🚨 California is now enforcing CBD/hemp canna regulations and seizing hemp based CBD products from retail locations and processors 🚨

Have they raided CVS?

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I talked to my attorney friend today for a little while about this, he is a class action litigator in Washington. He is no expert in hemp law, but at this early stage in the game I dont think there are too many experts.

Im going to relay his position on this, he addmitted he has no clue because this isnt his field. But he feels that you cannot patent a naturally occuring compound. You can however patent unique processes and methodologies for the extraction, refinment, and isolation of said compound. or you can patent a synthetic version of the compound, but the compound found naturally you cannot.

He said specificly " you cant patent gods work" who knows if this is true, he is going to talk to some people at his firm and see if he can elucidate this topic a little more.

Im just putting this out there, like I said before I dont know Jack shit about law, I spend too much time in the lab to really have the time to research this heavily, although I’m now thinking i really should dig a little bit on the subject.

Just food for thought, what do you guys think im genuinely curious about this.

Edit: still doesnt mean anything when the fda can drop the hammer whenever it wants.

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https://ocr.yale.edu/faculty/frequently-asked-questions/can-someone-patent-naturally-occurring-substance

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I was really wondering about this. If it were the case that you could, I’m sure Coke would have patented caffeine, and coffee and tea would be illegal. (Or some other nonsense in that realm of possibility.)

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@RockSteady that’s correct, you can’t patent “naturally occurring phenomena,” because under “35 U.S.C. § 103,[22] an invention does not warrant patent protection if it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of invention.” Merely isolating a compound does not qualify as “new compositions of matter,” and the method for isolating CBD is obvious to anyone that has completed organic chemistry. Even if there is a patent on CBD now (i.e. epidiolex), that doesn’t mean claims in that patent can’t be invalidated. If they structurally modify CBD, that would be a new composition of matter and a different issue. For example, look at what happened with the BRCA1/BRCA2 gene, which made it to the Supreme Court. Here is an excerpt from Harvard law on the subject:

“ The United States Supreme Court formally addressed this issue in Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics . The Court invalidated several claims of a patent that disclosed a method to screen a patient for two genes known to increase the risk of breast and ovarian cancer.[4] Even if the isolation processes were “groundbreaking, innovative, or even brilliant . . . [f]inding the location of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes does not render the genes patent eligible ‘new . . . composition[s] of matter.’”[5] The Court held that isolated human DNA is a “naturally occurring phenomenon” and ineligible for patent protection.[6] Conversely, it upheld claims for synthetic cDNA strands—lab-made DNA with small structural differences—finding them sufficiently synthetic to be patentable under 35 U.S.C. § 101.[7] However, in a footnote the Court also mentioned that it “express[ed] no opinion whether cDNA satisfies the other statutory requirements of patentability.”[8] This reservation has been interpreted by some members of the genetics community as a “whisper” from the Court that even synthetic gene patents could soon face patentability issues under the novel and non-obvious requirements.[9]”

I just filed a patent with my company for a new material we developed and it was a massive headache. Patents suck, but there is a threshold to what can and cannot be patented. It will be interesting to see how cannabis plays out with regard to IP.

Source: Shedding Light on the Obviousness of Gene Patents - Harvard Journal of Law & Technology

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Any updates on the health department raid in on Sacramento some shops selling CBD?

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Updating as the story develops ill have my biz partner contact Cali processor today and glean more info - anything big will be shared here

Anyone else been been hit? I can’t be the only person on here with connects in Cali who has news of this stuff.

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Just watching and waiting now!

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So there may be some light at the end of the tunnel. Not an attorney here, but given this federal court decision, an affected entity (i.e. retailers and labs in Cali) may be able to file an appeal for a stay or injunction in state court citing this federal case as precedent. As always, consult an attorney.

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So doesnt this mean that delta 8 from cbd is now legal since you can make it from hemp? Hemp and marijuana are no longer the same entity and according to the feds if it doesnt come from " marijuana " it’s not there problem

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If it comes from hemp its exempt to the law that makes delta 9 thc illegal.

Read the little 5 at the bottom

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Yes, and no.

If it comes from industrial hemp, it reads as if the DEA has no horse in the race for enforcement at this time.

That said, the FDA, USDA, and individual states are all developing regulations for producing hemp and how unprocessed or processed derivatives can be sold in commerce.

I’d suggest documenting your path from hemp to finished product, with references pointing to how you are compliant each step of the way, particularly when raw, partial, or completed goods are transferred B2B and B2C.

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Any information on who did the raiding? City? County? State? Was anyone charged? Any more busts?

I’ve heard rumors of county authorities raiding hemp CBD food production places, I dont have any details of it but I heard they destroyed the isolate by dumping bleach into the buckets, thats a lot of cbd to destroy

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I have counterparts in Florida who just got busted…It was State Troopers who got em but keep your eyes and ears out. Raided warehouse, labs and stores.

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Edibles manufacturers specifically? Or was it indiscriminate raiding? There’s a lot of hemp products made and sold in FL.

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Might be craking down because the FDA considers CBD to be a drug now that they have released a patent to GWPharma. Thus CBD can’t be added to any foods. In NC they are cracking down on edibles which has scared off many small shops from isolate. I don’t understand why edibles are targeted and not tinctures, since those are oral consumption.

What I really want to see settled is, drum rollllll, Investor-state dispute settlement - Wikipedia. Can companies with investors sue the US for lost revenue through discriminatory practices. Discriminatory practices such as, Hemp is Schedule 4 and legal for precisely one company in the US. Everyone elses hemp is schedule 2. Only one company is allowed to put CBD in food products in the US despite companies having established themselves as reputable, third party tested, and cheaper than the one entering the market.

I am not a lawyer, this is pie in the sky thoughts. Still, I think it could be given a glance at least.

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I’ve seen countless products with CBD on the label lately in my area (SE Michigan). beverage cans, energy shots, just to name a few.

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Oh sure, even in NC there are gas stations selling edibles. Ultimately, it falls down on the state enforcing and cooperating with the FDA. Still, this ruling is being used as a blunt instrument to seize product and likely any cash on the premises.

Here is the standard issue warning letter NC Ag has sent out, DocumentCloud. tl;dr FD&C 21 USC 331 prohibits anything considered an active ingredient in pharmaceuticals from being added to food for people or animals.

Right now NC is reading it strictly as CBD added to anything and is allowing sales of tinctures, distillate, vape, topicals, and isolate but not food. A coffee shop had to change its gears and one shop owner got arrested for 200 lbs of edibles.

They pulled them over? Or came into the store and raided them there? I’m setting up a processing lab in Orlando Florida and the county is totally on board with us.

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