Four dietary supplement industry trade associations, the American Herbal Products Association (AHPA), Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN), the United Natural Products Alliance (UNPA), and the Consumer Healthcare Products Association (CHPA), expressed support for new legislation introduced by Congress members Kurt Schrader (D-OR) and Morgan Griffith (R-VA) which would direct the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to set a clear regulatory framework for hemp and hemp-derived CBD. This would ensure that products derived from industrial hemp have a clear regulatory pathway to market, where they can be sold under the regulatory auspices of the FDA in a way intended to be similar to other consumer-grade food and dietary supplement products.
 
“Hemp was historically an important crop for Virginia farmers, and dietary supplements made from it do not possess dangerous addictive qualities,” Griffith said in a separate statement. “Nevertheless, the current state of regulation creates confusion about its legal uses. I joined this bipartisan bill to provide certainty for hemp farmers that their crop may find legal uses.”
 
The demand for CBD-containing products exploded following the passage of the 2018 Farm Bill, however, the U.S. FDA still doesn’t view CBD as a legal dietary supplement ingredient.
 
“While the 2018 Farm Bill changed the law to allow hemp farming, regulatory uncertainty remains about the inclusion of hemp and hemp-derived CBD in dietary supplements,” the organizations said. “This lack of regulatory clarity along with insufficient oversight around hemp and hemp-derived CBD exposes consumers to potentially unsafe products and lack of consistency in product quality.”
 
So long as manufacturers comply with new dietary ingredient requirements and other Food and Drug Act dietary supplement policies, this legislation would allow for companies to legally sell hemp and hemp-derived CBD as dietary supplement ingredients.
 
The bill, known as the Hemp and Hemp Derived CBD Consumer Protection and Market Stabilization Act of 2020, was introduced on Sep. 4. As of press time, a summary of the legislation was still in progress, but will tentatively be viewable here.