British regulators ban Charlotte’s Web, other CBD products

Food regulators in the United Kingdom have ordered nearly 100 products containing CBD to be pulled from store shelves in the country over consumer safety fears.

The banned list includes three CBD oil extractions made by Colorado-headquartered Charlotte’s Web label, though thousands more were approved for consumption, Hemp Today reported.

Though the U.K. is lagging behind the United States and much of Western Europe in allowing citizens to legally access cannabis in some form, the country is still in the midst of a yearslong CBD boom.

That means the British market for CBD – worth as much as $1 billion – is an attractive prospect for hemp growers and manufacturers who have seen their prospects in Canada, the U.S. and elsewhere dwindle.

However, the deluge of hemp-derived products containing the nonintoxicating cannabinoid available across the island are largely unregulated.

Manufacturers wishing to have their products sold legally in the future are now required to obtain government approval.

According to BusinessCann, makers of more than 12,000 CBD products submitted applications to the British Food Standards Agency (FSA).

The agency has disqualified roughly 100 products for “a variety of reasons,” which were not disclosed.

“We don’t release information on why individual products are removed from the list,” a spokesperson told BusinessCann, “but removal can be due to various reasons, for example: at request of the applicant, to remove duplicates, or because they do not comply with other aspects of food law.”

Observers speculated reasons could include CBD dosages above the U.K.’s recommended daily allotment of 75 milligrams, though products must have been sold before February 2020 to be approved through this process.

Other products must go through a separate “novel food” approval scheme.

The U.K.’s CBD review process is expected to last another few years.

Source: https://mjbizdaily.com/british-regulators-ban-charlottes-web-other-cbd-products/