HalfBak’d Sumo Gummies, “Forbidden Punch” flavor

Packaged: ??

Puchased: 5/31/2025

25 pcs., $39.99 + $4.99 shipping (no sales tax!)

I was plunged into a waking/sleeping hellscape.

We got our first reader request a few weeks ago, and this episode is the result. Sam DM’d the ICS Instagram account, @cannscidotorg, with a request that we check out “Sumo” gummies from Half Bak’d, whose selling point is “420 mg per piece.” While edibles aren’t my favorite mode of consumption, I was glad to extend myself for the sake of a loyal reader.

Half Bak’d exists in that extraordinary market space which calls itself “hemp,” but which we at the Institute view as bathtub chemicals sold without quality control. The marketing for the “Sumo” gummies is a typical example from this field, made exceptional by pushing the genre to its limits. “420-MG Gummies” is a top-line item on their web-store summary, and the product page makes several references to potency.

Potency with what? The website vaguely describes “a blend of THC-A, THC-P, and Delta-8.” The package Nutrition Facts gives: D9THC, 10 mg; D8THC, 205 mg; CBD, 200 mg; THCP, 5 mg. That was my first suggestion that I had ordered a product which might contain CBD. The vendor’s assertion that these gummies are “hemp” derives from the level of D9THC per piece: ~10 mg / 4.5 g makes them just under 0.3% my mass D9THC. Of course, much of a gummy’s mass is water, so on a dry-weight basis…

The Sumos are squishy Iittle cubes with a pleasing hot pink-red color. The ”Forbidden Punch” flavor is generically fruity, but the bitter medicated flavor was not masked. I ate one of these gummies at about 5 pm, and within a minute my face felt warm and my scalp started to sweat. I felt buzzy in my forehead, and after a few more minutes my gut seemed to get active and gurgly.

I felt the effects all evening, and fell into a deep sleep. As morning came and I tried to rouse myself, I felt trapped in disturbing and vivid dreams. I heard a sound in my ears that reminded me of the whine of an old television, and I struggled to focus my eyes. I wound up spending an entire morning in and out of bed, in a headachey and uncomfortable somnambulance that was like the worst fever ever. Anyone who says cannabinoids don’t give you a hangover never tried one of these gummies.

So, what was in these things? Not what the label advertised, that’s for sure. First, let’s consider the claim. Supposedly, these 4.6 gram cubes would each contain MCT oil into which 0.42 grams of cannabinoids were dissolved. If that were true, then I should be able to squeeze a big droplet of oil out of each of these like a sponge. I don’t know the max dosing of cannabinoid emulsion possible in a gummy, but I can’t believe it would approach 100 mg per gram.

The process for measuring these with the LightLab 3 HS Cannabis Analyzer was a little more work than dealing with flower. Just chopping them up, weighing the sample, and getting all the material to dissolve was a chore. We added salt to help break up the pectin of these gummies – my understanding is that this salts the cannabinoid and oil out from the biopolymer that makes the gel, ensuring that no cannabinoids are lost to the matrix. Then we added a more concentrated LightLab solvent to the resulting mixture, forcing salt out of solution. In our hands, it worked out best to pre-filter the solution away from the precipitated salts to avoid clogging the syringe filter upon injection.

The LightLab 3 HS only achieves modest resolution of D8THC from D9THC, and both isomers are probably present. The major isomer, however, might not be D8 as asserted; the LightLab only identified D9THC in these gummies, at 68 mg per piece. That level varied significantly between runs. We consistently measured no THCP, and no CBD. Half of the famous 420-MG were missing entirely, and the THC potency was less than 1/3 advertised.

The number of mistruths and misleading statements just seemed to multiply the longer I examined these gummies, their packaging, and their website. I obviously don’t care for high-dose edibles, so these were never going to be “my product.” After all this examination, I can’t think of anybody I would recommend this product.

Thanks to Sam from Instagram for the suggestion! Please pass the word about these Sumo gummies to your friends.