Feeding cows hemp makes them ‘high’ and their milk could be unsafe

Alex Wilkins is a writer.

The dairy cows that eat leftovers from the cannabis industry seem to be high to the point of illness and have potentially unsafe levels of the compound that makes you high.

There are places where marijuana is legal that grow flowers rich in cannabidiol and THC. People suggest using the plant in animal feed to avoid wasting it. If the levels of psychoactive compounds were still high, no one knew what would happen.

Robert Pieper at the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment says there is no information about the health effects of cannabinoids.

Pieper and his colleagues fed five cows a mixture low in cannabinoids for six days and five cows a mixture high in cannabinoids.

They found high levels of cannabinoids when they measured the milk from the high-concentration group. According to guidelines from the European Food Safety Authority, if a normal amount of this milk was drunk by someone, they would get a dose of THC.

Michael Kleinhenz at the Kansas State University College of Veterinary Medicine said there was no data to know how much cannabinoids were in the milk of dairy cows. He says that it will be useful for government agencies to see if the data can be used to make conclusions.

Pieper says it's not clear which elements of the industrial hemp were causing these changes.

He doesn't think the term "high" should be used for the cows because we don't know what the cows are feeling. He says that some observations could be attributed to the effect ofCannabidiol.

Nature Food was published in the journal.