The sale of CBD Oil products in the UK is quite legal as long as the THC content per item amounts to no more than 1mg in total regardless of the size of the product. It might surprise people to know, therefore, that it is not legal to harvest the flowers and leaves of the hemp plant in the UK to produce CBD oil. All of the CBD oil products you see for sale in the UK will contain oil from Eastern Europe or America.
The plant, hemp, which is a member of the cannabis family is grown widely in the UK and parts of the plant – neither the leaf or flower – are used to produce different products such as (as advised by Hempura)
- Stable bedding for horses
- Fibreboard
- Plastic substitutes
- Biofuels
- Hempcrete which is a sustainable fire-resistant material used in the building trade
The control of hemp production in the UK is closely regulated, and farmers are growing hemp can harvest any part of the plant other than the leaves and flowers to use within different industries. The UK Home Office controls the licensing for the cultivation of hemp crops and has forced farmers to destroy acres of hemp which was used illegally to create hemp or CBD oil. There is an increasing movement afoot to iron out the seeming anomaly, which is that you can buy CBD oil products quite legitimately in this country, but the oil itself cannot be grown here.
Now, three men on the island of Jersey, have formed Jersey Hemp which has been given a license by the government on the island to grow hemp flowers specifically for the production of CBD oil. Well, I guess Jersey is well-known as a flower-producing and blooming paradise!
Estimates suggest that currently, annualized CBD sales are worth on average £300m and this is anticipated to rise by 2025 to just shy of £1bn. For many people, the provenance and purity of their CBD oil are really important to them. It can be harder to verify the exact origin of imported oils; it is illegal to produce CBD oil in the UK, but it is legal to import it and package it into a product for legitimate sale. To help you choose a good CBD oil product, here are some handy hints to assist you in buying wisely:
- Always aim for organic CBD oil
- Choose full-spectrum CBD oil over other alternatives such as CBD isolate. Full-spectrum means utilizing the hundreds of cannabinoids within the plant rather than a narrower, possibly less efficacious, extraction
- Request independent lab testing results
The picture regarding the licensing of the hemp crop in the UK is muddled, to say the least. But with increasing medical interest in the possible effects of CBD oil, it won’t be long before licensing and regulation on his product are introduced. This will probably open up the market to far more development, more research and make the production process more transparent. In the meantime, it seems that Jersey will be famous now for something else other than its milk and potatoes.
