do the right thing by the culture…?
The Highest Critic’s advice for retailers and distributors: Drop Happy Fruit
If you hold a retail license or a distributor license or hell… even a temporary event license, I just want to say that you probably don’t want to continue working with Happy Fruit, or any other company that utilizes hemp derived, or even worse NOT hemp derived (read: derived from synthetic cannabinoids), cannabinoids. Not that hemp derived cannabinoids are intrinsically bad – but any brand willing to so boldly skirt the law like that is likely one board decision away from swapping out the synthetically derived cannabinoids from a natural CBD source for a completely synthetic source. For anyone that uses cannabis and relies on the entourage/ensemble effect, these products are short changing you.
Every person who loves the plant should care about this development. Again: If licensees hold the DCC rules in such contempt that they’d introduce hemp derived cannabinoids, we’re just one greedy asshole away from more t The supply chain has met the regulatory stranglehold and we’re already seeing a certain plan for the cannabis “industry” playing out: a cannabis industry not just without breeders and interesting genetics but entirely without growers and without the plant. To the man in the suit, the people in the hills are superfluous. We’re barrelling towards that future where our edibles, drinkables, and vapeables don’t involve the plant at all and go straight from manufacturer to distributor or retailer to custie.
Tldr; I see synthetically derived (from hemp) cannabinoids in the global supply chain as one of the market forces driving the cannabis genetic bottleneck. Research proving that a whole plant extract from an other-than-THC-or-CBD dominant cultivar with its whole entourage/ensemble is more therapeutic than a single molecule is needed to back community education efforts. All in all, Hall of Flowers Ventura 2025 was fun but I’m looking forward to the next Hall of Flowers, where Happy Fruit hopefully won’t be present and no popo needed to get involved to make that happen.
Founder of The Highest Critic
Unpaid /r/trees mod
Certified Ganjier
Kine bud enthusiast
