For a couple of weeks, the General Directorate for Consumer Affairs, Competition and Fraud Prevention (DGCCRF) has been controlling suppliers of CBD products.
However, there are no more regulations governing CBD today than yesterday. On what basis are these checks carried out? On that of an internal note from the Directorate General for Food (DGAL) which would now only tolerate CBD products containing less than 50 mg / day as the recommended daily dose of CBD or 20% in concentration of CBD.
If these new directives do not mean anything to you, it is normal: no regulation or no law supports them. However, their origin is known. These unofficial “limits” have been defended by the Union of Industrialists for the valorization of hemp extracts (UIVEC) with the food authorities, as the UIVEC explained during the recent symposium at the National Assembly or with the Monitor pharmacies.
“It is a set of criteria and legal interpretations shared by certain administrations”, explains Ludovic Rachou, president of the UIVEC.
This threshold would have been determined to avoid confusion of uses – and in particular with the drugs of the experimentation of medical cannabis – and to avoid, as a precautionary principle, the risks of drug interactions with CBD. Because “it is in the most concentrated products that we have the most problems. There is also more risk of traces of THC. Hence the 20% limit” he adds to the Monitor.
From our understanding, the checks focus on the traceability of stocks (batch numbers, etc.), the absence of therapeutic claims or indications for daily dosage which must therefore not exceed 50 mg/day.
The term Novel Food is also widely used during controls. However, this classification, which France does not apply, only concerns CBD isolates, not whole plant extracts of the broad spectrum or full spectrum type. However, some checks have focused on oils full spectrum 10 and 20%, therefore below the DGAL reference thresholds, others on food in general, such as 30% CBD oils, herbal teas or CBD sweets.
According to the declarations of the administration to one of the controlled companies, the analyzes should require one month (for a manufacturer) and cover ultimately all products placed on the market in France.
Asked, the DGCCRF has not yet answered us.
