Bipartisan legislation directs Congress to regulate hemp-CBD as a dietary supplement

A bipartisan bill that was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives Thursday could push legal CBD through Congress, providing consumer access and protection while clearing the supply chain bottleneck.

The Hemp and Hemp-Derived CBD Consumer Protection and Market Stabilization Act of 2021 is sponsored by Representatives Kurt Schrader, a Democrat from Oregon, and Morgan Griffith, a Republican from Virginia and has 18 more co-sponsors from both major parties. An earlier version of the legislation, introduced in 2020, had 30 bipartisan co-sponsors.

The bill has broad support from a coalition of 18 hemp industry and dietary supplement industry organizations.

If passed, the legislation would ensure a clear legal pathway to market for hemp-derived CBD and other ingredients derived from hemp, according to a joint statement from the industry coalition.

It would also direct the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to use its authority and resources to set a clear regulatory framework for hemp-derived products and promote consumer safety while giving an economic boost to farmers who have struggled to sell their hemp crops.

Further, the legislation would allow hemp-derived CBD to be lawfully marketed in dietary supplements, requiring product manufacturers to comply with the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994, more commonly known as DSHEA. This would ensure that products are safe, properly labeled and manufactured in compliance with the same good manufacturing practices (GMPs) required for dietary supplements.

The FDA is “notoriously slow” and stalling on CBD for more than two years but the agency has also been dealing with COVID-19 for the past year, said attorney Jonathan Miller, who leads the U.S. Hemp Roundtable, an industry advocacy group.

“But other countries – Great Britain, Australia – they’ve figured out a way to regulate CBD and there should be no problem with the U.S. doing as well,” Miller told Hemp Industry Daily.

“We’ve got this whole regulatory framework already outlined for dietary supplements. We just want those same standards to be applied to CBD.”