Marijuana rescheduling could permit CBD in tobacco, report says

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Rescheduling wouldn’t allow marijuana to be legally added to “food, dietary supplements, tobacco products, or cosmetics,” a federal report confirmed – although hemp-derived CBD might be permitted as a tobacco additive.

Hemp “may be incorporated into tobacco products without running afoul of the CSA,” stated a Congressional Research Service report released Monday, adding that products still would need to obtain marketing authorization from the Food and Drug Administration.

“A product containing both a cannabinoid, such as CBD, and nicotine (or another tobacco-derived substance) would likely meet the statutory definition of ‘tobacco product’ because it would include a tobacco-derived substance,” continued the report, “Legal Effect of Marijuana Rescheduling on FDA’s Regulation of Cannabis.”

“These products would not receive marketing authorization if FDA determined that allowing the products to be marketed would not be appropriate for the protection of the public health,” it read.

But thanks to a 2022 federal law that created marijuana-specific research requirements, medical researchers and cannabis companies “would not benefit from … looser restrictions associated with rescheduling,” the report said, adding that such a change would require action by Congress.

The next step in the process to move cannabis from Schedule 1 to Schedule 3 of the Controlled Substances Act is a Drug Enforcement Administration hearing scheduled for Dec. 2.

Regardless of the outcome of that hearing, many restrictions limiting what cannabis products companies could develop – and what existing products they could add cannabis to – remain limited, according to the report.

Although “rescheduling marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III would open the door for the medical marijuana industry to market their products consistent with federal law,” those products still would have to undergo the rigorous drug-approval process, the report noted.

“Rescheduling thus would not automatically legalize medical marijuana in the United States,” the report said.

And as some skeptics of the Medical Marijuana and Cannabidiol Research Expansion Act of 2022 have pointed out, that very bill negated any impact rescheduling might have had on boosting research, the report noted.

“The act created separate requirements for marijuana researchers and manufacture to expedite registration with the DEA, and these separate requirements would not be affected by rescheduling without additional congressional action.”