Daniel Fernandez is hoping for a hemp renaissance in Spain this year with the launch of a new Spanish industry association.

But first, the Galicia native says federal authorities need to be educated on the  economic possibilities of the crop so that Spain can tap underlying potential for collaboration on hemp projects with Portugal, Eastern Europe and Latin America.

Fernandez launched the Spanish Hemp Association in November with a virtual event attended by about 70 people. He’s now focused on establishing its membership base.

“Given the limited understanding and proactiveness of public institutions, there is a need for a clear voice pointing to the incongruities [and] the opportunities,” Fernandez told Hemp Industry Daily.

Spain’s current legislation allows the cultivation of industrial hemp, but only for grain and fiber and with seeds certified for use in the European Union.

Spain’s Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food says the law limits hemp cultivation to fiber and seed cultivation. That means that “the extraction of the cannabidiol CBD is only permitted from the seeds of hemp,” according to an email the ministry sent to Hemp Industry Daily.

The ministry also sent a draft notice to Spain’s regional governments repeating that CBD limitation and laying out other do’s and don’t’s. But the notice has created confusion, Fernandez said.

“I’m telling them to not only review existing regulation so that they understand it, but to take it seriously and … also look at a national strategy for this crop,” Fernandez said.

“The challenge here is that, is this a growing industry? It is. Do we have the conditions to grow? No, no we don’t. Why? Because the government doesn’t understand what is happening at a European level.”

Changes outside Spain

He’s referring to recent massive regulatory milestones for the international hemp industry, particularly in Europe.

In November, the European Union’s Court of Justice ruled that CBD could move freely in trade within the EU.

Then, in December, a United Nations commission narrowly voted to classify cannabis and cannabis resin as a less dangerous drug, and the European Union’s executive branch said CBD could be regulated as a food, abandoning its stance that flower-derived cannabidiol should be treated as a narcotic.

In the wake of these massive changes, Spanish authorities remain conservative with their stance on CBD.

The ministry said in its email that the consumption of CBD for non-medical purposes in Spain “contravenes the international drug control treaties, as well as applicable national regulations on the subject.”

International collaboration

Fernandez said an update to Spanish regulations on industrial hemp could help facilitate greater cooperation within the EU, particularly with Portugal and countries in Eastern Europe.

In the case of its western neighbor, Spain has not historically had strong relations with Portugal, but hemp could become the catalyst to improve economic and political alliances.

That, in turn, would lay the groundwork for leveraging their relationships in South America, Fernandez said.

“Spain would be much better off if we had a strong collaboration with Portugal” and worked together in in Latin America, he said.

When it comes to cannabis in South America, Uruguay and Paraguay have scrambled ahead on legislation and exports, and Brazil is in the process of passing legislation to allow industrial hemp cultivation.

There are also reasons for Spain to collaborate with EU member states in the east like Poland and the Czech Republic, where seed banks were preserved under Soviet rule, he said.

“We have the European Union, but we can sometimes have a clear divide between Western and Eastern Europe,” Fernandez said. The countries that were aligned with the Soviet Union post World War II “maintained their research and … have very important knowledge of this crop.”

But in Western Europe, France is the only country with a long, largely uninterrupted history of industrial hemp production, he said.

Monica Raymunt can be reached at [email protected].

The European Union’s drug agency has signaled that it is mulling the legal and commercial status of CBD and cannabis-based products in Europe in a new report.

The Lisbon-based European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction published the report on Monday, detailing the results of a study that kicked off in 2018 and aimed to provide insight into the open sale of low-THC products in Europe.

“The specific objectives were to identify and further explore the types of product available and the range of sales outlets, user profiles, associated harms and responses taken in different EU countries,” the authors wrote.

The Centre took note of several glaring issues with the marketing and promotion of some CBD products across Europe, including:

• Inadequate product labelling.
• Inconsistent product content.
• Potentially poor product quality.
• A lack of acknowledgement of the limitations, or an overstating, of the evidence concerning the effectiveness of CBD products for therapeutic use.
• A lack of safety information or information on potential harms and possible contraindications.

The authors acknowledged several regulatory developments in Europe since the research was launched in 2018. These included a landmark ruling in November from the EU’s top court on France’s CBD ban and the European Commission’s decision to backtrack from its decision to categorize CBD as a narcotic.

Perhaps most crucially for the CBD market, the Centre confirmed that the Court of Justice ruling on the Kanavape case – in which the five presiding judges said CBD was not a drug under the meaning of a global drug treaty – had implications for the interpretation of EU law connected to the production and marketing of low-THC cannabis products.

These implications, the drug agency said, “may be addressed in the near future.”

Concerns surrounding trace THC content in various cannabis-based products were also discussed, including the challenges of defining appropriate THC limits via national legislation.

The Centre noted that the percentage of THC can be measured and referred to at several levels, including:

• The level of THC that a certain variety of cannabis plant will usually produce.
• The levels of THC found in the different parts of the plant, which serves to distinguish what parts of the plant may be used for industrial purposes without extensive testing, or what might be of value to divert to illegally extracting THC.
• The level of THC found in the extracts, which may be used to indicate whether an extract has
  intoxicating properties or not.
• The level of THC found in the final consumable product, for example an edible product.

The agency noted that, while it is easier for a grower or processor to test a particular plant or extract and control the THC at the ingredient stage, the level of THC in the final product is “more relevant” to consumer safety.

“It is possible to grow low-THC hemp and from it produce a high-THC extract, highlighting the importance of considering the final product and not just the input material,” the agency wrote.

“In labeling products, policymakers will need to address not only safety limits but also the confusing message given to the consumer by using different measurements of THC and CBD content and whether the percentage of THC, maximum dose per day or ratio of THC to CBD should be used,” the agency wrote.

“It is important to acknowledge that this is a rapidly evolving area and one with relatively limited
information currently available,” the authors wrote.

“The findings presented here will necessarily be incomplete, and they need to be viewed as an introduction to the situation and pertinent issues, as well as providing a platform for further research and monitoring.”