Clearing cannabis: what’s allowed on air

Cannabis is (figuratively) on everyone’s lips, from Canada’s recent pledge to fully legalise the drug and the UK Government reviewing the use of medical cannabis, to the stratospheric rise around the world of marijuana-derived products.

A slew of news stories shows that emotions run ‘high’ when talking about the legality or otherwise of these products, but there are also now more and more ads for Cannabidiol (CBD) oil products and shops.

So how do the Clearance team make the tricky call on whether claims about these products can be approved for radio ads?

Our Senior Clearance Executive, Katherine Borrett, gives us her hot take on the topic:

“Many of these products can already be legally bought and sold – with several provisos. 

Firstly, and crucially, products must not be marketed as a medicine unless licensed for this use by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). To the best of our knowledge, there are currently no authorised health or medicinal claims for CBD.

This means that we are unable to approve any claims that a CBD product is:

• a medicine
• a treatment for illness, disease or pain
• or even a treatment in the general context of wellness

It also means that we need to check that websites referred to in ads do not market otherwise acceptable products in this way, otherwise the radio ad could arguably be indirectly promoting unacceptable claims.

Finally, whilst pure CBD is not controlled under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, if an advertiser is unable to satisfactorily prove that all controlled cannabinoids (e.g. the psychoactive substance THC) are completely removed in production and/or a trace of THC remains, we would need to seek further advice to determine the legal status of the product”

More from the Clearance team soon.