The European Commission sets standards for foods made from hemp

The European Commission, the regional body tasked with enacting industry-wide cannabis regulations for all EU members, has finally produced guidelines for the acceptable amount of THC that can be present in commercial CBD-containing edibles.

There are two of them. The first, approved by the EC’s Standing Committee on Plants, Animals, Food and Feed, states that the THC content for oil derived from hemp seeds should not be higher than 7.5 mg/kg. The second is that the THC content for dry foods containing hemp, such as hemp seeds themselves and the flour and protein powders that contain them, must not be higher than 3 mg/kg.

To put this in an international perspective, Canada has set a limit of 10 mg/kg for both oils and dry food. Switzerland has a twice as high limit of 20 mg/kg for oils and 10 mg/kg for dry products.

But what does that really mean in the world of international hemp regulations?

According to Kai-Friedrich Niermann, a German cannabis lawyer who is currently suing the government over hemp import regulations, “The European Commission’s decision was important and a game changer for the European hemp sector. Now, for the first time, EU-wide harmonized guide values ​​apply. This means that cases like those in Germany last August, when there was a comprehensive recall of completely harmless hemp products, should be a thing of the past.”

Lorenza Romanese, executive director of the European Industrial Hemp Association (EIHA), the only EU-wide lobbying group currently influential in lobbying, agreed. “The EIHA welcomes the newly agreed values. A thriving market will only be an EU market based on common rules,” she said. “No patchwork of 27 national legislations.”

quicksand

However, not everything is fully Copacetic. The EIHA is still not happy. There are several reasons for this, but most have to do with the ongoing uncertainty that still exists despite the announcement. Here’s why.

Laboratories performing analyzes for official controls and controls must comply with rules for determining the so-called “measurement uncertainty”. The European Commission has not specified what these uncertainty values ​​are.

Obviously, this creates a persistent lack of clarity that the new regulations have not yet resolved. In fact, a product is only non-compliant if it clearly exceeds the maximum value plus the corresponding margin. Without an explanation of how large this delta is, it remains up to the manufacturers to defend any measurements above the limit values, even if they are minor, to the authorities.

According to EIHA, this development “finally puts an end to the fragmentation of the internal market and will most likely give a further boost to investments in the sector”.

Stakeholders will be given time to adapt to the new rules by selling their existing holdings during a transitional period. The rules will also become binding for all EU member states 20 days after publication of the regulation in the Official Journal of the EU.

Why is this process so lengthy?

There is an irony to the slow pace of EC hemp policy. Surprisingly, given the reform snail’s pace, the EC also has a policy stating that “hemp cultivation contributes to the goals of the European Green New Deal. These include plants’ ability to sequester carbon, prevent soil erosion, promote biodiversity, and encourage the cultivation of crops that require little or no use of pesticides.

One of the other reasons all of this is so ironic is that France is also by far the largest hemp producer in the EU (70%), followed by the Netherlands (10%) and Austria (4%). This is also the country where the most effective legal action at EU level has taken place to date – and beyond that, where the fiercest battles to regulate the industry have taken place. That includes the recent court battle over the sale of hemp flower in the country, not just extracts.

But one thing is also clear. As a result, France, and not Germany, is the leader in setting country-specific policies that also influence other countries, if not influencing EU-level decisions. Indeed, a case is now underway in Germany trying to establish EU rules domestically, also modeled on the Kanavape case in France.

Regardless, the days of the Wild West, when hemp producers had no formal guidelines, are coming to an end. Now for the next fight.