Perhaps it’s getting trite to say so, but the United States (US) hemp industry is booming. Celebrities, department, discount, and online stores, tobacco and beer outlets, coffeeshops, farmers’ markets, and most points in the interstices vend cannabidiol (CBD) products. Manufacturers may make many claims, lots of which haven’t stood up to proper, robust analytical testing. And while the US Department of Agriculture sorts out on-the-fly regulations, many businesses have been left scratching personified heads, wandering how to best stay compliant.
To this end, some business owners have decided to forge ahead, with or without the feds, not from a legality vantage point, but rather, recognizing the need for product safety and standardization, whether cast down to the masses from a judicial pedestal or not. The US Hemp Roundtable is one of the most well-known coalitions to date.
A roundtable has no head, demonstrating the equality of those who sit around it. In all, 31 companies are represented on the board of directors including cultivators and product manufacturers like Bluebird Botanicals, CBDistillery, CV Sciences, CW Hemp, Pyxus, Front Range Biosciences, and GenCanna. The list of 74 members includes the board of directors as well as labs like Botanacor and Eurofins, product manufacturers like Criticality and Veritas Farms, a genetics company (New West Genetics), a bank (Esquire Bank), an insurance firm (Alliant Insurance Services), a flavor company (Callisons Flavor), the Hemp Industries Association, and many more hemp-derived businesses.
The mission of the US Hemp Roundtable is ultimately to provide safe hemp and CBD products through education and activism. The educational aspects of the US Hemp Roundtable aim to provide a two-way street where regulators and elected officials can learn the realities of the hemp industry from leaders within the space, and businesses can stay aware of the latest policy changes and ways to stay compliant.
A call to action can be submitted to your state representatives through a form obtainable for the 16 states where the US Hemp Roundtable has an active campaign, including Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Maine, North Carolina, and West Virginia to name a few. A recent call, for example, discusses the lack of action by the US Food and Drug Administration that has resulted in a market where “unregulated bad actors continue to sell inferior products that give misleading information to consumers and potentially endanger public health and safety.”
And that’s really the endgame of the US Hemp Roundtable — to be an industry alliance that simplifies evolving regulations for members, addresses ethical, safety, and compliance needs of the industry, and helps teach policy makers who may have drunk their share of Reefer Madness Kool-Aid in times past. Most people seem to have a reasonable grasp on the concepts of right and wrong regardless of any federal policing. Likeminded individuals who yearn for an honest, compassionate, and standardized hemp industry can synergize their collective voices around the US Hemp Roundtable better ensuring that they’re heard.
Image Credit: Bullhorn Creative
