Six weeks after the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) failed to meet its 90-day deadline to clarify which cannabinoids will be impacted by a controversial incoming ban, the White House has scheduled three meetings with industry executives to discuss the matter.
Records published on Reginfo.gov confirm that the FDA submitted a notice titled ‘Cannabidiol (CBD) Products Compliance and Enforcement Policy’ to the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) for review on 13 March.
The filing, listed under RIN 0910-ZC82, is classified as a Notice, not a proposed rule or final rule, meaning the public has the headline but no details on what the agency is actually proposing.
The clock is ticking
In November 2025, the Federal Government passed new legislation which took aim at the loosely regulated intoxicating hemp industry, thought to be worth tens of billions of dollars.
In a nutshell, the legislation, set to come into effect this November, would mean intoxicating hemp products ‘could be subject to the same criminal and collateral issues as marijuana’, including banking restrictions, interstate commerce limitations, and federal prosecution exposure, though the likelihood of enforcement remains unclear.
With the US Hemp Roundtable estimating that restrictions will affect 95% of the industry, CBD has been brought into the fray despite its non-intoxicating properties.
As cannabis analyst Deb Tharp previously explained to Business of Cannabis, even non-intoxicating CBD products rely on intermediate processing stages where crude and distillate routinely exceed the new THC thresholds, meaning that without clarity on how terms like ‘container’ will be defined, legitimate CBD businesses could find their extraction tanks legally classified as holding controlled substances.
Whether the FDA’s submission to OIRA addresses that congressional mandate, or is instead connected to President Trump’s December 2025 executive order directing the agency to develop clearer frameworks for CBD products, remains unclear. The FDA has not commented publicly on the submission’s contents.
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The FDA’s submission marks a potentially significant shift for an agency that has long resisted establishing a regulatory framework for CBD. In January 2023, the FDA acknowledged that ‘a regulatory pathway for CBD is needed,’ but declined to act, instead urging Congress to legislate.
The agency simultaneously denied three citizen petitions calling for rules on CBD in food, supplements, and animal products.
Trump’s December executive order explicitly acknowledged the resulting gap, noting that ‘the current legal landscape leaves American patients and doctors without adequate guidance or product safeguards for CBD,’ and directing the FDA to work with other federal health agencies to develop evidence-based frameworks for hemp-derived cannabinoid products.
OIRA has not indicated when it will publish the proposed guidance or conclude its review. With the November hemp ban now less than eight months away and the FDA’s cannabinoid lists still outstanding, the industry will be watching closely to see whether this week’s meetings produce any tangible movement.
