Two names sit on almost every label in this shop. The difference between them is one chemical step and a great deal of statute. Take them one at a time and neither is complicated.
The chemistry
A living hemp plant does not make much Delta 9 THC. What it makes is THCa, tetrahydrocannabinolic acid. Same molecule, carrying one extra carboxyl group. Add heat and that group leaves as carbon dioxide. Chemists call the step decarboxylation. Everybody else calls it lighting it, baking it, or pressing it.
The conversion is not one for one, because the group that leaves has weight of its own. THCa is about 12% heavier than the Delta 9 THC it becomes. That is where the 0.877 on every lab report comes from. Total THC is reported as:
total THC = Delta 9 THC + (0.877 × THCa)
Read that as a ceiling. It is what you would have if every molecule converted, and in practice a good deal of it does not.
The law
The Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018, the Farm Bill, defines hemp as cannabis with no more than 0.3% Delta 9 THC on a dry weight basis. Read the definition slowly. It names Delta 9. It does not name THCa, and it does not use the total THC figure above.
So a flower can sit well under the limit on the line the statute names while carrying a big THCa figure on the line it does not. That is the whole of it. It is why a jar of hemp flower is labeled the way it is, and it is why we can sell you real flower in a legal shop. We did not write the rule. We read it very carefully.
North Carolina follows the federal definition. Twenty states do not allow these products to arrive by mail at all, whatever the figures say. The list, and the reason for each one, is on the Shipping page.
One date to know about
Section 781 of the Continuing Appropriations Act, 2026 changes the federal definition on December 11, 2026. Total THC instead of Delta 9 alone, and a ceiling measured per container for finished products. We are watching it and we will say plainly on this site what it means for what we sell. This paragraph is a note about a statute and not legal advice. If you need legal advice, ask somebody who can give it.
The other letters
The same acid to neutral relationship holds across the family, which is why a report lists CBDa beside CBD. CBD, CBN, CBG and THCv are separate cannabinoids, each with its own row in the table on the certificate. They are not forms of the two above. Different molecules, different rows, same page.