On March 10, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that it will reopen the comment period for last year’s CBD hearing. The original comment period, which collected nearly 4,500 comments from public health experts, the natural products industry and the general public, ended last July and will remain open indefinitely, according to the FDA. The hearing was meant to obtain scientific data and information about the safety, manufacturing, product quality, marketing, labeling, and sale of products containing cannabis or cannabis-derived compounds.

“This is a huge and surprising step backwards. Reopening the comment period will do nothing to protect public health when the FDA is already sitting on a ticking time bomb. The longer FDA waits, the greater risk we have of seeing another public health crisis. If the FDA wants to do something constructive then it can get to work on setting a safe level of daily consumption for CBD,” said Daniel Fabricant, PhD, president and CEO of the Natural Products Association.