CBD Blog
Canabidol™ Announcement – Update from the Home Office on Cannabis Licensing and CBD
- Last Modified: April 4, 2023
Following on from the recent Home Office update to the Drug Licensing Factsheet – Canabidol™ and British Cannabis® would like to reassure our customers that products produced by our organisations stand alone in the industry as compliant, legal, and safe!
The changes and updated opinions of the Home Office now states that any amount of THC in a product would deem them to be illegal, and subject to prosecution under the Misuse of Drugs Act 2001.
We would like to confirm that our products do not contain any THC as it is removed without trace through our proprietary processing methods.
Furthermore, we would like to assure you that we have been anticipating a move of this nature for some time. The resulting pre-emptive work we have done, setting up an industry-leading THC removal process ensures, we are the only CBD brand in the UK that has gone to such lengths to guaranteed their products are 100% legal, safe, and compliant.
We have obtained expert legal advice on the exemption of our products and are confident that they meet all the government’s own criteria for exemption. According to the 2001 Misuse of Drugs Act, a product can only be deemed exempt from control and classification if it meets the ‘three limbs’ criteria i.e:
- Not be designed for the administration of any controlled substance to a human or animal
- Not be designed in any way that would make extraction of a controlled substance possible.
- Not have within them any controlled substance in amounts of 1mg or more.
The third point is central to the change, and the ways in which different companies have approached it vary wildly.
We are the only brand and bulk CBD supplier in the UK to invest so heavily in the total removal of THC from its CBD oil products.
To date, most of the industry has been optimistically presumptive in avoiding prosecution under the Act, with many opting for a loose attempt to ensure their products fall below a 0.2% THC concentration. However, the 0.2% is specific to the cultivated levels of THC, not final product levels. We have commissioned an in-depth review by the leading experts in drugs law. The 0.2% threshold has been deemed to be an incorrect assumption, and the only legislation that applies is to not have within them any controlled substance in amounts of 1mg or more.
The grey area that remains and does not apply to our products, but will look to address in the coming weeks and provide further clarification for the industry, is the detectable levels of THC.
One milligram of THC cannot be tested with analytical equipment to a degree that would form a basis for reliable evidence. However, it is our opinion that products containing up to 0.2% THC would be non-complaint and is the reason we are preparing a detailed analysis for distribution which will aim to define a legal compliant commercial threshold for controlled substances in consumer products.
What is without doubt, is the fact that if a prosecution was brought against any seller or user of a CBD product that contained detectable amounts of controlled substances, it would be highly likely that that the detected controlled substances would form a basis for reliable evidence and therefore not meet limb 3 of the exemption.
To confirm: We remove all the THC until it can no longer be detected.
Therefore, it would be impossible to demonstrate any THC content within our products. In the very highly unlikely instance anyone faced prosecution.
The Cannabis Trades Association (CTA) has also released a statement yesterday to its hundreds of members companies supplying CBD products in the UK confirming that “the CTA maintain the position that all Members SHOULD have a THC free product, which we would define as a product that has non-detectable levels of THC and CBN”.
It’s for this reason we would recommend other sellers and consumers to look to sell, or purchase, CBD products that contain undetectable levels of THC from an approved supplier with laboratory test reports to confirm their complaint status.
We, and our commercial operations that fall within British Cannabis® who supply many of the other brands you see in the UK, can be sure that the due diligence has been done so their products are produced to the highest levels of compliance without the high commercial risks that come with products containing detectable levels of THC.
We stand alone in our level of scrutiny, and have consistently outspent all competitors in our investment in state-of-the-art extraction and analysis equipment.
On the back of our intensive and costly internal legal reviews of our products and procedures, we at Canabidol.com will be assisting the CTA, and the rest of the industry in further engaging with the Home Office as a matter of urgency. We will seek a moratorium, restricting any enforcement action while we engage with them on this matter. We expect the outcome to be similar as seen with the 2016 MHRA statement – that the ensuing restriction will be minor and easily absorbed by the industry.
The Misuse of Drugs Act has been legislation since 2001, and comprises the backbone of the legal framework on which we based our business model. Interpretations of the Act have shifted slightly from time to time, and the ways in which the Act is implemented have knock-on effects on all parts of the CBD industry. Most recently, the industry was shaken by a 2016 statement from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) which seemed to have disastrous implications for the CBD industry. Uncertainty over the future of CBD in the UK led to the CEO of Canabidol™, Tom Whettem, founding the Cannabis Trades Association (CTA) along with the other major sellers of CBD.
The CTA’s goal is to serve as a central voice for the industry, to encourage cooperation and conversation between sellers; to monitor distributors and manufacturers of CBD; and the government.
Since its foundation, the CTA has forged relationships with the MHRA and Food Standards Agency (FSA). As registered stakeholders in the industry, the CTA is very much seen as a partner of the government, with numerous politicians acknowledging the CTA’s professionalism and knowledge as a key asset of the CBD industry. One that has pushed forward the interests of consumers and companies and being mentioned as such many times in official documentation.
Moving forward, we will continue our efforts in pushing ahead the Cannabis Products Directive (CPD), comprising new cannabis regulations that better accommodate the needs of the modern landscape, a framework built around the needs of all stakeholders, and that we hope to be passed into legislation. We can demonstrate that there is no potential for abuse, and that with proper regulation, CBD products are as safe as any other hemp product in the market.
We hope that the efforts we have taken to providing a second to none service, with top-grade purity and ceaseless commitment to perfection, further cements our position as the only brand of choice in the UK. The only brand many pharmacies are willing to stock, and the only brand that approached CBD manufacture in the right way, right from the start.
And that wasn’t an easy, or cheap path to take… we could have done what the others have been doing, i.e. the bare minimum. But we felt duty bound in providing the best possible product to our customers. We chose to commit to our founding ethos of dedication to excellence at every level. Compliance is a fundamental foundation of this commitment and we are glad we made the right decisions, right from the start.
We feel this only further solidifies our position within the market demonstrating our expert knowledge, and professionalism in the cannabis industry.
Doing the right thing is not the problem, knowing what the right thing is…That’s the challenge.
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