The first rule of CBD club is… You can't talk about the benefits of CBD.
Fight Club jokes aside, many wonder why lawful CBD food supplement companies can't tell customers about the health benefits the compound or hemp extracts may have. If this is you, read on to find out.
Food VS Medicine
One key reason why CBD companies can't make health claims about their products is that doing so could mean they are no longer selling supplements, but selling medicines.
In the UK, there are strict rules, enforced by the MHRA, that draw the line between food and medicine.
Making any health/medicinal claims about a product would normally mean that a medicinal product marketing authorisation is required. Which involves a highly expensive and complicated process.
But, as many of you will understand, the line between food and medicine is rather blurred. There are many foods, herbs, and plants that have demonstrable medicinal qualities.
As the father of medicine - Hippocrates once said:
“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food”.
But at what point was the line between food and medicine defined? Well, as brought to our attention in the Hemp Hound's latest article, it was the 1941 pharmacy and medicines act.
This act effectively prohibited herbalists from making claims about their products. But allowed pharmaceutical companies to extract and patent compounds from them for medicinal use.
There is a database of approved health claims that can be made about food products here.
But, unfortunately, CBD or hemp extracts are yet to be added. As the evidence required to be listed is yet to be put forward to and accepted by the Food Standards Agency.
This is also the case with other supplements such as Ashwagandha KSM-66, which has various scientifically proven benefits that are yet to be established as approved claims.
Another reason why these rules exist is to protect consumers. Without regulation, there would be nothing to prevent unethical companies or ‘snake oil salesmen’ from selling scam products to vulnerable people.
Finally, despite there being hundreds of studies that suggest cannabinoids can help with a wide range of issues, there is a lack of ‘gold-standard’ randomised controlled trials (RCTs) to definitively prove them to be effective, as of yet.
Although one reason for this is that whole-plant CBD products do not seem to fit into the framework of RCTs, which are designed to be used with isolated compounds.
We hope that this article cleared up any doubts that you might have. If you are looking for hemp products to support your health and wellbeing, click the ‘Shop Now’ button to head over to our online shop.