Watch Live: Hemp Industry Expert Testifies Before Congressional Committee On FDA Inaction Around CBD And Intoxicating Cannabinoid Products

A congressional committee is holding a hearing focused on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), with a hemp industry representative weighing in on the consequences of the agency’s inaction on regulating cannabis products such as CBD.

Members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee are expected to hear from a wide range of experts for the meeting, titled “Restoring Trust in FDA: Rooting Out Illicit Products.”

FDA “failed to approve products and take necessary enforcement actions resulting in a flood of illicit and counterfeit products entering the country,” a memo that the committee released last week says.

The meeting won’t exclusively focus on cannabis issues. But among the four listed witnesses selected to testify is Jonathan Miller of the U.S. Hemp Roundtable, an organization that has long criticized FDA’s inaction on CBD and other cannabinoid regulations since the crop was federally legalized under the 2018 Farm Bill.

In testimony to the committee, Miller stressed that “hemp’s policy success has always been a bipartisan hallmark.”

“It’s no wonder—hemp products are made in the USA, harvested from crops grown by American farmers, manufactured by innovative U.S. entrepreneurs, and sold by small businesses dotting the nation,” he said, adding that, over the past decade, “U.S. farmers have rebuilt a domestic supply chain of hemp and hemp products.”

“Unfortunately, however, the U.S. hemp industry continues to encounter avoidable bureaucratic headwinds in the marketplace,” he said. “And this turmoil is due in large part to statements, actions, and indecisions of [FDA].”

Watch the congressional hearing on FDA regulatory issues live in the video below:

“We’ve watched in bewilderment as FDA has jerked back and forth with contradictory opinions. First, the agency affirmed its ability to regulate CBD under current law. And leaders at the agency clearly recognized that Congress wanted FDA to act quickly. But then, in the intervening years, FDA stalled, even ignoring congressional appropriations report directives to take expedited action. Meanwhile, federal regulatory uncertainty severely impacted the hemp and CBD market, with reduced manufacturing demand resulting in a more than 90 percent commodity price decline, crushing opportunities for U.S. farmers.”

He went on to say that FDA’s inaction “doesn’t just threaten the current and future CBD market for American farmers and consumers,” as a “new industry focused on the adult market has emerged to meet strong consumer demand for hemp-derived cannabinoids like delta-8 THC, delta-9 THC and CBN.”

“These products provide plant-based options for adults seeking products with functional health and wellness benefits that have not been effectively addressed,” Miller said. “Furthermore, a promising new hemp beverage industry has soared into popularity, meeting adult consumer demand for non-alcoholic options through domestic inputs from our farmers.”

“We are hopeful that new leadership at the FDA will reverse the past course of inaction and take deliberate action leveraging their current authorities to robustly regulate hemp products. This issue is precisely in line with the new Administration’s focus on providing adult consumers the freedom to make health care choices on behalf of their own families, with holistic solutions that are grown on American farms. If that’s the case, we ask Congress to ensure that the agency is properly resourced to implement good policy.”

“The hemp industry may be unique in that we are coming to Congress to ask: Please, regulate us!” his testimony concludes. “A rational, sensible regulatory framework for the hemp industry can also provide a needed financial jolt to our nation—an economic stimulus package for the nation’s farmers and small businesses without requiring one dime from the American taxpayer.”

Miller told Marijuana Moment last week that his testimony is meant to serve as an “update” on issues he outlined during a 2023 hearing before a subcommittee of the full panel, where lawmakers raised concerns about FDA’s refusal to establish rules allowing for the marketing of federally legal hemp as a food item or dietary supplement.

In the two years since that initial meeting, the hemp market has faced repeated regulatory challenges—with a growing number of states moving to enact bans on certain hemp products due to the lack of regulations around intoxicating cannabinoids such as delta-8 THC that have become widely available.

“Nothing has happened at the FDA” to resolve the issue, Miller said. “And we think these ban efforts have a lot to do with the fact that we’re not regulated. So if we can get regulated, hopefully people will drop the efforts to ban our products.”

One potential legislative solution that Miller said he planned to raise with the committee at the hearing is a bipartisan bill Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) filed last year that would create a federal regulatory framework for hemp-derived cannabinoids.

The legislation would empower states to set their own rules for products such as CBD while also empowering FDA to ensure that certain safety standards are met in the marketplace.

In the absence of FDA rules, states from California to Florida have pushed for sweeping changes to their own laws around consumable hemp products. While much of the focus has been on intoxicating products, federally legal CBD businesses have also found themselves increasingly in the crosshairs.

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Meanwhile, as lawmakers prepare to once again take up large-scale agriculture legislation this session, congressional researchers in January provided an overview of the policy landscape around hemp—emphasizing the divides around various cannabis-related proposals among legislators, stakeholders and advocates.

Senate Democrats released the long-awaited draft of 2024 Farm Bill last year that contained several proposed changes to federal hemp laws—including provisions to amend how the legal limit of THC is measured and reducing regulatory barriers for farmers who grow the crop for grain or fiber. But certain stakeholders had expressed concern that part of the intent of the legislation was to “eliminate a whole range of products” that are now sold in the market.

For the time being, the hemp industry continues to face unique regulatory hurdles that stakeholders blame for the crop’s value plummeting in the short years since its legalization. Despite the economic conditions, however, a recent report found that the hemp market in 2022 was larger than all state marijuana markets, and it roughly equaled sales for craft beer nationally.

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Photo courtesy of Brendan Cleak.