Walking home one freezing night in December 2014, I was taken aback to look up and see a storefront with a bright neon sign that read “CBD OIL SOLD HERE” in the window. It was not the “what” of the sign that startled me – CBD oil is, of course, a product with many therapeutic qualities and a wide range of uses – but the “where.” Far from cannabis-friendly Seattle, I was home for the holidays in southwest Missouri, a socially conservative state where attempts to even put medical marijuana on the ballot face fierce opposition. Though only a first-year law student at the time, I knew enough to know something did not add up: CBD is derived from the cannabis plant, and marijuana is illegal under federal — and, in Missouri, state law. Therefore, I thought, CBD is illegal. How were they getting away with this?
As I now know – and as we have explained before – the business in question was relying on an ambiguity in the Federal Controlled Substances Act’s definition of “marijuana.” The Controlled Substances Act does not include in its definition of “marijuana” the plant’s “mature stalks.” Mature stalks are the part of the cannabis plant used to make hemp, which is not prohibited by the Controlled Substances Act either. The stalks also contain CBD oil that can be extracted and used just the same as CBD derived from other parts of the plant. The ambiguity was enlarged with the passage of the 2014 farm bill, which allowed some cultivation of hemp with THC levels below 0.3%. Ergo, CBD oil is not technically illegal – right?
Wrong.
Two days ago, the Drug Enforcement Administration issued regulations that effectively put the kibosh on attempts to dance around the Controlled Substances Act’s definition of “marijuana” when it comes to CBD oil. The new rule creates a new “Controlled Substances Code Number” for “Marihuana Extract” and extends that classification to extracts “containing one or more cannabinoids from any plant of the genus Cannabis.” Because CBD is a cannabinoid and hemp is a plant of the genus Cannabis, the rule explicitly applies to the many CBD products currently being widely sold online and in shops like the one I encountered in Missouri. DEA confirmed as much in response to public comment on its initially proposed rule, stating that “[f]or practical purposes, all extracts that contain CBD will also contain at least small amounts of other cannabinoids. However, if it were possible to produce from the cannabis plant an extract that contained only CBD … such an abstract would fall within the new drug code 7350.” DEA justifies its new rule as necessary to fully comply with the UN Convention on Narcotic Drugs and finds its statutory authority to promulgate the rule in the Controlled Substances Act.
What does this mean for sellers of CBD extracts online or in states with unfriendly cannabis laws? It means the DEA is explicitly saying that it considers your product to be illegal under the Controlled Substances Act along with other illicit cannabis products. It also means that they are enhancing their ability to track CBD and enforce its interpretation of the law.
In truth, CBD merchants were probably always on the wrong side of the gray area in DEA’s eyes because CBD extracts almost necessarily contain other cannabinoids. As DEA stated in its justification: “Although it might be theoretically possible to produce a CBD extract that contains absolutely no amounts of other cannabinoids, the DEA is not aware of any industrially-utilized methods that have achieved this result.” The difference now is that the DEA is officially putting CBD sellers on notice that their businesses are subject to enforcement action.
Though our cannabis lawyers are unhappy with the DEA’s statement, we would be remiss if we did not tell you that you would be wise to heed this warning: selling CBD is illegal.
This article originally posted …: Canna Law Blog
