[Centigonal]

I think the current regulatory regime in many US states allows companies to make a killing off of selling naturally occurring bioactive substances as dietary supplements with few regulatory hurdles.

Kratom, CBD, and delta-8 THC are naturally occurring bioactive substances that are newer to the US market. Both have carved out a pretty nice economic niche with a bunch of claimed health benefits.

A couple of years back, I saw a sign outside a fancy legal highs shop in Fishtown, Philadelphia touting the benefits of kratom as a pre-workout supplement. The insanity that a business was advertising an addictive opioid to healthy, opioid-naive people for better gains in the gym almost makes me want more regulation in this area.

[dTal]

Your point is a bit undermined by the fact that two out of your three examples are cannabis extracts, where cannabis proper - literally a leaf - is still very much illegal and has to be "laundered" through chemical processes to make it less fun and therefore "medicine" instead of "recreational drugs".

[Centigonal]

I think your point and mine can both be true at the same time. Cannabis is the subject of a past regulatory regime that restricted nearly all psychoactive substances popular at the time (natural or synthetic). The actions of that regime do not go away when the zeitgeist changes. The current regulatory regime is much more dovish, and that is visible in the difference between the controlled status of chemicals that became popular recently versus similar ones that were popular 50 years ago.