Hemp advocacy group USA Roundtable (Washington, DC) sent a letter on August 5 to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Senators Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) asking lawmakers to consider more changes to their recently introduced Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act (CAOA). The bill, which senators first released a draft of last year, was officially proposed this july The bill would remove cannabis from the federal Controlled Substances Act and allow states to create their own cannabis laws. In their letter to senators, the US Hemp Roundtable reiterates his public comments to the bill from a year ago.
First, the US Hemp Roundtable sets out to change the language in the bill that would require CBD manufacturers to submit New Dietary Ingredient (NDI) notifications for all CBD supplements. The group says that while it appreciates that the bill establishes a regulatory pathway for CBD supplements, hemp-derived CBD should be treated “like any other botanical ingredient, subject to the same regulatory regimes.” In other words, like other botanical ingredients, CBD ingredients should be able to rely on Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) safety findings rather than NDI notifications.
Additionally, the group reiterates its concern that the bill only specifically calls for the legalization of hemp-derived CBD and not other hemp-derived cannabinoids. It also suggests creating a separate regulatory pathway for non-intoxicating hemp and intoxicating cannabis products.
The US Hemp Roundtable also calls the CAOA’s threshold for tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) in hemp of 0.001% total THC “an arbitrary and unrealistic standard.” The group states, “No full-spectrum or broad-spectrum hemp extract would qualify, and it is likely that most CBD isolates would be challenged to comply, given the limitations of current testing technology. Indeed, this limit would relegate most, if not all, popular CBD and non-intoxicating hemp extract products to the adult cannabis market.”