United States: the status of CBD still unclear, MPs call for clarification

The USA legalized hemp earlier this year, opening the door to a unified market for CBD products. However, shortly after this legalization, the Food and Drug Administration explained that certain products, such as dietary supplements, were still not marketable at federal level, due to a lack of regulations. At present, the American situation in this area is that of a patchwork of different state legislations, in which economic players are navigating blindly.

A murky situation

The main reason why the FDA still prohibits the use of CBD as a dietary supplement is that it is also the active ingredient in’a drug it has already approved, Epidiolex. The problem is that CBD-containing food and drink products are a booming trend in the United States. What's more, they are already on sale in many stores. The agency had also announced that it was considering legal avenues for the marketing of CBD-containing food products, but so far nothing has been done.

In some jurisdictions where the CBD edibles business initially flourished unhindered, local authorities are now cracking down by suddenly banning their trade. This is the case, for example, in New York City and the states of Maine and Ohio. It's the newspaper Eater who first reported the New York embargo. He explains that the relevant authorities told shopkeepers that they could sell CBD but not add it to food, an inconsistency that restaurant manager C.J. Holm points out Fat Cat Kitchen It's like saying you can sell rum, but you can't sell rum baba.

MPs call for clarification

On the initiative of Chellie Pingree, a group of federal MPs has just sent a letter to the Food and Drug Administration. They call for urgent regulations and explanations of the recent crackdown on CBD businesses, which they say has «created enormous confusion among product manufacturers, hemp growers and consumers of these products». «In light of the crackdown and resulting confusion, we call on the FDA to provide guidance on legal marketing channels for CBD-containing edibles,» the MPs add.

In this case, they are asking the agency and its director to Scott Gottlieb to answer the following questions by Friday :

• When will the FDA provide guidelines for the legal marketing of CBD-containing food products? On this point, they suggest the GRAS (Generally Recognize as Safe) program. This is a notification of the molecule's harmlessness based on the opinion of scientific experts or on a history of current consumption.
• Has the FDA asked states like New York, Maine or Ohio to take action against CBD-containing food products?
• When will the FDA hold a public hearing on the regulation of CBD-containing products? The agency had announced that it would hold such a hearing, but no date has been announced.

https://twitter.com/chelliepingree/status/1097874770799091714

The MPs who signed the document include presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard and Congressman Earl Blumenauer, who had prepared an action plan for federal legalization should the Democrats win the legislative elections. At the same time, Senators Mitch McConnell and Ron Wyden, who were behind the amendment that legalized hemp, asked the French Ministry of Agriculture last week that it expressly issue regulations on hemp cultivation. Ron Wyden and another senator also wrote a separate letter to the FDA criticizing outdated regulations that prevent growers from reaping the full benefits of industrial hemp, especially CBD-derived products.