According to a new report published by Leafly this morning, the CBD market is plagued by inaccuracies, especially when it comes to the amount of this chemical compound present in products sold across the U.S., versus what labels say.
CBD: Unclear and Undefined
Javier Hasse – https://www.instagram.com/javierhasse/
“We are in a Goldilocks and the Three Bears moment when it comes to CBD and the CBD market. Some products have way too little CBD; some are delivering way too much; and some are delivering just the right amount. That’s what we found in our testing program,” Bruce Barcott, author of the report and senior editor at Leafly, said during an exclusive conversation.
The Study
The findings mentioned above derived from the independent testing of 47 popular CBD products; the tests were conducted by Leafly and Confidence Analytics, a Washington state-licensed cannabis lab. What they did was Google terms like “best CBD products” and “cheap CBD,” and purchased many of the products that showed up. They also bought some more products at national drugstore chains like Rite Aid and Walgreens, as well as independent grocery stores, convenience stores, gas stations, and even a surf shop.
“We are in a Goldilocks and the Three Bears moment when it comes to CBD and the CBD market. Some products have way too little CBD; some are delivering way too much; and some are delivering just the right amount.”
Among the key findings was that of one in three CBD products containing less than 80% of the CBD they claim to deliver.
Potency of CBD products
Leafly
Roughly half (25 of 47) of the products tested delivered on its CBD potency promises – and most were not precise, but within a 20% error margin.
Concerningly, 17% of the products tested contained more than 120% of the CBD their labels claimed they had. Imagine buying a product that claims to have 100mg of CBD and ends up having 130mg. Not good!
On the other hand, 19% of the products in question had less than 80% of the CBD they should have, according to their labels, while 11% of products had no CBD whatsoever.
It’s important to notice, however, that things are improving. When the FDA conducted the same study in 2016, they found that 77% of products in the market had a lot less CBD than they advertised — and often had none whatsoever.
The chart below clearly illustrates the most and least reliable products, ranging from tinctures and gummies, to capsules and waters, according to the latest Leafly report.
Products that were properly labeled
Leafly
“We had an inkling that some of the water products were not going to do well just because cannabis oil, or hemp oil, are lipids. And there’s a reason there’s a saying that oil and water don’t mix well. It’s really difficult to connect these two things together,” Barcott commented.
However, the Leafly team was very surprised with the results they obtained when they analyzed CBD-containing capsules. All of the tested products in this category had more CBD than they disclosed. While some had a little more CBD, others had up to 50% more than they said they had.
While this might not sound like an issue at first, it certainly is. CBD is not a soda or a bag of chips, where getting more than what you paid for is a good thing. In this case, getting more CBD than you need or want can have undesired effects, many of which we might still not even know of.
CBD is not a soda or a bag of chips, where getting more than what you paid for is a good thing.
„Patients, consumers aren’t looking for bonus CBD; they’re looking for reliability and the same dose time after time,” Barcott added, explaining precise dosing is key to finding the right amount of CBD to treat your particular ailment effectively.
I imagined many consumers would want to know: what is the peril of over dosing CBD, if I’m not going to overdose on it?
„The answer is we don’t know yet. And the key word there is, yet,” he explicated, adding he cannot tell people too much CBD is going to harm their health — but he can’t assure the opposite either.
The thing is, he concluded, companies taking the time to test their products and label them properly are more likely to be doing other things right, while companies mis-labeling their products are more likely to be messing up on other stages of the production and sourcing process as well. Think of it this way: cutting corners is usually not something you do on just one corner. You either do it, or you don’t.
As per ushe, The Simpsons put it better than anyone else: “If you cut every corner, it is really not so bad. Everybody does it, even mom and dad. If nobody sees it, then nobody gets mad.”
But hold your breath. Just like at the end of The Simpsons video above, cutting corners is not a solution. Things might fall out of place at any given time.
Having said this, the Leafly study did not only deliver bad news. Among a few positive results the study did arrive to were:
- None of the vape cartridges analyzed (not even counterfeit ones) contained vitamin E oil, which is currently considered to be the main culprit behind the outbreak of Vaping Associated Pulmonary Illness (or VAPI).
- None of the products tested had THC content above legally allowed levels.
How To Find Good CBD Products
Based on these results, the Leafly team put together a brief guide to help consumers better decide when buying CBD products:
- Always go to trusted retailers, which tend to specialize in these products. Think of it this way: if you buy a sandwich at a shoe store, chances are it isn’t great.
- Ask for third-party, independent lab test results. Usually, brands with transparent practices put a QR code on their products, which you can scan to se the results.
- Find established companies, versus unknown newcomers. Brands from early moving states like Colorado, California, Washington, Oregon, or Massachusetts tend to be better.
- Go with your gut: if the packaging looks bad, the product is likely equally not good.
- Organic sourcing always helps.
- Check out the consistency in each sort of product. Seems like gummies and tinctures are most reliable.
- The price is always an indicator. Products that are too cheap are more likely to fail on their CBD promises.
Here’s a list of the products Leafly tested and their results.
Tested CBD products and results
Leafly
By means of conclusion, Barcott said, “there’s a big challenge associated with working with this fairly new substance, CBD. A lot of companies are working with CBD sources that are new because the crop just became federally legal back in December; farmers are just growing their first hemp crops; a lot of companies are extracting this for the first time… And apparently it’s simply not easy to replicate dose, after dose, after dose of CBD. That’s not to say they don’t need to do it. This industry needs to improve.”