FDA Will Use Reddit To Learn More About Cannabis-Derived Products Including CBD And Delta 8

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that it plans to use Reddit and other data sources to gain a better understanding of public health issues surrounding use of CBD and other cannabis-derived products (CDP).

“FDA also needs information about general patterns of product use and emerging trends—and it needs this information in close to real time, so that the FDA can deploy its limited resources quickly and effectively,” the agency said in a report it recently published on its new Cannabis-Derived Products Data Acceleration Plan. “The FDA believes that new approaches to detecting safety signals and other insights using diverse data sources and rigorous analytical methods can contribute significantly to FDA’s ability to respond to emerging and rapidly evolving product areas, like the CDP market.”

The FDA defines the Cannabis-Derived Products Data Acceleration Plan (DAP) as a “portfolio of pilot initiatives and partnerships focused on advancing data-driven safety signal detection.”

According to the agency’s website the DAP leverages novel data sources and advanced data analytics to identify current and emerging safety vulnerabilities in the CDP market to evaluate consumer vulnerabilities.

One of the sample pilot projects listed in the DAP aims to identify safety issues with cannabis products via online data, using sources like Reddit and “consumer reviews,” which can “complement traditional systems or identify issues that may not be easily captured via traditional systems.”

Other sample projects seek to analyze online certificates of analysis via the FDA’s CBD product sampling project and understanding of the cannabis market, including CBD and Delta-8 THC market landscape to enforce regulations.

Other cannabis-derived compounds the agency is interested in learning about include delta-10 tetrahydrocannabinol (delta-10 THC), cannabinol (CBN), tetrahydrocannabivarin (THCV) and cannabigerol (CBG).