By Scott Gottlieb
Under current law, CBD is permitted in food or dietary supplements only if the FDA issues a regulation allowing its use. This is a multiyear process subject to notice and comment, requiring a substantial amount of scientific data that the FDA must evaluate.
Given the pressure on the FDA to create a more immediate path for CBD products, this route might simply take too long. But there is a way that the FDA can fulfill its public-health obligations and meet the political demand for these goods: It can approve the sale of some CBD products immediately, while effecting a framework for their safe and proper regulation and a pathway for an enforceable market for these goods.
Scott Gottlieb, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, was the 23rd commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration from May 2017 to April 2019.