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Cannabidiol, or CBD, is an extremely popular product in the United States, considered a panacea for the modern condition. The Brightfield Group, a research company specializing in the cannabis industry, has estimated the US market for hemp-derived CBD in 2018 at $ 590 million, and expects this number to increase ten-fold to 5.7. billions of dollars.
It expects the market to reach $ 22 billion by 2022, baduming that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) participates.
Stakeholders in this burgeoning industry have the opportunity to formally advocate for the value of the CBD and to tell the FDA how it thinks it should – and should not – be regulated when the first public hearing of the agency on the subject today (May 31). More than 110 of them have signed up to do it. Interested viewers can follow the live stream on the FDA website or on the Fox Business YouTube channel.
As CBD sales soar, government agencies are taking progressive steps to regulate the industry, leaving operators and consumers in a legal gray zone. The 2018 Farm Bill removed CBD derived from hemp – the CBD of cannabis containing less than 0.3% THC, according to the US government – from the Controlled Substances Act, declbadifying it as a dangerous controlled substance without medical and legal use. federal law, in certain circumstances. It has also clarified its status as an agricultural product, offering benefits such as crop insurance to hemp growers.
As soon as the Farm Bill was pbaded, FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb issued a statement reminding Americans that the FDA was still responsible for regulating food, drugs and cosmetics, including those containing CBD. This meant that apart from GW Pharmaceuticals – distributors of the only FDA-approved CBD-containing drug – CBD producers making therapeutic claims, selling CBD in food products from an interstate perspective. -States or marketing the CBD as a dietary supplement did so in violation of the law. . But until now, the FDA has only been interested in companies that make particularly serious claims. And Gottlieb also said the FDA intended to find "legal channels" for the CBD and "make these legal channels more predictable and effective."
In other words, the FDA acknowledged that "the CBD is now too big to go bankrupt," said Jonathan Miller, General Counsel of the US Hemp Roundtable Trade Group, in Quartz in December. (Earlier this week, the Transportation Security Administration, or TSA, also recognized the distinction between cannabis and CBD derived from hemp.)
Miller, whose group represents CBD brands, including Lord Jones, Charlotte's Web and CV Sciences, is one of many who will be speaking to the agency today. He will be joined by scientists, consumer rights advocates, health professionals, patients, retailers, manufacturers, medical researchers, agricultural scientists and scientists – all before the lunch break of one hour. The marathon calendar of stakeholders demonstrates the potentially huge impact of this molecule on the health, culture and results of US companies.
A public comment file also collected some 800 comments, many of which appear to be personal testimonials from patients who say that CBD has helped them avoid the use of more powerful painkillers or sleeping pills.
Miller says that he is not expecting anything conclusive at the hearing today – "I think it will be more of a time for them to d & # 39; listen, "he says – but that's an important first step towards the formal recognition of hemp-derived CBD as a dietary supplement or food additive. This step could "once and for all establish the legality of all CBD products that people buy," he says, and "free what should be a multi-billion dollar industry."
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