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A coalition of hemp industry organizations are calling on a House committee to hold a hearing addressing the ongoing lack of Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations for products made with constituents of the crop such as CBD.<\/p>\n
In a letter addressed to House Energy and Commerce Committee leaders, 28 state and national\u00a0 nonprofits focused on hemp and dietary supplements said that \u201cthe time for a hearing has never been riper\u201d to examine regulatory pathways that FDA could enact to allow for the lawful marketing of hemp products for humans and animals.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the more than five years since the legalization of hemp through the 2018 Farm Bill, in spite of a designated annual appropriation, the FDA has taken no meaningful steps toward the regulation of hemp\u2014whether it be animal feed or extracts for human consumption like CBD,\u201d the groups said.<\/p>\n
FDA said last year that, after an extensive review, it determined that it lacked necessary authority to establish regulations for the hemp and CBD market<\/a>, stating that it will require additional congressional support.<\/p>\n \u201cMeanwhile, thousands of unregulated products continue to be sold, causing great consumer confusion and advantaging bad actors via-a-vis good faith manufacturers who want to play by the rules and offer healthy products,\u201d the letter says.<\/p>\n The House Energy and Commerce and Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee responded to FDA\u2019s inaction last summer by putting out a Request for Information (RIF) from experts on the best path forward for regulating hemp<\/a>, with hundreds of respondents sharing their perspective and recommendations.<\/p>\n \u201cBy now, your staff has had months to review and consider these recommendations,\u201d the organizations said in the new letter, adding that \u201cEnergy & Commerce must weigh in for there to be meaningful action.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve been assured that an Energy & Commerce hearing would take place on a number of occasions, but the time for a hearing has never been riper,\u201d they said. \u201cWe urge you to take immediate steps to hold a hearing before your committee, bringing the RFI ideas to public light, and offering an opportunity for your Members to weigh in on the crucial issues that must be resolved for the hemp industry to survive, and for health and public safety to truly be protected.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe FDA\u2019s inaction is hurting farmers and putting consumers at risk. Further, U.S. farmers have been crushed economically by the lack of regulations, with commodity prices dropping across the board by more than 90 per cent. This delay has posed significant problems and obstacles for other downstream hemp products including fiber and grain offtakes that include construction materials, bioplastics, biofuels and food ingredients. And with the rescheduling of marijuana apparently imminent, lack of regulatory certainty for hemp will pose an even more urgent crisis for farmers, consumers, state regulators and law enforcement.\u201d<\/p>\n The letter<\/a> was signed by more than two dozen organizations including the Hemp Industries Association (HIA), National Cannabis Industry Association (NCIA), National Industrial Hemp Council (NIHC) and U.S. Hemp Roundtable.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is no small task to unite today\u2019s hemp industry around a shared goal. But this letter, and the accompanying 28 organizations, have all agreed we need FDA action to regulate hemp products, and we need it now,\u201d Jonathan Miller, general counsel for the U.S. Hemp Roundtable, said in a press release on Wednesday. \u201cThe fate of the entire industry\u2014hemp extracts, fiber, seed, etc.\u2014depend on regulatory oversight, and we urge House Energy & Commerce to take swift action to address these issues through a hearing in the near future.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2014 After FDA announced that it wouldn\u2019t be taking steps to create hemp and CBD regulations, Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR), Rand Paul (R-KY) and Jeff Merkley (D-OR), along with Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), filed legislation last July that would\u00a0remove regulatory barriers that FDA claims prevents it from allowing the hemp marketing<\/a>.<\/p>\n The House Oversight and Accountability Subcommittee on Health Care and Financial Services also held a hearing on FDA inaction over CBD last year<\/a>, a first-of-its-kind meeting where bipartisan members strongly criticized the agency\u2019s position.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture (NASDA) is separately calling on Congress to increase the THC limit for legal hemp as one of their 2024 policy priorities<\/a>.<\/p>\n The 0.3 percent THC limit for hemp that was imposed under the 2018 Farm Bill that federally legalized the crop has long been subject to criticism from stakeholders and lawmakers across the aisle. And one Justice Department researcher\u00a0recently called into question the rationale for the restriction<\/a>, suggesting it was arbitrarily decided based on a 1950s-era article that was adopted into federal statute.<\/p>\n The Congressional Research Service (CRS) recently outlined how differing policy priorities among industry stakeholders could complicate the task<\/a> of updating the next farm bill\u2019s hemp provisions, but there are several areas of agreement within the top industry groups.<\/p>\n One of those shared interests is amending the law to raise the THC limit to one percent for compliant hemp\u2014a proposal that was also\u00a0addressed in a standalone bill from Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-ME)<\/a>\u00a0in 2022.<\/p>\n It\u2019s unclear if congressional lawmakers will ultimately tackle the Farm Bill this year. The 2018 version was set to expire at the end of last year, but it was extended under a bill President Joe Biden signed.<\/p>\n There have been a number of other hemp bills that were filed this session that lawmakers may also consider folding in to the broader agricultural legislation.<\/p>\n One bipartisan bill filed last March\u00a0seeks to end what critics say is a \u201cdiscriminatory\u201d federal policy<\/a>\u00a0that bars people with prior felony drug convictions from owning or leading legal hemp businesses.<\/p>\n Another measure introduced with bipartisan sponsors last year would\u00a0reduce regulations on farmers that grow industrial hemp<\/a>\u00a0for non-extraction purposes.<\/p>\n Separately, recent reporting could prompt additional reform proposals, as it\u2019s come to light that USDA has been revoking certain hemp licenses for businesses<\/a>\u00a0that dually retain state licenses for marijuana.<\/p>\n For the time being, the hemp industry continues to face unique regulatory hurdles that stakeholders blame for the crop\u2019s value plummeting in the short years since its legalization. Despite the economic conditions, however, a recent report found that\u00a0the hemp market in 2022 was larger than all state marijuana markets<\/a>, and it roughly equaled sales for craft beer nationally.<\/p>\n The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)\u00a0started sending out thousands of surveys to hemp farmers across the country<\/a>\u00a0on Monday to better understand the state of the industry as part of its annual data collection initiative.<\/p>\n Uber, Colorado Governor, Amazon, PayPal And Others Report Marijuana Lobbying On Banking, Rescheduling And More<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n Photo courtesy of Brendan Cleak.<\/em><\/p>\n The post Hemp Industry Pushes Congress To Hold FDA Accountable With Hearing On CBD Regulation Inaction<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
A coalition of hemp industry organizations are calling on a House committee to hold a hearing addressing the ongoing lack of Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations for products made with constituents of the crop such as CBD. In a letter addressed to House Energy and Commerce Committee leaders, 28Continue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":458,"featured_media":71934,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,81],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71933"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/458"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71933"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71933\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71935,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71933\/revisions\/71935"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nRead More: Hemp Industry Pushes Congress To Hold FDA Accountable With Hearing On CBD Regulation Inaction<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"