If you are benefitting from CBD products in Massachusetts then you should start exploring other options because the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources just released regulations banning most types of CBD products. From their policy statement:
“The following products are NOT approved for sale:
- Any food product containing CBD;
- Any product containing CBD derived from hemp that makes therapeutic/medicinal claims;
- Any product that contains hemp as dietary supplement;
- Animal feed that contains any hemp products;
- Unprocessed or raw plat material, including the flower that is meant for end use by a consumer.”
Couple this with the fact that people can sell consumables with THC and you shouldn’t be surprised to find out that farmers, retail businesses, and consumers are not happy with this decision. From WCVB5 “‘An absurd dichotomy exists in the state today where you can legally produce and sell cannabis consumables, but you cannot legally produce and sell hemp consumables,’ Jim Borghesani, who served as spokesman of the 2016 ballot initiative that legalized marijuana, said.”
Why CBD Bans Continue in Some States
Honestly, I have no clue why this sort of thing happens. Since CBD is not psychoactive, why lower the regulatory boom? One possible reason would be that there are efforts being made by other industries, potentially cannabis, to tap the brakes on the CBD market.
More likely, my guess is that no governmental organization, whether it is the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources or the FDA, wants to take the lead on this. Imagine this: The Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources approves CBD consumables and four days after that some kid chokes and dies on a lollipop laced with CBD. Of course the CBD didn’t have anything to do with the untimely death of this fictional child but there will be other people who will automatically point their fingers and cry hysterically about how CBD took this child from us.
Regulators would lose their jobs, they would miss out on any private sector sinecures that they had coming to them, and for what? It’s not like if a regulator drafts regulations that allow for the sale of products that can help people that regulator will reap any rewards from that decision. In other words, there’s not much of an upside for regulators to approve the sale of something new (and controversial) but there certainly is a downside.
What can the CBD industry do about this? Education is the boring yet most likely to succeed option. Keep on educating the public about how CBD, at the very least, doesn’t have any serious side effects and it looks like it does have at least some positive effects on people.
(And by education, we of course mean political leverage. The more people who are for CBD and are willing to base part of their voting decisions on where politicians stand on this issue can have a dramatic impact on CBD policy.)