The cannabis oil company run by former Olympic boxer Anthony Fowler and backed by a string of ex-footballers has broken advertising rules for the third time in two years, by suggesting that clinically diagnosed mental health patients come off anti-depressants and use products like his instead.
The Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) ruled on Wednesday that Fowler’s Supreme CBD firm – whose ‘influencers’ were criticised for name-checking its products in tweets about Ricky Hatton’s death last month – had actively discouraged people with mental illness from seeking essential treatment for those conditions.
All Britain’s leading mental health charities, including MIND, Rethink Mental Health and SANE, advise against using CBD oil as an alternative to medically prescribed antidepressants. But Fowler’s Supreme CBD firm used the case of a follower who had been on anti-depressants for 19 years to suggest that their oils are preferable.
One contributor to the advert said of antidepressants: ‘They numb your emotions, so you feel not happy, not sad. None of it delivers it. I wouldn’t recommend antidepressants at all. I’d recommend you to come off them and I’d recommend CBD.’
The ASA reminded Fowler that companies should not discourage essential treatment for conditions for which medical supervision should be sought – or claim products can ‘prevent, treat or cure’ disease and illness.
This follows ASA rulings which censured Fowler and ‘ambassadors’ Matt Le Tissier and John Hartson last year. One of the ads which breached ASA rules last year also claimed that Fowler’s products could treat or cure anxiety and depression, as well as insomnia.
Fowler has removed the latest offending Instagram video, posted in May, in which two people discussed CBD oil and anti-depressants. But the suggestion that people with profound mental illness disregard antidepressants concerns many working in that field, where established medicines are key to preventing self-harm and suicide. At the opening of an inquest into Hatton’s death earlier this month, it was revealed that he had been found dead at his home by his manager, with a ligature around his neck.
Repeated breaches of advertising rules can see the ASA work with social media platforms and search engines to remove a company’s material. The ASA can also refer serial offenders to Trading Standards, who have the power to prosecute through the courts.
But how much appetite there is to tackle the sham claims is unclear. As yet, the ASA is the only regulatory body taking any action against a pattern of behaviour which has seen Fowler say his oils can work on children who have fits and be a less distressing alternative to chemotherapy.
Daily Mail Sport’s attempts to discuss the case with Liverpool City Council’s Trading Standards department raise questions about whether they have any interest in pursuing it.
The grounds for them doing so include Fowler’s claim that children should be given his CBD products. That is an apparent breach of food safety law, since the Food Standards Agency (FSA) lists under-18s as a ‘vulnerable group’ for whom CBD oils are not safe.
The FSA told us it urges anyone suspect a food business of selling unsafe food to report it to their local authority to investigate and take any necessary enforcement action.
Though Supreme CBD is a Liverpool company – based in the city’s Norfolk Street – the city council told us that it might be an issue for Trading Standards in the London borough where Supreme CBD has a registered office.
The council indicated that its Trading Standards department could examine the content of packages and pass on any concerns to London. The content of these products are not the issue – but, rather, Fowler’s suggestion that children take them.
Liverpool City Council has not responded to our request for comment on the third ASA ruling involving Fowler’s company.
Those with a knowledge of alternative medicine ask why Fowler and his company are not being investigated for his claims about autism, tumours and seizures, which may persuade impressionable followers to turn their back on proven and life-saving medicines.
The Chartered Trading Standards Institute referred us to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), whose ‘regulation 8’ rules forbid CBD oil companies like Fowler’s – which sell supplements, not medicines – from making any kind of ‘medicinal claim.’ The MHRA have not yet responded to our request for comment.
The MHRA told us on Wednesday: ‘If these are being sold as a food product, I believe this would be for the Food Standards Agency rather than us.’
In his latest Instagram post, Fowler suggests one of his oils can treat insomnia, anxiety, arthritis and a body pain condition called Fibromyalgia. He does so in the course of promoting 24,000mg bottles of his oils which usually retail at £229.
