What is hemp? The same plant as cannabis — the line is legal
On Gotland the plant still stands green when summer ends — the annual herb with palmate leaves, an angular stalk and a scent no one mistakes for anything else. Cannabis sativa L. The same Latin name that carries hemp through Swedish fields also carries what the law calls a narcotic. It is not two plants. It is one plant and one law.
The confusion is not new. It has followed the plant through its entire documented history. As craftsmen working hemp from Gotland, we meet it every week — in conversations with customers, with regulators, with curious neighbours. Here we untangle the botany, the law, and the three application areas the legislation treats differently.
One species
Botanically, Cannabis sativa L. is a single species in the family Cannabaceae — the same family as hops (Humulus). Plants of the World Online at Kew Royal Botanic Gardens lists the species as accepted and places within it a handful of subspecies and varieties, but the principal taxon is one.
”Hemp” and ”cannabis” are therefore not two species. They are the same plant. What humans have done with it — selected it for fibre, for seed or for high cannabinoid content — does not change the species. It changes what the law permits.
A word we do not use
The term ”marijuana” is common in everyday speech. It is not a botanical name and not a Swedish or European legal term. It was introduced into US legislation by the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 — a political campaign that deliberately replaced the medical name cannabis (the plant stood in the US Pharmacopoeia until 1942) with a foreign-sounding word, in order to distance the plant from its established role as medicine and industrial raw material. The legal history of that legislation is well documented in Bonnie & Whitebread’s The Marihuana Conviction (1974).
The legal terminology in the UN narcotics conventions is cannabis. The Swedish legal term is cannabis or *plant material of Cannabis sativa. The agronomic term for EU-approved varieties below the threshold is industrial hemp*. ”Marijuana” is none of these categories — it is a political inheritance from a specific American prohibition campaign. We do not use it in Helsama’s texts.
The legal line
The dividing line between an agricultural crop and the plant material covered by Sweden’s Narcotic Drugs Act is a single number: the level of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) in the dry plant. It is set by law, not by biology. THC is the cannabinoid that causes intoxication. The others — primarily CBD, but also CBG, CBN and dozens more — do not.
The EU threshold. Regulation (EU) 1308/2013 (Annex I, Part IV) and Regulation (EU) 2021/2115 (Article 4) set the THC limit for industrially cultivated hemp at no more than 0.3 % of the plant’s dry weight. Varieties above the threshold are no longer classified as industrial hemp and may not be cultivated under the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy.
The variety list. Only hemp varieties listed on the EU’s Common Catalogue of Varieties of Agricultural Plant Species may be commercially grown. The catalogue is updated annually.
Sweden’s application. The Swedish Board of Agriculture (Jordbruksverket) administers the agricultural support for industrial hemp cultivation in Sweden. Cultivation requires notification, seed certification, and in practice flowering-stage inspection. Cross the THC threshold and the support is forfeited; the crop risks destruction.
The narcotics line. The Swedish Public Health Agency (Folkhälsomyndigheten) classifies plant material of Cannabis sativa as narcotics under the Narcotic Drugs (Punishment) Act (1968:64), except for seed and hemp products from approved EU varieties below 0.3 % THC. The Supreme Court of Sweden’s ruling B 177-19 (2019) confirmed this delineation in case law.
The 0.3 % threshold is a political decision point, not a biological boundary. The plant does not know where the law draws the line. The same species stands on both sides of it.
Hemp’s three application areas
One plant — three industrial tracks. Each with its own framework.
1. Fibre and industry
The hemp stalk consists of long, durable bast — the fibre that for several thousand years has been woven into sails, rope and cloth, and that today appears in textile, building insulation, bioplastics and composite materials. At Nordic find-sites from the Viking and early medieval periods, hemp fibre has been identified in preserved textiles — a recurring material in Nordic craft, not a fallback.
Modern industrial use is regulated under standard product and chemicals legislation without special cannabinoid restrictions, because the fibre process separates out the flower and leaf material.
2. Seed and seed cake as food
Hemp seed is an established food in Europe long before 1997 and therefore does not fall under the EU’s Novel Food Regulation (EU) 2015/2283. This means hulled seeds, whole seeds and cold-pressed hemp oil are conventional foods that can be freely sold — provided the THC content of the final product stays below national thresholds.
Hemp seed cake — what remains after cold-pressing of oil — is a concentrated protein source in Western food production. Pollen and seed records from European sediments place hemp’s presence on the continent well before recorded history.
3. CBD products
The third branch is the extraction of cannabidiol (CBD) and other non-intoxicating cannabinoids from the flower and leaf material. Here we move into a different regulatory landscape.
CBD-rich hemp extracts were classified in 2019 by the European Commission as Novel Food under Regulation (EU) 2015/2283. To be sold as food in the EU, prior authorisation by the Commission following EFSA evaluation is required. No such authorisation has yet been granted for CBD intended for consumption. This is the legal position France’s DGAL applied to its home market on 15 May 2026.
In Sweden, the Medical Products Agency (Läkemedelsverket) considers CBD products with claimed physiological action to fall under pharmaceuticals legislation, and the Swedish Food Agency (Livsmedelsverket) Kontrollwiki confirms the Novel Food status of CBD-rich hemp extracts. CBD as a cosmetic ingredient is regulated separately under the Cosmetics Regulation (EC) 1223/2009.
Hemp seed products and CBD products are therefore two separate legal categories — not a sliding scale of the same thing.
Hemp’s status in Sweden 2026
Sweden has one of the most restrictive approaches to cannabis in Europe. It also has a long hemp tradition. Between 1942 and 1952, around 2,000 hectares of hemp were cultivated each year in the country, before an international narcotics prohibition in 1964 swept away a centuries-old cultivation tradition in a single generation.
In practice, today’s framework means the following for Swedish consumers:
- Hemp seed, hulled seed, hemp oil and seed cake — sold freely as food when derived from approved EU varieties below the THC threshold.
- Hemp products for textile, insulation, cosmetics — sold freely under general product and chemicals legislation.
- CBD-rich extracts intended for consumption — lack Novel Food authorisation and therefore may not be marketed as food in Sweden.
- Flower and leaf material above 0.3 % THC — narcotics under the Narcotic Drugs Act, regardless of origin.
Between these categories there is a grey zone where companies, regulators and consumers move every day. Understanding that the difference is legal — not botanical — is the first step in navigating it.
Helsama’s place in the picture
We craft hemp from Gotland. Our focus is on seed-based foods and Premium Hemp Powder (flower powder cleared by the Estonian authority for sale under EU free movement). All products are third-party tested for cannabinoid profile — that is the panel we can show, and that is the panel we discuss. No health claims, no recommendations a regulator might read as medical. The hemp speaks through its own history, not through claims we have no right to make.
To follow hemp’s Nordic history further back in time — to seeresses, Vikings and the coastal Komsa people — we have gathered it into a free e-book at helsama.se/hampa.
Sources
- Plants of the World Online — Cannabis sativa L. (Kew Royal Botanic Gardens)
- Regulation (EU) 1308/2013 — Common Market Organisation
- Regulation (EU) 2021/2115 — CAP Strategic Plans
- Swedish Board of Agriculture — Industrial hemp cultivation
- Livsmedelsverket Kontrollwiki — Cannabis and CBD
- Folkhälsomyndigheten — Narcotics classification
- Läkemedelsverket — CBD products
- Supreme Court of Sweden, B 177-19 (2019)
- Bonnie, Richard J. & Whitebread, Charles H., The Marihuana Conviction: A History of Marihuana Prohibition in the United States, University Press of Virginia, 1974.
Daniel Johansson grundade Helsama OÜ. Se Ägarskap och transparens för svenskahampas relation till Helsama.