Tyson 2.0 Cannabis Chewing Gum, Peppermint

Four UK sellers, one product, four different answers

We went looking for the contents of this gum across every UK and trade listing we could find. Instead of one answer we found four, and they are not variations on a theme.

Our distributor, the one closest to the actual supply, describes it as cannabis-themed novelty confectionery and adds a parenthetical stating that it does not contain THC or CBD. A trade site says it is infused with canna seed oil, and volunteers on its own initiative that this means neither CBD nor cannabis oil containing THC. A second trade site publishes the only ingredient list in existence for this product, and lists cannabis oil, THC free, as an ingredient. And a UK CBD shop lists it as a CBD gum with a quantified figure.

A shopper reading the fourth of those and receiving the first has not bought a stronger or weaker version of the same thing. They have bought a different category of product.

Our position is that our distributor is right, for three reasons. It is the only seller that states the answer flatly rather than gesturing at it. Canna seed oil means hemp seed oil, which is pressed from the seed and is not a cannabinoid extract, and the trade site that uses the term goes out of its way to say so. And the quantified figure, as the next section shows, appears to have arrived by accident.

Where the 120mg figure appears to have come from

The retailer selling this gum as a 120mg CBD product has its page at a web address ending in the words mike bites cannabinoid gummies 1500mg cbd, followed by a duplicate marker.

That is the address of a genuine product. Mike Bites are the same brand's gummies, and the retailer sells them as a 1500mg CBD line. The gum page is a copy of that listing with the title changed, and the duplicate marker is still sitting in the URL where the shop platform put it.

The same shop's Tyson chocolate page has the identical address with a different duplicate marker on the end. We looked at that page for the chocolate bars and found it attributing hemp extract to a bar whose published ingredient panel contains none.

So both of that retailer's cannabinoid claims on this brand come from cloning a real CBD product page and editing the name at the top. That is not us reading tea leaves, it is visible in the address bar of both pages, and it explains a 120mg figure appearing on a product that three other sellers say holds nothing.

We are not writing this to have a swipe at another shop. Our own catalogue description for this gum calls it a CBD-isolate CBD product, which is wrong in exactly the same direction, and it is the twentieth line in this brand group where our generated copy has asserted a cannabinoid on something that declares none. A cannabis-branded wrapper moving through CBD channels reads as a CBD product to nearly everybody who handles it. The difference between us and that page is that we have stopped and read the sources.

The activated charcoal is missing from the only ingredient list anyone has published

Two sellers put activated charcoal at the front of the description. It is the detail that makes this gum distinctive, and it is presumably why the pieces are dark rather than white.

The one seller that publishes an actual ingredient list does not include it. That list reads gum base, sweeteners, cannabis oil THC free, flavourings, stabilisers, preservatives. No charcoal, and no numbered anything.

Charcoal in a food is vegetable carbon, additive number E153, and in a gum its visible job is colour. We are making no claim for it beyond that. Charcoal has been marketed heavily for oral use in recent years and dental bodies have urged caution about it on abrasiveness grounds, so we are neither repeating a whitening claim nor implying one, and we would be wary of any page that does.

What we would like is a photograph of the pack, so we can tell you whether the charcoal is on the label and where in the order it sits. We have asked. Until it arrives, the honest summary is that two sellers advertise it, one ingredient list omits it, and we cannot reconcile them for you.

The sweeteners are not named, and on a chewing gum that matters

The published list says sweeteners, plural, with no name attached. On a chewing gum that almost always means polyols, the sugar alcohols that give a sugar-free gum its bulk and sweetness.

Two reasons to want the name. UK and EU labelling requires an excessive-consumption statement once a product passes a polyol threshold, so the class is not cosmetic information. And xylitol, one of the commonest gum sweeteners, is seriously harmful to dogs, which makes an unnamed sweetener line a genuine problem in a household with one.

We are not going to guess which sweetener is in it. We are telling you the line is unnamed, that we have asked our distributor to send the pack, and that if this matters to you the sensible move is to contact us and let us find out before you order rather than after.

The same applies to allergens. No allergen declaration has been published for this gum by anybody, which on a confectionery product is a gap rather than a reassurance.

The pack count, and which half of the 120mg sum is actually in doubt

The trade listings describe this gum both as a single piece and as a retail display, and the 120mg claim above is arrived at by multiplying a stated figure per piece by a pack count. Two numbers, and they are not equally solid.

The count is the solid half. Our distributor issues every line a product code whose ending encodes the unit, and this gum has two: one marked as a single piece, and one marked as a case of twelve. That is the distributor stating the pack size in its own catalogue rather than a retailer estimating it, and it matches the twelve that the trade listings describe.

The other half is the one nobody can support. A count of twelve tells you nothing about what is in each piece, and three of the four sellers of this gum say there is no cannabinoid in it at all. So the sum that produces 120mg has a sound multiplier and an unsourced figure being multiplied, which is exactly the wrong way round.

Our own catalogue record has not yet caught up with the code, so until it does we are describing the unit rather than promising it, and the confirmed figure will appear on the listing itself where it belongs. If the count is what you need before ordering, ask us and we will put it in writing.

Every CBD gum on our shelf that states a figure states 17mg or 36mg

There is a second reason to doubt the 120mg claim, and it comes from our own shelf.

We list seven chewing gums that genuinely declare a CBD content, across four brands, and every single one of them lands on 17mg or 36mg per pack. Not one is anywhere near 120mg. A gum claimed at more than three times the highest declared figure on the shelf, by a seller whose page is a copy of a different product, is an outlier for a reason.

If a quantified CBD gum is what you are after, the table below is where to look instead. Each of those has a number on the pack and stands behind it. This Tyson gum is the one to choose if you want the peppermint and the charcoal and the wrapper, and you are relaxed about the cannabinoid question because there is no cannabinoid to be relaxed about.

Four separate products now carry this brand name, and one is a prescription medicine

This is the third page in a row where the brand name has turned out to cover unrelated things, and the list has grown.

There is this UK and EU confectionery line, which contains no cannabinoid. There is the American Tyson 2.0 range, dosed and sold in milligrams of Delta-9 THC, which is a controlled drug here. There are cannabis seeds sold under a Mike Tyson name by a seed retailer. And a UK medical cannabis reference site indexes a Tyson 2.0 medical cannabis flower, which in the UK would be available on prescription only. That page returned an access error when we tried to read it, so we are quoting nothing from it beyond the fact that it exists under that name.

The practical version is short. If something you have read about this brand quotes a milligram figure for THC, or describes a flower, it is not about a stick of peppermint gum.

How it chews, the law, and who should leave it alone

On the peppermint itself the sellers agree, which is a relief after everything above. This is a straight cool peppermint, the sharp confectionery kind rather than a herbal or spearmint note, and the charcoal gives the pieces their dark colour rather than any flavour of its own. Charcoal gum does tend to look startling the first time, and it can mark a light-coloured tissue on the way out.

Legally a peppermint chewing gum with no cannabinoid in it is ordinary confectionery. The Novel Foods authorisation regime covers ingestible CBD, so it does not reach a product that declares none. And the limit that governs anything containing controlled cannabinoids on a UK shelf is 1mg per container, whatever the container size, rather than any percentage. One of the retailers selling this gum prints a percentage figure and the container figure in the same sentence as though both applied. The container figure is the real one, and our legality article works through why.

Who should leave this alone: anyone who wants CBD, because there is none declared in it. Anyone who needs to know the sweetener or the allergens before eating something, until we have the pack in hand. Anyone in a household with a dog, for the same reason. And anyone who was expecting the cannabis on the wrapper to mean something, because on this product it is branding and nothing else.

Buy it because you want a charcoal peppermint gum with a boxer's name on it. That is a perfectly good reason, and it is the only one the evidence supports.