The Business of cannabis writes
FRENCH authorities have implemented a new ‘temporary framework’ for CBD allowing it to be registered and sold as a food supplement for the first time.
According to the proponents of the new framework, this development will significantly expand opportunities for CBD businesses in the country, opening the door for products to be sold with confidence by France’s largest retailers and pharmacies.
However, others have suggested this presents the latest assault on full-spectrum CBD and hemp in France, and represents an effort to not only push the industry towards one dominated by isolate CBD, but to one centred around an agro-industry focused solely on profits.
The new framework
As of February 24, 2023, French CBD businesses have been able to register their products as a food supplement with the Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Prevention (DGCCRF) for the first time.
This new framework is a temporary measure reportedly designed to provide some stability for CBD businesses until the The European Food Safety Authority’s (EFSA) novel foods regulation is completed.
According to the Union of Industrialists for the Valorization of Hemp Extracts (UIVEC), a French CBD trade group which says it has more than 50 members most of which ‘are not people from the cannabis industry’, this marks the culmination of an ‘18 month negotiation with the French authorities’.
The group is understood to have presented a plan for such a framework to both politicians and regulatory bodies last year, before it was validated by the Ministry of Economy and Finance and brought into force.
It draws many parallels with the UK’s ‘public list’, which enables CBD products already on the market before a certain date to remain on sale while the novel foods validation process is completed.
UIVEC’s President Ludovic Rachou told Business of Cannabis: “It’s not regulation, per se, it’s more of a control strategy of what is allowed to remain on the market and what is going to be removed from the market by the French authorities.”
Rather than write up new regulations which would become defunct when EFSA’s novel foods process eventually concludes, this framework will enable CBD edibles to be sold in France legally until such a time, and provide clarity for consumers and businesses.
However, the requirements for products to be approved as a food supplement allow for effectively no THC content, meaning any full spectrum CBD extracts are effectively excluded.
CBD products must contain THC content of less than 1 µg/kg body weight (acute reference dose), in line with EFSA’s current recommendations.
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