Are You Getting What You Paid For? CBD Product Testing Reveals Surprising Results

This article was originally published on Cannabis & Tech Today and appears here with permission.

Products infused with cannabidiol (CBD) are very popular these days, and widely available. Unfortunately, they are not always regulated properly. This is not to say that every CBD product on the market is harmful, however, there are still many unknowns when it comes to CBD products in different jurisdictions.

Some jurisdictions have taken steps to try to regulate CBD products, with varying degrees of success. Yet other markets, and certainly the marketplace for CBD products sold over the internet, have virtually no oversight.

As such, it should not surprise anyone to learn that a recent study determined that CBD percentages for many infused liquid products are often lower than advertised, which itself is an argument for (not against) regulating CBD products. Below is more information about it via a news release from NORML:

Leicestershire, United Kingdom: CBD-infused liquid products available in the United Kingdom typically contain lower percentages of CBD than are advertised on the products’ labeling, according to data published in the Journal of Cannabis Research.

Researchers affiliated with Loughborough University in England performed laboratory testing on 29 CBD-infused liquid products, including oils, drinks, and tinctures. Consistent with numerous other analyses of CBD-infused products from the United Kingdom, the United States, and elsewhere, investigators reported that few products contained CBD in concentrations that were consistent with the products’ labels.

“Few products had measured CBD concentrations within 10 percent of advertised concentrations, with most falling below advertised concentrations,” authors concluded.

“These findings may be indicative of poor manufacturing standards, or that CBD undergoes degradation in consumer products. This reinforces concerns over the quality of CBD-containing consumer products and may highlight the need for improved regulation of such products.”

Analyses of commercially available CBD products available in the United States have consistently determined that these products are of variable quality and potency, and that they often contain contaminants, adulterants, or elevated levels of heavy metals.

Nevertheless, these products remain unregulated by the FDA, which has thus far refused to take action to oversee either the manufacturing or the purity of CBD products.

Survey data compiled by the National Consumers League reports that more than eight in ten US voters desire greater federal regulatory oversight over the labeling and marketing of commercially available CBD products.

Full text of the study, “A comparison of advertised versus actual cannabidiol content of oils, aqueous tinctures, e-liquids and drinks purchased in the UK,” appears in the Journal of Cannabis Research. 

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