Almost a year ago, when asked how to resolve confusion over CBD’s legal status, then-Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said the matter would be solved faster in Congress than in the halls of his agency.
Now, the FDA is following Capitol Hill’s lead in classifying CBD oils, additives and other products as dietary supplements instead of continuing to prosecute a brutal enforcement campaign that was often at odds with the 2018 Farm Bill that legalized industrial hemp and its derivatives like CBD.
People across the country use CBD for a variety of common maladies, such as chronic pain, anxiety, insomnia and arthritis. There is even an FDA-approved prescription drug based on CBD for a type of epilepsy that affects children.
According to Law 360, FDA regulators are now following congressional instructions to analyze data and decide how best to write particular rules governing the use and application of CBD products across American markets. [1]
"We have made progress, but there are still areas where timely attention is needed," the FDA said, according to reporting by UPI. [2]
The FDA has faced pressure from legislators like majority leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who helped spearhead the 2018 legislation that made industrial hemp farming legal for the first time in decades and who now wants businesses to be more free to operate as they see fit to create textiles and CBD products.
Hemp was long grown in the United States before its prohibition in the 1930s. It was used most frequently in textiles, rope manufacture and ship-building, but Henry Ford used it to make a prototype plastic-bodied car and it has since been put to use in creative and innovative construction materials, renewable plastics and of course, CBD.
CBD brings many of the same relaxation and anti-inflammation benefits of marijuana without the mind-altering, inebriating “high” effects. It is popular for use among both humans and pets alike.
The FDA said that although it has explicit instructions from Congress to classify hemp products as dietary supplements, the agency’s process could take three years or more, according to UPI. [2]
All the while, sales for CBD products could reach between $50 billion and $200 billion per year by 2030, the Motley Fool reports. [3]
"We are concerned that some people wrongly think that the myriad CBD products on the market have been evaluated by the FDA and determined to be safe, or that using CBD 'can't hurt,'" FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn said in a statement. [2]
Sources
[1] https://www.law360.com/articles/1251750/fda-report-brings-hope-for-cbd-dietary-supplements
[3] https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/03/08/the-must-see-cbd-quote-from-the-head-of-the-fda.aspx
