You may notice an explosion of supplements on the market labelled CBD oil. Do you wonder the legal status of those products? It is a great question because it is in a grey area. The Farm bill passed by the US senate in December 2018 removed industrial hemp (cannabis sativa) and its derivatives from being a controlled substance. CBD stands for cannabidiol and is one of the main constituents present in the buds of the hemp plant. Two of the main obstacles for hemp CBD to be a legal dietary ingredient are 1) the fact that a pharmaceutical company had a pure CBD product (from hemp) approved by FDA as a drug for epilepsy in June 2018 and 2) CBD-rich hemp extract from the buds were never sold as dietary ingredients before 1994. However, the hemp industry is demanding that FDA clarifies the rules for allowing hemp extracts and its derivatives to become legal dietary ingredients. FDA has scheduled a public hearing on May 31 2019 to obtain scientific data and information about the safety, manufacturing, product quality, marketing, labeling, and sale of products containing cannabis or cannabis-derived compounds. Stay tune for what transpires from this public hearing. At the meantime, contact me if you have specific projects for which you may need help.