The next few months could be an extremely challenging time for the CBD
industry. There is no guarantee that your favourite CBD brands and products
will be allowed to remain on the market.
The most alarming development regarding the future of CBD, was the European
Commission discussing the potential of reclassifying CBD as a narcotic! If the
reclassification came to fruition, it would effectively send CBD onto the Black
Market across most of Europe.
The Food Standards Agency (FSA), the regulatory body in charge of the UK CBD
decision making, have said they will follow the lead of the Home Office and
continue to deem CBD as a Novel Food.
However, this decision leads to another hurdle the UK CBD industry will have
to try and overcome. The decision to class cannabinoids as a Novel Food was
made back in January 2019. For a product to be classed as ‘novel’, it means there
has been no evidence of consumption to a significant degree in humans before
May 15th, 1997. They are many people who would argue there is plenty
of evidence of whole hemp extract consumption, which is what trade
organisations like EIHA have tried to prove. The definition of whole hemp being
that the natural ratios of cannabinoids remain unchanged. It is still uncertain,
due to lack of definitive explanation by the FSA, that whole plant hemp
products will be classed as non-novel.
Therefore, to be compliant passed the deadline, CBD manufactures have until
31th March 2021 to submit a CBD Novel Food Application. With a
preparation time of around 2 years and costing hundreds of thousands of pounds
for the completion of ingredient dossiers, there will be many UK manufactures
who simply cannot afford to submit an application.
Part of the Application involves manufacturers having to show manufacturing
consistency within the ingredient, this is one of the reasons that the more natural
the extract (full spectrum and even broad spectrum), then the more difficult
this is to achieve due to higher levels and variations of minor cannabinoids
and terpenes etc.
Although this does not necessarily mean the end of Full Spectrum products,
it is certainly a hurdle that will be difficult to cross. In the event Full
Spectrum products are removed, this could mean hundreds of thousands of users
could be without the products they rely on. Full Spectrum products have been
some of the most popular within the CBD industry.
One glimmer of hope is the Novel Food Application being submitted by EIHA.
This application is a joint venture, funded by a consortium of companies and we
are proud to announced CBDLife are partners on this application. What EIHA are
doing differently is, they are running clinical trials on Full Spectrum Hemp products
(up to 0.2% THC) to prove safety for the end user. This trial is the first of
its kind and we look forward to reviewing the data. At that point, there will
be difficulty for the Governments reasoning to removed Full Spectrum products
from the market.
We fully support seeing some sort of regulation across the UK CBD market as
we are big believers in all CBD companies providing consistent, quality
products that are safe for the end user. We hope that these changes will prove
exactly that, although nothing a certainty right now. That is why we have decided
to offer a discounted bulk buy option for all our food supplements all of March
2021 for those customers who would like to stock up.
Please contact us with any concerns or questions you may have in regard to
this blog.
