The Future

 

 

Big pharma is more than just a little worried about your easy access to CBD especially since passage of the 2018 Farm Bill. They are fully aware that CBD has no side effects and in many cases can work as well or better than their highly profitable drugs for pain, anxiety, stress, and more.  With billions at stake, the push back is and will be massive form the pharmaceuticals industry. Pharmaceutical companies have tried desperately for years to isolate, synthesize, and patient cannabinoids.

They have only been moderately successful. Whole plant extract work much better, but whole plant extracts are almost impossible to patent. One pharmaceutical company spent millions trying to develop CBD as an isolate which they hoped to patent, only to discover that the best way for CBD to be effective was to extract it along with all of the other natural constituents contained in hemp. Therefore, the only way pharmaceutical companies can derive huge profits from is to have CBD in its more effective unadulterated form is to have CBD declared a drug.

                The FDA finds itself in a precarious position now that is has taken the lead in regulating CBD, On the one hand they are under tremendous press from the pharmaceutical industry to declare CBD a drug.  The current administration passed the 2018 Farm Bill and fully expects CBD to continue to be sold as a nutritional supplement. Hearings are ongoing. Both the pharmaceutical industry and representatives from the CBD industry are pleading their case.

                The head of FDA has stated that he wants to see a regulatory framework developed for CBD but he hasn’t stated what that will be or when it will happen. For now, the FDA is allowing hemp derived CBD to be sold as a dietary supplement as long as the companies selling it do not make medical claims but there is currently no guarantee that CBD will remain a dietary supplement.