When it comes to CBD oil, as with other cannabis products, federal versus state regulations make for a sometimes-murky picture.
Last year, the Drug Enforcement Agency classified as Schedule 1 narcotics without medical benefits all extracts, including cannabidiol—usually extracted from industrial hemp plants with little or no THC. High Times wrote at the time:
Tell that to the thousands of epilepsy sufferers, who are mercifully enjoying relief from intractable epilepsy and polymorphic seizures.
Under their new drug code, entitled “Establishment of a New Drug Code for Marihuana Extract,” the DEA announced it was “creating a separate code number for marihuana extract with the following definition: ‘Meaning an extract containing one or more cannabinoids that has been derived from any plant of the genus Cannabis, other than the separated resin (whether crude or purified) obtained from the plant.’ Extracts of marihuana will continue to be treated as Schedule I controlled substances.”
The DEA is essentially giving itself license to better track which scientists are studying marijuana and which ones are researching CBD and other extracts. At the moment, when researchers apply to the DEA for permission to study weed, there’s no way for them to specify whether they intend to only work on extracts.
But in some ways, the schedule 1 status of CBD oil benefits small businesses in the field by keeping big pharma from swooping in and taking over. That, at least, is take offered by Zack Ruskin at SF Weekly. Ruskin writes:
As efforts to legalize cannabis reach a fever pitch, Sensi Products co-owner Lisa Tollner warns that progress may also bring peril.
Her concerns stem from the fact that while major players in banking, real estate, insurance, and pharmaceuticals have thus far been wary to get in bed with the cannabis industry, should the the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency eventually overturn the substance’s Schedule I status as a controlled substance, the corporate floodgates will open.
“The only thing that’s keeping pharmaceutical companies from coming in and squashing all of the little companies is the Schedule I status,” Tollner says. “They’re not going to put millions of dollars into something that they’re not going to be able to sell across the nation and worldwide.”
