2023 Farm Bill, predictions & insights

CannaBusiness
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For me its as simple as - they are currently saying that products which have been safely used for the last 30+ years with documented success AND lots of individual customer supported data from all over the country and the world are not GRAS. Obviously - these products are currently being used safely. And they have been for quite some time now. Acting like they are not and saying so over and over again in court papers, doesn’t make any sense at all.

The FDA has also been consistently saying that cannabis doesn’t have any MEDICINAL value, as recently as last year. When we have thousands of clinical studies that say exactly the opposite of that.

So deciding that the FDA is not the appropriate place for cannabis and cannabinoids to be evaluated seems prudent - as they have been evaluating those things without looking at the science that is available for the better part of a century.

Perhaps because they are at their heart part of the prohibitionist movement against cannabis and cannabis products - even though there was never any science showing that cannabis is harmful or addictive or has no medicinal value. Hell it was in the Merck Index until the government made it illegal for political expedience. :frowning:

Its important to me and many others in the industry that the FDA and DEA don’t get to continue controlling cannabis because of how dishonest they have been about it for the last century. It would maybe be a different story if they were changing their tune and apologizing for all the mistakes made, but they 100% are not. They have doubled down on saying that cannabis is dangerous, deadly, addictive, and will definitely harm all the children.

Why should I trust them to treat cannabis like any other substance when for a century they haven’t? Sure I trust them for all kinds of stuff - but this level of social indoctrination that has happened in the executive branch, for wholly political and racist reasons, it just doesn’t make sense to keep trusting that part of the system fully, does it?

That’s why we have proposed that a new organization within the government be created to handle cannabis - because reparations needed to be made, history needs to be observed, and a course correction needs to happen. I’d love it if these long standing institutions were not riddled with this kind of stuff, but sadly they are political institutions - and they still think that we are all criminals who are out to destroy the community. :frowning:

Also - I think we must be having a semantics issue about GRAS and what it means and how it works and stuff. I concede there was a very brief list of GRAS stuff in 1958 (which didn’t include most GRAS stuff…) and hope you will concede that the process we now use for GRAS didn’t start until the late 70’s and didn’t get enacted completely until the 80s. There’s a cool FDA history lesson at this link - so we can all be on the same page. :slight_smile: Cause we are talking about the same history but interpreting it differently. <3

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We agree on this one partner.

Considering the FDA is headquartered 6 miles from DC, I would consider them DC :joy::joy::joy:

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I’m in TX and D8 sales are not the best tbh.

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I hope in the future when our children are all grown and buying THCa hemp at their local Walgreens they have a good chuckle about how people had to spend millions of dollars to build a dedicated building in order to secure a license to sell “weed” out of it. “What’s marijuana?” They will ask. “Why did they ever call this beautiful hemp flower a weed?” They will exclaim in confusion.

You probably won’t be able to get top notch stuff at Walgreens, but it’ll probably be better than the schwag you smoked growing up. Progress imo…

Also I said Walgreens for a reason. My ultimate hope is cannabis muscles big pharma for the good of the collective health of the world. Imagine asking the dude behind the counter for a joint instead of Marb Reds.

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Correct me if I am wrong, but it sounds like you are referring to the smoking of and the ingestion of cannabinoids. If so, I fully agree that there is a very long History of Safe Use for the smoking of and ingestion of cannabinoids. Unfortunately, this generalization does not hold for many of the newer cannabinoid vape products. For example, there exists very little History of Safe Use data for things like CBN, CBG, CBC, d8, HHC, cannabinoid acetates, etc., in vape carts… because we have only been putting these types of cannabinoids in vape carts for 5-10 yrs. Maybe 15. 5-15 yrs does not make for a very convincing History of Safe Use argument. 1000s of years is more convincing.

I am not suggesting that you trust the FDA. Nor would I ever suggest that our government regulatory systems are anything close to perfect. I am simply pointing out that there exists a well-developed federal regulatory structure for GRAS determinations in the US. My prediction is that virtually all cannabinoid GRAS determinations will end up going through that FDA structure in the not-to-distant future.

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That’s because of all the trash on the market there. Unbelievable how companies willl lie down there. “130mg” gummies that don’t do shit.

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Ah yes - I’m really talking about things going into foods. The first D8 was done back in the 70’s if I recall correctly, and there’s been some clinical trials of it as well - so I’m not sure about there not being enough history.

But right now the FDA is saying there isn’t enough history for CBD - and that there are no medicinal values except for one GW Pharma drug.

CBN, CBG, and CBC have had extensive research since the 80s as well. The father of cannabis has been doing such great work and there are so many toxicology studies and efficacy studies out there about these. I mean I know it seems new because now its being mass marketed, but the papers we were all reading to learn how to do this stuff are ancient.

My problem is that CBD has just gone through the GRAS process and they unequivocably found it to not be GRAS. Which means it cannot be in foods, vet products, cosmetics, etc - without filing an IND and making it into a new drug product. That’s just such bullshit - IMO. You cannot simultaneously say that something has no drug value and also has drug value and is unsafe without IND/NDA.

As far as all the new novel synthetic compounds coming out to get people fucked up - are we actually talking about putting those in foods now? Cause vape products are not included either (they have a weird gray zone that is only for tobacco products, which has been causing all kinds of other problems…)

I’m actively advocating for creating a new office of cannabis science at the FDA (similar to the one for tobacco or medical devices) that will have totally new rules for this. I am doing this because otherwise - all the products that patients need every day will go away overnight or remain illegal even if from hemp.

That’s the sad truth here. Right now all these products we love so much are illegal because the FDA has said cannabis derived products are illegal and cannot be added to any products. I’m hoping the Farm Bill will force the hand of the FDA (similar to how the MMR just changed how the FDA, NIDA, and the DEA have to handle research activities) and make it so they can’t keep dicking around with it like they have been.

And that will probably also close some loopholes for all these synthetics that so far outside the intent of the law that some supportive legislators are no longer supportive of hemp. :frowning: Which sucks, cause we’ll need bipartisan support and a fuckton of Republicans to be on board to get the Farm Bill out of the house. And then that same level of support to get it managed in the Senate. And that is not something I am looking forward too.

How many additional prohibitionist provisions are going to be included now because people decided they wanted to get rich getting people high? So fucking many - and that blows. How many enforcement dollars will be added in to make our lives hell? Ugh. I hate the pendulum swinging back towards prohibition because of bad actors that couldn’t just be happy being able to grow the plant and had to go on and create all new products to make a buck and get people sick. -sigh-

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The farm bill includes funding for food stamps and public nutrition programs. It’s a lot of money to fight over. There may be a lot of conflict before they even get to hemp.

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So much truth. The Hemp section is like what 3 paragraphs in a document that’s hundreds of pages long. :slight_smile:

I’m hopeful with all the lobbying we are doing that the draft bill will include these provisions and it won’t have to be all crazy last minute amendments and things.

They actually started the process of deciding what was going to be in the Farm Bill last year. Here’s the kick-off meeting discussion for any who are interested, it legit happened in Michigan, just down the street from where I live. <3

And here is the hearing that happened last year about the upcoming bill specific to its HEMP provisions.

In short - they agreed with me that the legislators need to fix the regulatory environment - and gave some good ideas on how to do that. They are pretty aligned with the comments I list above - I don’t lobby in a vacuum after all. :slight_smile: The focus was on uncertainty AND allowing the industry that exists to continue existing by removing regulatory hurdles and ambiguity.

In general, they propose allowing cannabis derived products to be managed as dietary supplements - so they still need to be handled as GMP but would not be drugs, and would not be evaluated/approved by the FDA. Don’t know if that will actually happen - I’d really prefer a fully separate section of the CFR… but that’s because I want to see more than just dietary supplements - what about foods? beverages? topicals?

In any case - the draft will be posted to committee soon enough and we’ll all be able to grouse about how we feel about the language, what is going to happen, how it will impact our businesses (or not impact them!) and what that means for the broader industry.

None of that will happen until the House elects a Speaker… which apparently has been delayed. -shrug- Unprecedented times? Or just business as usual, who knows. :stuck_out_tongue:

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You feel absolutely nothing.

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Anyone know when in 2023 the farm bill is up for review?

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The house ag committee chair has been named. I don’t think they have announced all the members yet. They will probably start as soon as the committee meets.

All indications point to the debt ceiling expansion becoming a big fight. The government will run out of money 1/2 to 2/3rds of the way through the year, and the first 2018 farm bill provisions will begin expiring on September 30th, so I think these two political battles will overlap a lot.

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So farmers will be stuck with products that are not protected legally by the FarmBill provisions…

What a great place for the CBD industry to be stuck in with no protection…

This is exactly the disaster myself and others have laid out…Sure wish ole Uncle Sam would get some clarification on everything.

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No one expects that they will remove hemp from the Farm Bill 2023.

We are just waiting to see if they clarify which cannabis derived products are allowed, if in-process materials are protected (they are not right now), what import/export looks like, and if the “new and novel” intoxicating cannabis derived products are legal or not.

I posted some info about the hearings - there has been some substantial change to who is on the Ag committee - many are NOT friends of cannabis, but some still are.

Removing hemp from the Farm Bill would mean huge changes to DEA, FDA, and USDA - plus FTC and some others. Generally - those things happen slowly (we have seen how SLOW!) and so we don’t think that they will just drop hemp altogether.

If you have specific things you want clarified - now is the time to reach out to your representative, especially if they are on this committee. :slight_smile: And even if they are not, sending them information about what you are experiencing and what your personal needs are helps a lot.

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I would bet my life these will become illegal, until further testing and review.

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That’s a pretty hefty bet. :open_mouth:

As far as I can tell no one has proposed this yet - but who knows with the new leadership in the house. And the changes to the Ag Committee.

The hearings last year were not about banning any substances - doesn’t mean they don’t want to do it. It was about being specific with testing, talking through in-process materials, better regulation from the FDA regarding things being GRAS, etc.

I’m hopeful they will go ahead and create the new office at the FDA for cannabis derived products. And that some of the items will be grandfathered in - like tobacco products were. So some rules on making new things, but generally accepting that human are grown-ups and can make their own choices as long as they are not intentionally harming others. -shrug-

That’s my dream. I don’t know if it will happen, but I’ll keep lobbying for it.

If you care about this - you should already be letting your congressperson know what your thoughts are. Get it on their radar - cause you know, either we work to make the laws work for us or they probably don’t work for us and then we decide to follow them or not. I prefer working to change things and being pretty vocal about it. Haha!

There are a lot of “new and novel” products that actually have around 30 years of clinical data and research on them, just not from the FDA. Dr. Mechoulam does so much great work. Some of them have been categorized and quantified like D8THC - others had been made in labs before (some pretty intense synthetics).

In any case - last year people were lobbying to make them into dietary supplements (not sure how you would inhale those… but whatever!) and be governed by the FDA that way. Some GMP rules, but not as many hoops to jump through as drug products. But really - I just want it to have its own category. Alcohol and tobacco have their own categories, so does radiation and what not. Seems like industries that are big enough with enough clout in their lobbyists get this kind of stuff. -shrug-

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The thing is, they’re already technically illegal by DEA standards as a “structural or functional analog of a controlled substance”. They’re just currently unenforced.

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Cool part about this, is its already been discussed by the DEA and looked at by the courts. So far they haven’t really agreed with you on this statement. They are being covered under the cannabis derivatives side of things.

The real deal here is that they are currently illegal under the FDA - specifically because they have said that all cannabis derived stuff (except for one very specific pharma exception) cannot be used in food, drugs, cosmetics, or dietary supplements.

They started enforcing that rule last year.

So if we want them to stop enforcing that rule - we need our legislators to change the rules related to cannabis derived stuff.

None of this stuff was ever legal - ever. The FDA made that very clear from the very beginning, people hated it, but they are the ones in control of what can go into our food, drugs, cosmetics, vet products, and dietary supplements. -shrug-

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