Barron’s points out that hemp, and its soothing extract CBD, has been sprouting everywhere since Congress decriminalized the innocuous strain of cannabis in December.

Analysts at Cowen & Co. foresee several billions worth of sales for an industry of hemped-up cosmetics, clothes, and nutritional supplements, Barron’s reported.

In what’s shaping up to be a crowded field, hard to find obvious winners. “You are going to see a Wild West environment for a while,” said Joe Dowling, CEO of the CBD supplement seller CV Sciences (CVSI).

While the Farm Bill got hemp out from under the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Food and Drug Administration views food safety laws as still barring hemp or CBD additives.

In 2018, U.S. consumers spent an estimated $300 million on CBD food and drinks, according to a report by Cowen Washington Research Group. The Coca-Cola Company and other food giants have expressed interest in the sector.

The 2018 Farm Bill, enacted in December, was intended in part to clear up the legal status of CBD by legalizing cannabis extracts derived from strains of the plant, known as hemp, that contain very low concentrations of THC, the main psychoactive compound in marijuana.

But the law also created new confusion for businesses wanting to sell CBD food or drink. For some, it is impossible to follow one set of regulations without being in breach of another.

Consumer interest in CBD tinctures, topical creams and edibles has grown in recent years in step with the piecemeal legalization of marijuana, which is now permitted as either a medical or recreational drug in 33 states while still banned by the federal government.

Here are three companies that are hip to hemp, according to Barron’s.

• GW Pharmaceuticals (GWPH), which taken the high road by sponsoring successful placebo-controlled trials of its CBD-based drug Epidiolex.
• Charlotte’s Web (CWBHF) has grown sales and profits with an oil extracted from its high-CBD variety of hemp.
• Curaleaf Holdings (CURLF) is the first U.S. cannabis producer to get its hemp products on the shelves of a national chain.

To be sure, a cloud of confusion is hanging over the hemp industry in the wake of the farm bill.

New York state officials told food growers and processors in mid-December that they had the state’s blessing to produce and sell tea and chocolates laced with CBD, the cannabis derivative reputed to ease anxiety and other ills without marijuana’s high, Reuters explained.

But since then, New York City health inspectors have seized thousands of dollars worth of CBD-infused food and drinks at the Fat Cat Kitchen and other local cafes and restaurants, and warned owners to stop selling them or face penalties. The crackdown came just weeks after federal law explicitly made CBD legal across the country.

The New York City crackdown highlights the inconsistencies that have emerged in federal, state and local rules governing CBD, bewildering the small but growing number of businesses selling edibles in New York and other states.

“I’m trying to be compliant with the law, but no one seems to be fully aware of what the law is and isn’t,” said C.J. Holm, the owner of the Fat Cat Kitchen, which touts CBD coffee and cookies on a sidewalk chalkboard.

Holm, in consultation with a lawyer, noted that the FDA bans CBD being added to food for “interstate commerce,” and reasons she is fine to sell CBD coffee so long as the extract is produced and processed in New York.

“It is so confusing because you can ask three different attorneys and get three different answers,” said Allan Gandelman, a farmer in Cortland who founded the New York Cannabis Growers and Processors Association earlier this year. “So you decide you’re going to blaze a path forward, and produce a product that customers really want, and go for it until the government gets its act together.”

• FDA Casts Shadow on Hemp Win, Calling CBD Products Illegal 
• Hemp Becoming Top Issue In Farm Bill