420 with CNW — New Congressional Bill Could Allo
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The 2018 Farm Bill legalized the cultivation and sale of industrial hemp and hemp extracts, including cannabidiol (“CBD”), spawning what would soon be one of the most popular health and wellness ingredients in a long time. With both hemp and CBD boasting a wide array of benefits, a market products containing the two ingredients sprang up. Although the sector soon had thousands of sellers across the supply chain with CBD products attracting incredible demand, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) was expressly against marketing and selling CBD products as dietary supplements.
However, thanks to a bill reintroduced into Congress by a bipartisan group of lawmakers, that may soon be a thing of the past. The bill, which was first filed by Representatives Kurt Schrader and Morgan Griffith last year, would allow hemp, hemp-derived CBD, and “any other ingredient derived from hemp” to be used as a dietary supplement under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. This version of the bill, called the Hemp and Hemp-Derived CBD Consumer Protection and Market Stabilization Act, has 17 other cosponsors alongside the two congressmen.
For quite a while, the FDA has been under pressure to rein in the quickly growing CBD industry, called the “Wild West” by some. However, the agency has maintained that it may take a while to fully regulate CBD, offering enforcement discretion guidance in the meantime while it works on crafting formal rules for CBD. In 2019, a bipartisan coalition of 26 House members sent the FDA a letter saying that the agency’s current regulatory posture has led to significant “regulatory and legal uncertainty.”
The FDA opened a public comment period from April to July of 2019 asking the public to submit information about CBD; the agency reopened the comment period in March 2020. According to the agency, the comment period would allow stakeholders to provide new information in real time to the FDA that would help it “address uncertainties and data gaps” as it crafted CBD regulation.
The U.S. Hemp Roundtable has applauded the move, saying Schrader and Griffith have shown true leadership concerning CBD. Jonathan Miller, general counsel for the Roundtable, anticipates support for the CBD legislation will continue to build as it goes through Congress. The new bipartisan CBD marketing bill increases the number of bills addressing cannabis issues. The second is a bill to move cannabis’ place in the Controlled Substances Act from Schedule I to Schedule III; a third bill prevents the U.S. Department of Veterans from keeping veterans from accessing their benefits because of state-legal medical marijuana use.
In states with legal cannabis markets, innovation in the sector is booming. A clear example is the way in which CannAssist International Corp. (OTCQB: CNSC) is merging the worlds of biotechnology, the wellness industry and the pharmaceuticals industry to create cannabis products that offer consistent results and superior performance in many aspects, including better bioavailability.
NOTE TO INVESTORS: The latest news and updates relating to CannAssist International Corp. (OTCQB: CNSC) are available in the company’s newsroom at https://cnw.fm/CNSC
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