Hong Kong will ban cannabidiol (CBD) starting Wednesday, categorizing it a “dangerous drug” and mandating harsh penalties for its importation, production and possession, customs authorities said yesterday.
Supporters have said that CBD treats a range of ailments including anxiety and that, unlike its more famous cousin, THC — which is already illegal in Hong Kong — CBD does not get users high.
Derived from the cannabis plant, CBD was previously legal in Hong Kong, where bars and shops sold products containing it.
Photo: Bloomberg
However, Hong Kong authorities last year prohibited the substance — a change that is to take effect next week.
Residents were given three months from Oct. 27 to dispose of their CBD products in special boxes set up around the territory.
“Starting from February 1, cannabidiol, aka CBD, will be regarded as a dangerous drug and will be supervised and managed by the Dangerous Drugs Ordinance,” Hong Kong senior intelligence analyst Au-Yeung Ka-lun (歐陽嘉倫) said at a news conference.
“As of then, transporting CBD for sale, including import and export, as well as producing, possessing and consuming CBD, will be illegal,” Au-Yeung said.
Penalties include up to life in prison and HK$5 million (US$638,579) in fines for importing, exporting or producing CBD.
Possession of the substance can result in a sentence of up to seven years and HK$1 million in fines.
In announcing the ban last year, the Hong Kong government cited the difficulty of isolating pure CBD from cannabis, the possibility of contamination with THC during the production process and the relative ease by which CBD can be converted to THC.
“We will tackle all kinds of dangerous drugs from all angles and all ends, and the intelligence-led enforcement action is our major goal,” Hong Kong Airport Command divisional commander Chan Kai-ho told reporters yesterday.
Despite the harsh penalties mandated, Chan said authorities would handle enforcement on a case-by-case basis and “seek legal advice from our Department of Justice to determine what the further actions will be.”
Hong Kong maintains several categories of “dangerous drugs,” which include “hard drugs” such as heroin and cocaine, as well as cannabis.
Hong Kong’s first CBD cafe opened in 2020, and the ban would force scores of businesses to remove CBD-infused candies, drinks and other products, or shut down altogether.
The ban is in keeping with a zero tolerance policy toward recreational drugs in Hong Kong and mainland China, where CBD was banned last year.
Chinese authorities have waged battles against heroin and methamphetamines, particularly in southwest areas bordering on the drug-producing Golden Triangle region spanning parts of Laos, Myanmar and Thailand.
Criminal penalties for sale and usage are also enforced for cannabis.
In one of the most high-profile cases, Jaycee Chan (房祖名), the son of Hong Kong action star Jackie Chan (成龍), served a six-month sentence in 2014 and 2015 for allowing people to consume cannabis in his Beijing apartment.
At the same time, China has been a main source of the precursor chemicals used in the manufacture of the dangerous drug fentanyl, a trade often facilitated through social media.
A wealthy Asian financial center with a thriving commercial port and major international airport, Hong Kong is a key point of entry to China as well as a market for some drugs, especially cocaine.
Police recently seized hundreds of kilograms of the drug, some of it hidden in a shipment of chicken feet from Brazil.
Most Asian nations maintain strict drug laws and enforce harsh penalties for violators, including the death penalty, with the exception of Thailand, which made it legal to cultivate and possess cannabis last year.
Debate over CBD policy continues in many countries and regions.
Cannabis-derived products have become increasingly popular in lotions, tinctures and foods.
While their legal status has been murky in the US, several US states and other countries have legalized or decriminalized such substances.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) removed former minister of foreign affairs Qin Gang (秦剛) from his post after an investigation concluded that he had conducted an affair and fathered a child while serving as ambassador to the US, the Wall Street Journal reported. Top officials were told in August that a CCP inquiry into Qin uncovered “lifestyle issues,” the newspaper reported yesterday, citing people familiar with the situation that it did not describe. That phrase usually means sexual misbehavior of some type in the parlance of Chinese officialdom. Two of the people said the affair led to the birth of a child in
GUNNED DOWN: The Canadian PM said there were credible allegations that India was connected to the assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey on June 18 India yesterday dismissed allegations that its government was linked to the killing of a Sikh activist in Canada as “absurd,” expelling a senior Canadian diplomat and accusing Canada of interfering in India’s internal affairs. It came a day after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau described what he called credible allegations that India was connected to the assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, an advocate of Sikh independence from India who was gunned down on June 18 outside a Sikh cultural center in Surrey, British Columbia, and Canada expelled a top Indian diplomat. “Any involvement of a foreign government in the killing of a
LOST BATTLE: The Varroa mite, which Canberra has called the ‘most serious pest’ to face bees, would cause serious economic damage, an ecologist said Australia yesterday abandoned its fight to eradicate the destructive Varroa mite, an invasive parasite responsible for the collapse of honeybee populations across the planet. Desperate to keep Varroa out of the country, authorities have destroyed more than 14,000 infected beehives since the tiny red-brown pest was first detected north of Sydney in June last year. The government said its US$64 million eradication plan could not stop the mite from spreading, and the country’s beekeepers should now prepare to live with the incursion. “The recent spike in new detections have made it clear that the Varroa mite infestation is more widespread and has
COP28 AGENDA: Beijing’s climate envoy said that China was open to negotiating a global renewable energy target as long as it took economic conditions into account The complete phasing-out of fossil fuels is not realistic, China’s top climate official said on Thursday, adding that such fuels must continue to play a vital role in maintaining global energy security. Chinese Special Envoy on Climate Change Xie Zhenhua (解振華) was responding to comments by ambassadors at a forum in Beijing ahead of the UN’s COP28 climate meeting in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, in November. Reporters obtained a copy of text of Xie’s speech and a video recording of the meeting. Countries are under pressure to make more ambitious climate pledges after a UN-led global “stocktake” said that 20 gigatonnes of additional