Ms Chris Allen:

No. EU Regulations 1307 and 1308 govern the operation of the agricultural markets in Europe. Regulation 1308 outlines the rules and regulations governing the cultivation of crops such as hemp. There are many requirements within those regulatory provisions. One is that a farmer must be choosing a seed form the EU novel food seed catalogue. All of those seeds are guaranteed to be below the 0.2% THC level. A farmer must also implement checks in fields and adhere to various stringent checks and balances to determine that the cultivation of the crop is in compliance with European regulations. The 0.2% level is in the EU regulations.

The basic decision of the European Court of Justice was as follows. France had tried to ban some cannabidiol, CBD, products made from hemp because it was illegal in France under the misuse of drugs laws to commercialise any part of the crop other than the seeds and fibre. The European Court of Justice ruled that hemp-derived CBD made from any part of the plant is a legal product protected by Article 34 of the Treaty of the Functioning of the EU, TFEU, and that no EU member state may prohibit the free marketing of trade in hemp made legally in any other EU member state. That was in 2020.