Hemp hit one other roadblock in Brazil this week, because the Nationwide Well being Surveillance Company (ANVISA) requested the Superior Courtroom of Justice (STJ) for an extra six months to resolve whether or not to authorize hemp cultivation for medicinal functions — successfully pushing the choice again to March 31, 2026.

The request, filed by way of the Lawyer Normal’s Workplace (AGU), has pissed off researchers, farmers, and business advocates after years of missed deadlines and shifting positions. ANVISA didn’t comply with a September 30 deadline imposed by Justice Regina Helena Costa, who dominated in June that the company should both authorize or deny planting by the tip of September.

“The extension additional delays analysis improvement, which is worrying,” Daniela Bittencourt, govt secretary of a hemp committee at EMBRAPA, the Brazilian Agricultural Analysis Company, instructed the monetary web site Economia. “We have to advance regulation and set up a definition for different industrial makes use of of hemp, opening up alternatives for the agricultural sector to domesticate hashish for varied functions,”

Management change

Business observers steered {that a} current change on the high of ANVISA might have contributed to the company’s hesitation. Leandro Pinheiro Safatle took over as president solely final month, leaving him to make a politically delicate resolution on a controversial file with little time for preparation.

Anvisa mentioned its request for extra time displays the “technical complexity” of hashish cultivation and the necessity to develop dialogue with stakeholders. The company additionally signaled it could elevate the matter to the Council for Sustainable Financial and Social Growth — the “Conselhão,” which incorporates authorities officers, enterprise leaders, and civil society.

Billions at stake

Brazil is anticipated to spend greater than $150 million this 12 months on cannabinoid-based medicines, most of that are imported. A examine by suppose tank Instituto Escolhas initiatives the home market may develop sixfold by the early 2030s.

Rafael Arcuri, president of the Nationwide Industrial Hemp Affiliation, mentioned the delay undermines Brazil’s strategic pursuits. “Hemp manufacturing for medicinal and different makes use of is a matter of nationwide sovereignty, since we are able to produce APIs (lively pharmaceutical substances) from the plant,” he instructed Economia. “Brazil is very depending on imports of APIs. If there’s a struggle, for instance, we run a critical danger of medication shortages, and growing the business, together with hemp, is strategic.”

Regulatory saga

The deadlock follows years of turbulence for hemp in Brazil. In late 2024, the STJ dominated unanimously that low-THC hashish doesn’t fall underneath Brazil’s Narcotics Act and ordered ANVISA to ascertain laws inside six months. However simply days earlier than the Could 19, 2025 deadline, the company abruptly pulled the hemp merchandise from its agenda, citing a obscure “want for alignment.”

That transfer stoked fears that regulators meant to limit hemp to pharmaceutical channels, excluding industrial purposes reminiscent of textiles, meals, development supplies, and bioplastics. Stakeholders pointed to Uruguay and Colombia as examples of broader licensing methods that encourage a number of markets.

Bittencourt of Embrapa has lengthy argued that Brazil’s circumstances give it distinctive potential to guide globally in hemp manufacturing. “Brazil has all of the circumstances to be a significant hemp producer: appropriate local weather, fertile soils, and hundreds of thousands of hectares of degraded pastures that may very well be recovered with this crop. However the first problem is regulation,” she instructed HempToday in August.

Business coalitions ready

Amid the uncertainty, public, non-public, and nonprofit actors have continued making ready. Embrapa has partnered with Instituto Ficus and hashish accelerator The Inexperienced Hub in a challenge known as HempTech Brasil, aimed toward growing analysis and innovation to assist sustainable hemp manufacturing.

Instituto Ficus, based in 2020 to advocate for hashish regulation, has in the meantime pledged to convey the talk to the Conselhão in an effort to broaden the political dialog past well being and into industrial and financial dimensions.

Native experimentation

Regardless of federal inaction, some states have moved forward. Since final 12 months, São Paulo has allowed the distribution of cannabinoid-based medicines underneath the Unified Well being System for sufferers with uncommon epilepsies, reaching 580 households. State deputy Caio França, who authored the regulation, mentioned the federal authorities’s refusal to behave creates “an financial apartheid, wherein solely these with cash can afford these medicines.”

For now, the STJ has given no new deadline to Anvisa. Justice Regina Costa is anticipated to evaluate the company’s request, however stakeholders say one more extension underscores Brazil’s incapability to grab the alternatives of a hemp economic system.

“Each giant industries and household farmers can profit,” Bittencourt mentioned. “However with out the principles, none of that is doable.”