Challenges in Regulating the North American Cannabisand Hemp-derived Product Market
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Prior to the introduction of the Cannabis Act of 2018, recreational use and misuse of Cannabis was a public health concern in Canada. The United States (US) and other countries have met similar challenges in regulating the Cannabis and hemp markets under a patchwork of laws. Having been an illicit substance, the recreational Cannabis market has carried negative connotations without much consideration to well-established medical marijuana programs in North America. The intention of the Cannabis Act was to provide a comprehensive framework of regulations to protect public health and safety, reduce youth access, improve quality in the supply chain, and deter the illicit market and criminal activities. The market potential for hemp, which is defined as Cannabis containing 0.3% Δ-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (Δ-9-THC) or less, prompted the US Congress and Trump Administration to pass the US Agriculture Improvement Act at the end of 2018. This act, which followed on the heels of Canada’s Cannabis Act, took hemp out of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s hands, provided for crop insurance programs, incentivized farming opportunities, and reduced regulatory risk for retailers of finished products containing hemp-based cannabidiol (CBD). While the introduction of these two landmark Acts in North America has coincided with a boom in the demand for CBD products and propelled a significant increase in the supply chain for hemp flower, there are challenges for the regulating authorities in both countries. Canada regulates CBD differently than the US because cannabinoids, including CBD, are included on the prescription drug list in Canada and therefore can only be associated with health claims as components of medications that have been granted a Drug Identification Number. While some states permit CBD in food products, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which governs interstate commerce, has remained steadfast that such products are not yet legal at this time. The US Federal Trade Commission has used its authority to target manufacturers of CBD-containing food products that do not possess competent and reliable scientific evidence to substantiate marketing claims. Health Canada and US FDA are also facing the unenviable task of implementing an enforcement strategy. Fifteen hundred dietary supplement and food products are already available for sale in the US through e-commerce, and a thriving illicit market threatens to serve the demands of consumers in both countries. Canada has a great opportunity to lead by ensuring consumer confidence, demonstrating quality in cross-border supply chains, and upholding the tenets of the Cannabis Act. If FDA permits CBD in finished products through new regulations, it will foster an even playing field for all finished product CBD manufacturers and retailers. The international Cannabis/hemp trade should be an important topic of conversation in future amendments of the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) on North American Free Trade. Active enforcement strategies in the aftermath of new regulations from all North American trading partners, will be paramount to long-term market viability for the Cannabis market.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.012 | 0.012 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.017 | 0.007 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.012 | 0.006 |
| Open science | 0.005 | 0.005 |
| Research integrity | 0.008 | 0.015 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.016 | 0.004 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".