For those of you who are taking CBD oil - or who are hoping to…

[greygoose]

petition.parliament.uk/peti...

There have been rumours for a while that CBD oil is going to lose its food supplement status and become prescription-only. Please sign the above petition to try and prevent this from happening.

Thank you.

[Beanieskeeper]

Done x

[Jose651]

Done. Thanks for posting gg.

[greygoose in reply to Jose651]

You're welcome.

[maro]

Oh GG that is disgusting. Big pharma wants to jump on the band wagon, I had my suspicions when there was talk of legalising cannabis for medicinal purposes that there would be a catch.

[MaisieGray in reply to maro]

maro How does Big Pharma come into this? The petition is calling on the product to not be classified as a "novel food", which is a typical EU piece of officiousness - 'Novel Food' can be newly developed, innovative food, food produced using new technologies and production processes, as well as food which is or has been traditionally eaten outside of the EU - the purpose being to require it to reach a food safety standard. There's no mention in the petition of making it a licensed drug so I don't understand what bandwagon Big Pharma is jumping on.

[muddlemand in reply to MaisieGray]

I'm glad you asked, it made me read the petition instead of glancing at it!

It says: "Cannabidiol (CBD) products could be classified as ‘novel foods’ and need European Food Safety Authority approval" - @greygoose, is there a reason to think it won't get that approval? As long as it does get approved, we're still ok.

(I also wonder whether what kind of approval it will need after Brexit, which I suppose is the same for anything already approved under the European Food Safety Authority.)

[MaisieGray in reply to muddlemand]

Aren't all vitamin supplements classified as novel foods, but are freely sold? They are certainly listed in the EU's Novel Foods Catalogue. I believe that this set of regulations will be one of those adopted by the UK 'as is', post-Brexit.

[muddlemand in reply to MaisieGray]

]I don't know, but if they are all classified like that, then the petition creators didn't know about it.

[Angel_of_the_North in reply to MaisieGray]

No, they are not. It depends when they were first reported to be used. "Novel Food is defined as food that had not been consumed to a significant degree by humans in the EU before 15 May 1997". So if they are in Culpepper, for example, they aren't novel foods. But, " produced by a method that has not previously been used for food" can change things, which is daft as it means that improving/inventing new production methods can mean you can't sell your product.

[MaisieGray in reply to Angel_of_the_North]

The EU Novel Foods Catalogue definitely isn't clear. It defines itself as a list of products of animal and plant origin and other substances subject to the Novel Food Regulation, based on information provided by the EU Member States.

Which is what you'd expect it to be; but it also shows copious information on the history of use of food supplements and ingredients used exclusively in food supplements. So unless I'm misreading it, it's not easy to extrapolate from the many documents returned by a search, what is the definitive status of a product - type in "vitamin B" for instance, in the search box, and it returns 161 articles, instead of a "yes, it's a novel food / no it's not a novel food".

[Mary76mary76]

Done X thanks for posting,

[O11y]

Just signed

[JadisFox]

Signed thank you!

[elle]

Done

[MrsBoilie]

Thanks for letting us know GG. I have signed and sent to all I know to sign! I rely on this stuff for some pain relief.

[greygoose in reply to MrsBoilie]

Me too!

[Angel_of_the_North]

It's crazy really. It's hemp oil and has been around for many, many years and so it's not a novel food. The method of processing should not make any difference. Did wine become a novel food when they stopped treading grapes?

[greygoose in reply to Angel_of_the_North]

There are so many crazy things in this world, there's no logic to it. Just people wanting to boss other people around. Power and money are the driving forces, not love and caring. So, we should cover ourselves as best we can.

[nightingale-56]

Done.

[greygoose in reply to nightingale-56]

Thank you.

[Gettingoldnow]

Although I don't use it have signed hoping it will help others

[greygoose in reply to Gettingoldnow]

Thank you. That's very generous. Much appreciated.

[userotc]

Done...and got other family members to do also. Thanks

[greygoose in reply to userotc]

Thank you.

[Radiance1969]

Added my name to the growing list

[greygoose in reply to Radiance1969]

Thank you.