CBD Products: Are You Getting Your Money’s Worth?
Cannabidiol, one of the major chemical components of the cannabis plant, has been in very high demand these past few years for its purported health benefits such as pain relief, helping with anxiety disorders, restoring appetite, among many others. However according to a recent study by the University of Pennsylvania where they tested CBD products from several different purveyors to confirm their potency, over two thirds of the products involved in the study were not properly labeled with regards to their actual CBD content.
Many of the products tested were shown to have a significantly different concentration of CBD than advertised which brings into question the overall quality control and effectiveness of their products. This is potentially terrible news for cannabis enthusiasts that use CBD products on a regular basis and can pose a significant concern for those that rely on these types of products for medical reasons.
The university’s study tested over eighty CBD products purchased online from over thirty different purveyors and concluded that less than one third of them were appropriately labeled. More than a quarter of the products tested, which included oils, tinctures, and concentrates contained less CBD than their labels indicated. Some of the other discrepancies found by the study included:
43% contained more CBD than the label claimed
26% contained less CBD than promised
31% were within 10 percentage points of the promise
These significant variances in potency can be especially startling to those that use CBD as a means to treat a number of different medical conditions. Unfortunately despite the substance not being psychoactive in any way whatsoever, the United States government has classified CBD as a Schedule I substance along with cannabis. This status sadly leaves very little room for quality control outside of locations where marijuana has been legalized. This reality has many fearing that it will lead to further issues with how the products are being labelled, ultimately resulting in unscrupulous online retailers potentially taking advantage of their unknowing clients.
However, like most medicines and supplements that they try to oversee, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has issued warnings to several CBD manufacturers regarding their products’ alleged health benefits since the FDA currently believes that CBD has not been through enough scientific overview to be substantiate their claims. This might seem like a step in the right direction for most except for the fact that just recently the United States government has called for CBD to be illegal in states where marijuana has not been officially legalized, thereby significantly curbing the number of future studies that would finally help cement CBD’s usefulness and versatility as a medicine.
We highly recommend that you do your homework on any CBD purveyors as well as consider any available feedback from their clients in order to make sure that you are getting the products you are wanting and paying for. What do you think can be done by manufacturers to ensure that CBD and related products are correctly labeled since the FDA will not step in at this point?
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cannabidiolCannabinoidCBD productsFDA cannabisFDA marijuanaFDA weedweed news
