This Week in CBD: April 12, 2019

If you have tried everything — from sublingual drops to CBD-infused seltzer — and you haven’t found quite the right CBD product for you, don’t despair. Creative entrepreneurs are coming up with new CBD products all the time.

So, what’s new this week?

Unilever launched a line of CBD-infused deodorants on Tuesday. According to a report from Bloomberg, “CBD-infused deodorants are said to have antibacterial properties that help fight odor and include an anti-inflammatory to soothe irritation from shaving.”

But if that’s not your thing, you can head to Wisconsin for a very different CBD experience. Milwaukee Brat House has added CBD-infused brats, mustard, and sauerkraut to their menu.

With the arrival of spring, hemp agriculture has been in the news. On Wednesday, CNN Business reported on hemp farmers who are “making a killing” after switching from growing food crops to cultivating hemp.

And on the same day, Vice News ran a story suggesting the opposite. According to Vice, hemp’s potential as a cash crop could be much overhyped.

In other agricultural news, USDA Secretary Sonny Purdue told Congress on Tuesday that the agency is “not expediting” the development of regulations for agricultural hemp. He expects the rules to be in place in plenty of time for the 2020 planting season.

But some hemp advocates think that the USDA is moving far too slowly. In a letter to Purdue, Sen. Steve Daines of Montana urged more haste in the creation and implementation of a regulatory framework for hemp.

According to Daines, Congress intended that the agency move quickly to establish the new regulations. Furthermore, delays mean that farmers who are already growing hemp will be forced to work with regulations created after the now-obsolete 2014 Farm Bill.

On Thursday, Consumer Reports published the results of a survey of American CBD oil users. The survey was conducted in January, and included more than 4,000 responses.

A few of the main takeaways:

• About one quarter of Americans have tried CBD oil in some form.
• CBD edibles are the most popular format, closely followed by oil drops and vaping devices.
• Millennials are more likely to use CBD for anxiety, while Baby Boomers are more likely to use it for joint pain.
• 22% of CBD users say that they’ve completely replaced a prescription or over-the-counter medication with CBD.

Like business owners in many states across the country, New York’s CBD entrepreneurs are having trouble with the lack of legal clarity around their products.

Contradictory policies at the federal, state, and local level mean that it’s hard to get a straight answer about whether CBD foods and beverages are legal in the state. As farmer Allan Gandelman told Reuters, “It is so confusing because you can ask three different attorneys and get three different answers.”

On Friday, the New York Times took a look at the ways in which parents are using CBD to deal with the stress of parenthood.

One parent told the Times that she uses CBD to deal with stress and to help her sleep:

“I’m less likely to scream and freak out that there’s, you know, hot pink Play-Doh smushed into the carpet,” she said. “It kind of washes away the day’s stress.”

Rite Aid will bring CBD to some of its retail locations, following similar recent announcements from Walgreens and CVS.

Rite Aid plans to offer CBD cosmetics at some of its locations in Washington and Oregon.

But the outgoing FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb warns that it will be hard to market CBD products as cosmetics without making drug claims. And that would put the drugstore chain in violation of the FDA’s rules.

In Canada, patients and wholesalers are reporting a CBD shortage. That’s because the regulated producers aren’t making CBD products quickly enough to keep up with demand.

And since CBD can only be imported for scientific or medical purposes, that leaves patients racing to purchase CBD products as soon as they hit the shelves. Items tend to sell out quickly when they become available.