Let’s add soms more confusion to CBD’s and the patients who need them. Recently, a federal appellate court in California has rejected an industry challenge to a DEA rule that effectively outlawed the cannabinoid.
Per Leafly
The rule, which the DEA published in 2016, established a new Controlled Substances Act drug code for “marihuana extract,” putting even hemp-derived extracts in the same restrictive Schedule I category as psychoactive THC. In doing so, the new rule set the stage for a wave of raids on CBD retailers and related businesses.
While the DEA has said the rule change was an administrative move aimed at better tracking extracts and complying with international drug-control treaties, critics worry it could pose an existential threat to the nation’s burgeoning hemp industry and restrict patient access to CBD, the medically promising and non-intoxicating cannabinoid.
Under federal law, “hemp” is defined as Cannabis sativa plants with less than 0.3% THC. Anything with more THC is “marijuana.” As such, CBD oil from hemp was commonly thought to fall outside Schedule I. But the 2016 DEA rule defined a cannabis extract as “containing one or more cannabinoids that has been derived from any plant of the genus Cannabis” and reiterated that any such substance “will continue to be treated as Schedule I.” Bad news for hemp-derived CBD.
Immediately, lawyers for the hemp industry filed a challenge.
Read more here