New advice on cannabinoid limits in cannabis consumer products in the UK are welcome but slow, with more clarification needed, industry members have said.
On Friday, 17 December the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) issued a report with new recommendations for the appropriate levels of cannabinoids contained in consumer CBD products.
The development followed a statement from the Home Office in January 2021 announcing its intention to establish a legal framework for the products.
The resulting report has recommended that a new limit of 0.5 milligrammes of THC can now be contained in products – “per serving”. This is a welcome development for the industry from the current 0.2 to 0.3 milligramme allowance “per container”, however, industry experts have said that new and sensible regulations are developing slowly.
Read more: ACMD releases new advice on THC levels in consumer CBD products
“In many ways this is a good report and the science is thorough and clear. The first conclusion is that they considered that the lowest dose of THC that would produce any adverse effect is 2 to 5 milligrammes per day,” said medical cannabis expert, professor Mike Barnes, chair of the UK’s Cannabis Industry Council.
“They then arbitrarily reduced this to 1 milligrammes THC which “was unlikely to produce significant psychoactive effects”. Oddly they then add “uncertainty” factors of 10 fold to allow for differences in age, body size, individual variation in response (with no back-up evidence) and then further reduce that by another factor of 2 to “take account of variations in use or concurrent use of more than one product”.”
Barnes highlights that the new guidance gives CBD sellers the ability to sell bigger containers without breaching the limits, something that has been hindering the industry in the UK for a number of years.
“Thus they reduce the 1 milligramme by 20 times to make a “safe” amount of THC of just 50 micrograms per “serving”. The definition of serving is open to interpretation – “the typical quantity consumed on one occasion”. So where does this get us?
“Certainly, this would provide more sensible regulation than the existing “1mg per container” rule. A container, for example, with 20 servings would still contain 1mg THC whereas one with 40 servings would contain 2mgs THC.
“This would allow producers to sell larger containers without breaching the limit. Some progress – but still the allowed level of THC is ridiculously small when the report admits that 2 to 5 milligrammes THC per day would not produce adverse effects. We inch by inch head towards sensible regulations but oh so slow.”
Director for the regulatory and compliance unit at the Association for the Cannabinoid Industry (ACI) Dr Parveen Bhatarah, who consulted on the report, also welcomed the news, but highlighted that more clarity is needed.
Writing to the Home Office, Bhatarah said that the guidance was “Certainly a step in the right direction” but that the limit guidance “is a little bit confusing for the industry” and “more clarity is needed as it is open to miss interpretation without maximum daily dose.”
Bhatarah commented: “However, I do agree that they are also combining it with a maximum daily dose of CBD.
“I’ve been saying to the Home Office that if we want a sustainable CBD industry, we need to give incentive to the companies to have a much more economical process.
“So, analytical testing needs to be sorted and manufacturing needs to be a little bit cheaper because if you are having such a tighter regulation for the THC that means companies have to purify material a lot more, and hence, lower yield, and hence more cost for the industry to produce that material.
“I’m really, really pleased I must say that they have gone far beyond what I was expecting.”
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