As the summer heat bakes America, we’re facing a new wrinkle in our ongoing national crisis: Record amounts of edible THC gummies are melting together in hot cars or while sitting out on patios, making them impossible to dose, coast to coast.
You want your body melting into the couch, not your edibles melting into a seat cushion.
America’s leading gummy maker Kiva Confections sells the hit Camino gummy in California, and its food experts have this advice for Leafly readers:
“Camino gummies start to melt around 90F. Since the gummies are sensitive to extreme heat we recommend keeping them in a cool environment, and always avoid leaving them in a hot car!”
Cannabis sales have surged to new records, analysts note, amid a pandemic that’s taxing people’s sleep and sanity. At the nation’s thousands of state-legal stores, consumers are dropping billions of dollars this year on edibles, which don’t involve smoking anything. “Edibles account for around 15% of sales in dispensaries, driven by gummies,” according to BDS Analytics, a cannabis data firm.
Gummies are the hottest corner of the edibles market due to their taste, portability, dosing, and cost.
Amid this uptick comes July, the hottest month of the year in the US. Temperatures are breaking 80 degrees almost everywhere except on the Pacific Coast beaches. In that heat, a car can reach 120 degrees in an hour, which is beyond the point at which gummy gelatin melts.
Avoid the mega-strength ‘frankengummy’
Leafly first noticed the issue when Caliva, the California delivery service, brought over some of their new THC gummy edibles called “Nickels” in early July. Each 5 mg THC gummy had fused into a ‘frankengummy‘ of dubiously dosed psychedelic medicine. I nibbled on a corner for taste but ultimately chucked the tempting, yet unwieldy blob.
The national brand 3CHI, which sells CBD and Delta-8-THC products, openly admits their gummies are weak to fire, like a leaf-type Pokemon.
“These will 100% melt into a delicious singular gummy blob by the time you get them. It’ll still work but proper dosing will be harder and require a scale and measuring amounts yourself,” a 3CHI official told Leafly. “We are working on a no-melt vegan option but it’s not ready yet.”
For alternatives to gummies, 3CHI recommends tincture or homemade gummies with distillate.
