CBD Oracle Tests Hemp Products
CBD Oracle, a consumer research company focused on cannabis products, purchased and tested 56 hemp products selected from the Amazon website. These products are also sold at major retailers like Walmart, Alibaba, and eBay. The lab testing to determine product content found a significant discrepancy between what the label said and the actual content. Also, half of the products made unapproved medical claims. The following is a summary of the report.
Amazon’s policy is that CBD products cannot be sold on its platform except for CBD topical creams and lotions. CBD Oracle did a simple search on Amazon for CBD gummies, and the results found numerous products labeled as hemp and promising benefits like promoting sleep. The 2018 Farm Bill allows any cannabis product made with the Cannabis sativa plant that has less than 0.3% delta-9 THC to be labeled as hemp.
The 56 hemp products purchased on Amazon included 45 gummies, eight tinctures, two topical creams and one mint pack. All the products were sent to InfiniteCal Labs for testing for cannabinoids. Any products that did not contain cannabinoids were sent for additional testing to determine exactly what they contained. Five products were also tested for pesticides, mycotoxins, heavy metals, solvents, microbials, and foreign materials. CBD Oracle also investigated the marketing of the products, looking for the COA and whether medical claims were made.
The results were as follows.
- 30% of the products contained CBD, with an amount ranging from 28 mg to 1,582 mg of CBD in a package
- 62.5% of the products contained no cannabinoids
- 43% had no hemp
- Six products contained detectable THC, and three had a high THC amount
- 96% of products did not specify a dosage, or the dosage information was inaccurate in terms of cannabinoids per dose
- 95% of the products did not have a COA
- 52% of product pages made medical claims
The products with THC had mostly delta-8 THC, which is illegal in many states. The highest amount of THC in a package was 3,028 mg. The gummy with the highest potency had 76 mg of THC in a single gummy.
The report states,
“The widespread availability of poorly-disguised CBD on the marketplace and the lack of action on multiple reports we made throughout this investigation reveals that enforcement is either not a priority or is in serious need of more resources.”
Ironically, the researchers also found through interviews with sellers that “Sellers who opt to be honest about the contents of their products appear to be at greater risk for enforcement actions than those who obfuscate the truth.”
The CBD industry has been asking for government regulation of CBD products for years. One reason is that lack of regulation makes it too easy for falsely labeled, low-quality products to inundate the markets. This is another reminder of the importance of consumers buying their hemp and CBD products from companies with a proven reputation for honesty and transparency and makes each product’s Certificate of Analysis easy to access.
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