Is CBD legal in Romania?

Situación jurídica

CBD has been classified as a Novel Food across the EU since January 2019 (Regulation (EU) 2015/2283), and no CBD ingestible holds Union list authorisation anywhere in the EU.

CBD itself is not a controlled substance in Romania. It is not scheduled under Law 339/2005 on the regime of narcotic and psychotropic plants and substances, and Romania sets no CBD content limit in food. A court has confirmed the gap directly, recording that there is no specific Romanian legislation on the marketing of foods containing components or derivatives of Cannabis sativa, and no established minimum or maximum CBD or THC levels for food products.

What catches the product is not CBD but the THC that a full-spectrum extract necessarily carries. The prosecution service's stated position, endorsed by the courts, is that the authorised 0.20 per cent THC figure applies to the cannabis plant cultivated under authorisation and not to the finished product derived from it, so a product containing THC is a risk drug under Law 143/2000. Article 2 of that law criminalises delivery by any title, sending and transport of risk drugs; Article 3 criminalises introducing them into the country and importing them, with higher penalties. Those are the acts a cross-border seller performs.

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No.

Perspectivas

The Romanian position rests on how a criminal statute is read rather than on a decree that could simply be repealed, so changing it would take either a binding interpretive ruling from the High Court or new legislation. Neither is currently signalled.

The gap the courts themselves have pointed to is the thing to watch. Romanian judges convicting in these cases have repeatedly criticised the absence of any specific legislation on marketing foods containing cannabis derivatives, and that criticism is now more than a decade old. If Parliament ever fills the gap, that is the moment the position could move in either direction.

The other thing worth watching is whether any Romanian court departs from the current reading. We have not found one that has.

Cronología

January 2021

DIICOT and police conduct 23 searches across Brasov, Timis, Sibiu and Cluj counties against sellers and online distributors of hemp-derived products, seizing hemp-based food products among other items. DIICOT states that the authorised 0.20 per cent THC content applies to the cannabis plant cultivated under authorisation and not to the finished product derived from it, and that consequently any product containing THC falls within the notion of a risk drug and is caught by the criminal law.

Digi24, reporting DIICOT

Agosto de 2022

Tribunalul Brasov convicts a company of trafficking in risk drugs for selling CBD candies, hemp flowers and cannabis oil declared at a maximum of 0.2 per cent THC, imposing a fine of 22,000 lei. The court holds that the authorised 0.20 per cent THC content applies to the cannabis plant cultivated under authorisation and not to the finished product, and records that Romania has no specific legislation on the marketing of foods containing Cannabis sativa derivatives and no established minimum or maximum CBD or THC levels for food products.

NewsOnline, reporting Tribunalul Brasov