DEA overstepped with hemp rule, advocates argue in latest legal filing

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration was out of line when it adopted an extraction rule that would criminalize common methods of CBD production, hemp advocates told a federal judge this week in its opening statement about its 2020 lawsuit challenging the rule.

The Hemp Industries Association told a federal judge in an opening brief that the U.S. Department of Agriculture, not the DEA, should be in charge of regulating extraction.

“The conflict here affects practices — hemp production and activities ‘related to hemp production’ — that lie at the very heart of the activity that the 2018 Farm Bill sought to place in the hands of USDA,” the group argued.

South Carolina CBD maker RE Botanicals joined HIA in challenging the rule. Law 360 first reported the opening brief.