FDA Report: Less than Half of CBD Products Properly Labelled
According to a new “Report to the U.S. House Committee on Appropriations and the U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations” released by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), less than half of the commercially available hemp and CBD products tested by the FDA contain percentages of cannabidiol that actually match what is reported by the companies selling the products. The report is titled Sampling Study of the Current Cannabidiol Marketplace to Determine the Extent That Products are Mislabeled or Adulterated.
For the report the FDA tested 147 CBD-specific products marketed for sale online. These include CBD capsules, edibles, beverages and tinctures. Although researchers found that 102 of these products provided information on the label displaying CBD percentage, only 45% contained actual amounts of CBD that were in line with what was advertised.
The report is based on the fact that the FDA has been directed by Congress to conduct a sampling study of commercially available CBD products “to determine the extent to which products are mislabeled or adulterated.” The FDA notes that its findings are “preliminary” and will again report to Congress “when complete data sets are available.”
The full “executive summary” of the report can be found below:
On December 20, 2019, the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2020 (P.L. 116-94), which provided the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA or the Agency) with appropriations under Division B, the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Act, 2020, for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2020, was enacted into law. The accompanying Joint Explanatory Statement directed FDA to conduct a sampling study of the current Cannabidiol (CBD) marketplace to determine the extent to which products are mislabeled or adulterated and report to the Committees within 180 days of enactment. This report fulfills the above requirement by providing an update on the Agency’s sampling study of the current CBD marketplace and efforts to determine the extent to which products are mislabeled or adulterated.
The report’s full introduction states:
On December 20, 2019, the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2020 (P.L. 116-94) (2020 Appropriations Act), which provided the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA or the Agency) with appropriations under Division B, the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Act, 2020, for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2020, was enacted into law. The accompanying Joint Explanatory Statement included the following Congressional Directive regarding Cannabidiol (CBD): “The FDA is further directed to perform a sampling study of the current CBD marketplace to determine the extent to which products are mislabeled or adulterated and report to the Committees within 180 days of enactment of this Act.” In response to this directive, FDA has prepared the following report.