U.S. Food and Drug Administration commissioner Scott Gottlieb will be stepping down from the agency next month after having the role for two years.
Marijuana stocks saw losses on the news as investors questioned the fate now of CBD as his stepping down could be before any policy may be written and implemented.
Gottlieb had said that a public meetings will be held sometime in April to hear from relevant parties on how best to regulate CBD derived from hemp. Hemp became legal with the passing of the Farm Bill which President Trump signed in December.
Jonathan Havens, co-chair of the Cannabis Law Practice and vice-chair of the Food and Beverage practice at Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr, stated, “The FDA issued a similar statement after the 2014 Farm Bill. Then this time, folks said, ‘why is the FDA getting involved?’ and, ‘it’s a nanny state!’ but the FDA has said the same thing for a while, and not because of CBD’s past history of being a controlled substance, but because it was studied in a clinical trial and given approval, and you can’t just add a drug ingredient to food products.”
Havens is also a former regulatory counsel at the FDA.
