Skip to main content

CBD-infused foods? They’re still ‘a ways away’ from the grocery shelf

While 33 states and D.C. have legalized medical marijuana, there’s a growing consumer interest in foods infused with cannabis, particularly the derivative cannabidiol, or CBD. But Sally Squires, who writes the Lean Plate Club blog, told WTOP that there’s still a long way to go before such products will routinely show up on grocery shelves.

Surveys have shown that people are interested in such products — a recent A.T. Kearney study in Food Navigator found that 86% of Americans and 84% of Canadians would not mind if one of their favorite brands launched a product containing cannabis. And such products are available in certain shops.

“Consumers understand that this would be an ingredient that could offer therapeutic benefits without people getting high [like] you would from actual marijuana,” Squires said.

That said, they want it to be done right: In the same survey, 76% of those surveyed said that they would likely try a legal therapeutic product infused with cannabis, but they want these products to come from trusted brand names.

That means going through the long, slow regulatory process, and setting the same kind of standards for CBD-infused products that we have for all foods, and “We’re probably a ways away from that,” Squires said. The FDA has a public meeting on the subject Friday.

And in the case of cannabis, it means legalization in the first place: Despite the medical exceptions, “CBD is still a Class 1 drug,” Squires said. “That puts it in the same category as heroin, LSD and cocaine. So we’ve got a long way to go before this is in foods that we eat.”

States seek to lower drug prices by targeting the companies that manage them for health plans

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — As consumers worry about medication costs, states are trying to lower drug prices by reining in big companies that oversee prescription coverage for health insurers. Some of those companies, called pharmacy benefit managers, also own pharmacies, and one of them, CVS, has spent millions of dollars fighting the regulations. Affordability is a key issue ahead of this year’s midterm elections. Legislators in at least a dozen states passed laws this year to limit compensation to the companies, set minimum payments from the companies to pharmacists and require the companies to disclose more information to their clients, states and the public. A Tennessee law will bar pharmacy benefit managers from operating retail pharmacies as of July 1, 2028, though CVS Health Corp. has filed a federal lawsuit to avoid having to close its 136 pharmacies there.
Read Next Story