You can get CBD almost anywhere these days, thanks to the popularity of the compound and loose regulations at state and federal levels. Unfortunately, for these exact reasons, you need to be careful where you get your CBD to ensure you aren’t buying something worthless or, worse, dangerous to your health and wellbeing.
Fortunately, CBD scammers tend to make it easy to identify bad products. Here are some red flags that should immediately send you shopping for CBD somewhere else.
Mysterious Sourcing
All CBD comes from the cannabis plant — but not all cannabis plants are created equal. Most reputable CBD comes from hemp, which is a type of cannabis bred to have naturally low THC levels. When CBD products are made from non-hemp cannabis, they must undergo significant refinement to reduce the THC level, which can degrade or eliminate the CBD. In the U.S., legally hemp must have .3 percent THC or less, which means CBD products made from U.S.-grown hemp won’t have enough THC to make you high.
CBD products that source from hemp grown in the U.S. tend to be higher quality than products sourced from other types of cannabis from other locations. However, if you can’t find any information about where a product’s CBD comes from, it is best to move along to a more transparent CBD product and company.
Mislabeled Products
At present, the cannabis industry is not terribly dissimilar from the Wild West, especially where CBD is concerned. Relatively unregulated, CBD and other cannabis businesses are generally free to make any claims about their products and label their products however they like. As you might expect, this can make buying the right products difficult for CBD beginners, and it can result in the spread of misinformation.
Not all products made from cannabis are the same, despite what some product manufacturers might suggest with their product labels. The most important distinction for CBD users is to recognize that CBD and hemp are not synonymous, though CBD products might be made from hemp. Additionally, products labeled with outrageous claims, like that CBD will cure serious disease, are not worth your time or money.
Absent Testing Results
Plenty of states require THC-containing cannabis products to undergo independent testing to reveal cannabinoid content — but the same isn’t necessarily true for CBD products. Again, the unregulated nature of the CBD industry means that many CBD companies can get away without proving their claims, so the companies that go out of their way to be transparent about the contents of their products are worth supporting. You should be able to find a product’s test results either on that product’s packaging or on the company website; if you can’t find any test results, you should move along to a different product.
Social Media Exclusivity
Many social media platforms now offer a way to buy and sell products without navigating away from their website. While this can be a convenient way to shop, it isn’t an ideal way to find reputable CBD products. Oftentimes, items sold on social media are scammy in one way or another; some products will never be delivered, and others aren’t even close to what their social media ads depict.
A good way to avoid being scammed by CBD on social media is to look for the CBD company outside of its social media profiles. If the product is marketed as exclusive to social media, you should look elsewhere for the CBD lotion or oil you want.
Missing Contact Info
Unscrupulous CBD companies don’t want to waste any money on customer service, especially because they know a large number of their customers will be dissatisfied. Thus, such companies often neglect to publish any contact information, so customers like you can’t bother them with complaints or refund requests. Even if you never use a CBD company’s contact info, you should be comforted by its presence on their product packaging or on their website.
Bad Ratings and Reviews
Finally, if you take no other factor into account, you should pay attention to a product’s ratings and reviews — particularly if they are bad. Companies can easily falsify positive reviews, paying individuals or building bots to submit five-star ratings fraudulently. But, if a product has a low star rating, it is likely to be genuinely bad. You should spend some time looking for ratings or reviews of CBD products you intend to buy, just to be certain consumers like you don’t deem them truly terrible.