Duane Morris partner Rick Ball was a guest speaker on The Cannabis Reporter Radio Show, hosted by Snowden Bishop, on May 20, 2019. The episode is titled “How to Free CBD from the FDA’s Grasp: Tell Congress to Call It GRAS,” and can be found on The Cannabis Reporter website.
About the Episode
When Congress legalized agricultural hemp with the passage of the 2018 Farm Bill, it seemed like the hemp industry would finally be out of the woods from a regulatory standpoint. So, it defies logic that the FDA is creating obstacles for hemp CBD producers and that every-day people are still being arrested for possession of hemp biomass and extracts.
Just last week, a 67-year-old great grandmother was arrested at the happiest place on earth when a Disney World employee discovered a bottle of CBD in her purse after a routine inspection at the park entrance. You may recall the truck driver who was arrested in Idaho with a load of freshly harvested hemp on its way from Oregon to a processing plant in Colorado just weeks after the hemp measure was signed into law.
Incidents like that leave most of us scratching our heads, considering that hemp is now legal at the federal level and hemp-derived CBD is a harmless molecule that is naturally produced in our own bodies when we’re young.
Let’s face it, legal hemp seems to be an oxymoron. Minutes after the hemp measure was signed into law, the FDA blindsided the elated industry with its stern warning that only one CBD product has ever been approved for sale in the U.S. and that all other hemp CBD products would remain illegal to sell until they can be approved by the FDA. The only exceptions would apply to the manufacturing and sale of CBD limited to states that had included CBD provisions in their state marijuana policy measures.
To read more about this episode and listen to the interview with Duane Morris attorney Rick Ball, please visit The Cannabis Reporter Radio Show page here.