UK fights to keep selling more potent cannabis products in EU ‘reset’ talks

The UK is fighting to keep more potent cannabis products on the market after any “reset” trade deal with the EU, complicating talks between the two sides.

The country wants to continue allowing drinks and food supplements that contain up to 10mg of marijuana or hemp-derived cannabidiol (CBD), five times the EU safe limit of 2mg per day, to preserve a competitive advantage.

London is seeking to reduce barriers to trade in food, plants and animals with the bloc by signing a veterinary agreement that requires it to align with rules laid down by Brussels.

But talks could fail because in several areas, including “novel foods” such as CBD products and genetically modified organisms, the UK is asking for exemptions from EU regulations to protect innovation made post-Brexit.

London also wants to keep a ban on live animal exports and foie gras, which it considers cruel as geese are force-fed.

The UK industry for oils, drinks and edibles containing cannabidiol (CBD) — the non-psychoactive chemical found in cannabis — fears losing the benefits of Brexit.  

While EU member states have debated for years over loosening food regulation, the British Food Standards Agency’s “novel foods” categorisation has incentivised CBD and products from cell-cultivated meat to algae and insects.

No CBD foods or drinks have yet been approved in the EU, the Commission said. Producers warn that agreeing to dynamic alignment, matching UK regulation and standards with those of the EU, would make them “subservient” to rules made in Brussels. 

“The industry should not find itself being ruled by regulatory decisions where the UK has no vote and no voice,” said Marika Graham-Woods, executive director of the Cannabis Trades Association, adding that the “novel food process must be exempt” from any agreement.

In a letter to CBD businesses this month, seen by the FT, the FSA advised the sector to prepare for the veterinary agreement by seeking authorisation for their products in the EU. 

“Dynamic alignment would mean that, once an . . . agreement is in place, an EU market authorisation would be required to market a regulated product in GB (subject to any exceptions being agreed),” the FSA wrote. 

The EU had accepted there were “a limited number of areas where the UK will need to retain its own rules”, the agency wrote, but warned that these would only be agreed if they met EU conditions under a “common understanding” reached last May.

In February, the European Food Safety Authority set 2mg a day as the safe consumption level of CBD, and policymakers must take that into account when authorising products.  

“Most of the exemptions they are asking for do not fit with the conditions under the common understanding. The EU will always defend its standards,” said an EU diplomat.

However, EU officials say higher animal welfare standards were likely to be allowed. 

They also point out that exempted products would not be allowed in the EU, so British goods going to Northern Ireland would continue to be inspected to avoid the need for border controls on the island of Ireland itself. 

The UK government is being lobbied by multiple sectors for exceptions, including foodmakers, farmers and the chemical industry.

The UK’s lab-grown meat industry, which has made advances since Brexit thanks to a regulatory “sandbox” that allows companies to test new techniques for making products such as artificial foie gras, has also requested carve-outs to protect that progress.

The National Farmers’ Union, a UK lobby group, said it wants to protect precision-breeding technologies, which use gene editing, and a vaccine to combat tuberculosis in cattle which is being trialled in the UK.

The EU does not allow vaccines to be used against bovine TB and the NFU is urging the government to ensure that if the trials were successful it would not be barred from use.

The UK Cabinet Office said: “We are making a sovereign choice in the national interest to align in some areas where it makes sense to do so.

“The specific details . . . are still under negotiation. But we have been clear that there will be exceptions and carve-outs.”

The European Commission declined to comment.