Cannabis Business Times
During the House Agriculture Committee Subcommittee hearing on hemp July 28, industry professionals addressed the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) lack of regulation on CBD and hemp-derived compounds.
House Agriculture Subcommittee Members, U.S. Hemp Roundtable (USHR) Vice President and CEO of Kentucky-based Ecofibre, Eric Wang, and Kentucky Commissioner of Agriculture, Ryan Quarles, all testified during the hearing, which “aimed to explore opportunities to improve the current rules on hemp production,” according to a USHR press release.
The 2018 Farm Bill, which legalized hemp at the federal level, is set to expire in 2023. (The farm bill expires and is updated every five years). Wang and Quarles’ testimonies both urged Congress to regulate CBD and other hemp-derived compounds in the upcoming 2023 Farm bill, adding that the FDA’s inaction on regulating such products is negatively impacting the industry, according to the release.
“The hemp industry has been severely hampered by the slowness of the federal Food and Drug Administration to create a regulatory pathway for hemp-derived cannabinoids, particularly cannabidiol,” Quarles said during his testimony. “Without clear direction from FDA regarding products containing hemp-derived CBD, large retailers will not carry the products and many business leaders are reluctant to move forward with the development and manufacture of CBD-related products. That reluctance, in turn, has dampened industry demand for harvested hemp material.”
Read full article
