She short answer is yes. A recent legal letter issued by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) clarified that all products or parts of the cannabis plant that falls below .3% THC falls under the category of hemp as defined in the 2018 farm bill. Despite this clarification there are still some grey areas. Specifically, federal law states that possession of cannabis seeds with the intent to grow cannabis seeds is illegal. Therefore as a seed supplier, all seeds we provide with the potential to produce higher amounts of THC than the legal limit are meant for novelty, souvenir, culinary, and research purposes only. In addition individual state laws may have specific legislation pertaining to growing and buying cannabis.
Can Cannabis Seeds Contain More Than The Legal Limit of THC?
Highly unlikely. Hemp seeds in one study were found to contain 0–12 μg Δ9-THC per 1 g of seeds. In in drug-type high THC cannabis seeds the amount of Δ9-THC was observed in much higher levels (35.6–124 μg/g). (1) This is the equivalent of 0.000124% of the total weight of the seed and falls well below the legal threshold.
The DEAs Statement
The Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 (Pub.L. 115-334, referred to as the AIA) was signed into law on December 20, 2018. It provided a new statutory definition of “hemp” and amended the definition of “marihuana” under the CSA. The AIA modified the definition by adding that the
“term ‘marihuana’ does not include hemp, as defined in section 1639o of Title 7.” 21 U.S.C. § 802(16)(B). Furthermore, the AIA added a definition of “hemp” to 7 U.S.C. 1639o, which reads as follows: The term “hemp” means the plant Cannabis sativa L. and any part of the plant including the seeds thereof and all derivatives, extracts, cannabinoids, isomers, acids, salts, and salts of isomers, whether growing or not, with a deltat-9- tetrahydrocannabinol concentration of not more than 0.3% on a dry weight basis.
(1)Yang Y, Lewis MM, Bello AM, Wasilewski E, Clarke HA, Kotra LP. Cannabis sativa (Hemp) Seeds, Δ9-Tetrahydrocannabinol, and Potential Overdose. Cannabis Cannabinoid Res. 2017 Oct 1;2(1):274-281. doi: 10.1089/can.2017.0040. PMID: 29098190; PMCID: PMC5665515.