This week, Vice took a look at the legal status of CBD products, with both a DEA spokesperson and a hemp industry attorney weighing in. Their verdict? It’s a gray area, but the DEA seems unlikely to enforce its own rules about CBD.
Brandon Beatty, CEO of Bluebird Botanicals, broke down the 2018 Farm Bill that is currently working its way through Congress.
While companies that work with industrial hemp to make CBD and other products currently experience issues with banking, advertising and payment processing, the new law could change that.
According to Beatty:
The 2018 Farm Bill gives clear guidelines that should put the minds at ease at even the biggest and most risk-averse companies. The regular avenues of doing business will be opening up.
With California’s new cannabis testing regulations, labs are evaluating products for more substances than ever. Leafly explains all of the things that labs must test for these days—from CBD to dirt and hair—and looks at the additional testing that must be implemented by winter.
And while cannabis producers adjust to the changes, California’s CBD industry is reeling from last week’s Department of Public Health (CDPH) statement. The CDPH asserted that CBD cannot be added to food. The rule even applies to CBD derived from industrial hemp.
CBD companies in New Mexico are also having a challenging week. The state’s Department of Health put medical marijuana dispensaries on notice about selling CBD products originating from outside New Mexico.
Whether the finished product was produced outside the state, or made from plants grown outside the state, the health department says that these CBD products are forbidden under New Mexico’s medical marijuana law.
The sudden ubiquity of CBD in New York City is discussed in The New Yorker this week. The cannabinoid seems to be turning up everywhere, in CBD coffee, CBD room service, CBD yoga, and even CBD-infused sugar.
And it’s not just happening in New York. From coast to coast, you can find CBD is in everything from beard oil to seltzer.
A new study from Colorado State University found that CBD reduced seizures in epileptic dogs. While the researchers note that larger studies are needed, 90 percent of dogs (out of a group of 16) experienced fewer seizures when taking CBD.
Elsewhere in the world, Ireland welcomed its first CBD shop in Dublin this week.
