The FDA is a criminal cartel: protecting the drug industry's monopoly while denying Americans the human right access to natural medicines

Wednesday, April 06, 2016 by: J. D. Heyes
Tags: FDA, cannabidiol, federal regulations

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(NaturalNews) The Food and Drug Administration, as we have reported in the past, is completely in the tank for Big Pharma, an industry that lavishes tens of millions of dollars on our fat-cat "leaders" in Washington, D.C., to maintain healthy profits and shut out all competition.

That includes natural remedies especially, because they're much cheaper, work better and don't pollute our bodies with harmful, damaging chemicals.

In recent days, Natural News editor Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, director of the Forensic Food Lab and author of the upcoming book Food Forensics, reported that the FDA now appears to have set its sights on the CBD industry – which produces health-promoting cannabidiol products.

"The FDA is trying to destroy the CBD industry with regulatory assaults, but the industry is pushing back (and the weight of the evidence and the science is on the side of the hemp industry). Nevertheless, the FDA is a formidable opponent and they can wage all sorts of regulatory assaults against natural substances they wish to regulate out of existence," Adams reported, noting that no new regulations have been issued just yet, but that if the agency gets its way, they are likely to do so, which would severely hamper the CBD industry and natural medicine.

Tyrannical overreach

Like every other agency Congress refuses to rein in, the FDA is part of the massive federal bureaucracy – a sort of fourth branch of government, if you will – that writes its own rules and regulations, each of which carries a penalty for violations and each of which has the very same force of law that a legitimate act passed by Congress and signed by the president would have. And in this case, CBD is in the crosshairs of the FDA, which, says Adams, has posted "a clear statement on its own website" stating that CBDs cannot be sold as dietary supplements.

"This is a regulatory attack on hemp extracts," he wrote. "Make no mistake: Cannabidiol is on the target radar of the FDA, and they are waging a campaign of regulatory intimidation to try to destroy the marketplace. If they get their way, they will EFFECTIVELY outlaw CBDs via regulatory assaults. Their goal is the same: destroy the CBD marketplace."

Adams pointed out that the FDA, on its website, has already addressed the question of whether CBD can be utilized as a dietary supplement: "No. Based on available evidence, FDA has concluded that cannabidiol products are excluded from the dietary supplement definition..."

In addition, the agency has already begun sending aggressive warning letters to CBD product makers, forcing the industry to push back dramatically against the FDA's tyrannical overreach.

FDA will always go after the big violators first

Adams further noted that some people believe you can sell CBD as a "food" rather than as a dietary supplement, but that's not correct either.

"Efforts are under way to GRAS list cannabidiol with the FDA, but CBD is not currently GRAS listed, meaning it cannot be sold as a food without attracting regulatory scrutiny from the FDA. I spoke with a highly competent regulatory attorney who confirmed all this," he wrote.

He says it's probable that currently, smaller companies are selling hemp oil with some CBD content, but that does not mean such sales are immune from intimidation and even prosecution by the FDA. The agency, he noted, will first pursue larger companies for violations and ignore the smaller firms due to its own limited resources.

"For this reason," he says, "smaller suppliers of CBD supplements or hemp oil products containing added CBDs may be able to continue selling such products for a very long time without facing regulatory action. Nevertheless, that regulatory risk is ever present and may be invoked at any time by the FDA to target that company and confiscate its products."

Read Adams' full report here.

Sources:

NaturalNews.com

FDA.gov

NutritionalOutlook.com

Science.NaturalNews.com

FoodForensics.com