Public service announcement: Gummy THC edibles will melt in a hot car

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.

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.

Keep edibles chill, from factory to your fridge

You want to keep edibles—and all cannabis products, really—cool.

From the factory floor to your fridge shelf, heat must be avoided, or it will degrade cannabis’ active ingredients—the cannabinoids and terpenes, said Michael Backes, author of the best-selling book Cannabis Pharmacy.

Backes brings a $79 Yeti lunchbox cooler when he buys cannabis extracts, in order to keep them cool on the ride home, he told Leafly.

And Backes’ new Perfect line of effect-based flower blends requires dispensaries to keep the terp and THC-enhanced produce cool on-site.

Let’s also give credit to a product ahead of its time—the small cold-case called the Terp Chiller.

As the summer bakes on, remember: Protect those cannabis products from hot cars!

You want your body melting into the couch, not your edibles melting into a seat cushion; ‘cus that stain is never coming out.

So—do you eat the frankengummy and roll the dice? Or play it safe and chuck it out? Comment below.

David Downs

David Downs directs news and lifestyle coverage as the California Bureau Chief for Leafly.com. He’s written for WIRED, Rolling Stone and Billboard, and is the former cannabis editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, as well as the author of several cannabis books including ‘Marijuana Harvest’ by Ed Rosenthal and David Downs. He co-hosts The Hash podcast. TW: @davidrdowns | IG @daviddowns