CBD, the medicine derived from the flowers of the hemp plant, may treat a range of ailments with almost no side effects. When CBD is safe, it can be an incredibly helpful and versatile component of your health and wellness regimen.
With so many CBD products on the shelves, you may assume that all CBD is equally safe and effective. It’s a wellness product, right? Unfortunately, not always. CBD can contain pesticides, heavy metals, or dangerous solvents.
Your expensive dropper bottle of CBD oil from the health food store may not contain any CBD at all!
In this post, we’ll talk about what makes some CBD unsafe to take, how to read a CBD label to be sure you’re getting safe CBD, and at the end, I’ll even give you a discount code so you can check out my favorite, high-quality CBD and save yourself from the expensive guessing game.
What makes some CBD unsafe?
There are two important things to know about CBD before you buy, which affect why some CBD is safe and while another CBD is not safe:
(1) The CBD market is unregulated.
There is no one in charge – not the FDA, not the DEA, not the USDA, not your state Department of Health, no one in charge – is vetting the quality, purity, or dosage of CBD products before they hit the shelves.
No one in charge even has a uniformly accepted standard for the quality, purity, or dosage of CBD products. The 2018 Farm Bill reserved the authority of the FDA to regulate these products, it is not yet doing so in any meaningful way.
In stark contrast to states in which THC-containing cannabis is legal, and strict regulations dictate every day of the plant’s life from seed to sale, the feds and states are building the CBD plane while flying it, as they say. Except that in this case, the plane is being ingested by millions of Americans nationwide, with unknown and potentially dangerous results.
(2) Hemp is a bioaccumulator.
This means that the hemp plant is very good at sucking up biologic compounds from the soil and storing them within the plant. That is an absolute boon for ecological purposes. In fact, there are fields of hemp planted at the site of the Chernobyl nuclear facility in Ukraine to help clean up the soil at the site.
And if you were going to use that hemp for cloth, paper, building materials, or any other industrial purpose, you would take it as a two-fer: profitable biomass and cleaner soil taboot.
However, if that pesticide-laden hemp that has bioaccumulated all the compounds in the soil is then concentrated and ingested in the human (or pet) body, it’s not hard to imagine how toxic that can be.
Hemp that is used to make CBD is also frequently imported into the U.S. from other countries, where it’s often grown in poor soil conditions with similarly unregulated pesticides, further compounding the risk of buying CBD from unknown sources.
So how can I find CBD that is safe and healthy?
There are many CBD growers and CBD producers dedicated to growing high-quality, organic hemp, free of harmful substances and designed for use as CBD. These producers take great pains to separate themselves from the rest of the market by including specific information on their CBD labels.
But again, because there are no regulations dictating what needs to be on the labels, you the consumer need to know what to look for when buying CBD.
How to read a CBD label
CBD labels are often written in a font so minuscule that you need to bring your jeweler’s loupe along with you to read them, so many people skip that step. But it is crucial. As you’re peering, here is what the label needs to include:
Make sure the CBD you buy is grown “using organic growing practices,” and comes with a “Certificate of Analysis,” or “COA.”
Organic growing practices ensure they don’t use pesticides or chemical solvents, the COA is the lab test that proves its safety.
The COA is issued by an independent third-party testing lab and contains troves of information about CBD safety: the harvest date, the presence and levels of pesticides, mold, heavy metals, and other contaminants, and the percentage of CBD, THC, and other cannabinoids. With the COA, you have an assurance of the quality, purity, and dosage of your CBD.
Sometimes the COA is shown as a QR code. Don’t be afraid to scan that guy and read through it, nerd out. This is your health after all.
Also, it’s best to choose products labeled “Broad-Spectrum CBD” over “CBD Isolate,” as they are closest to whole-plant medicine (i.e. they include the “spectrum” of cannabinoids, beneficial cannabis plant compounds) and provide the most healing benefit.
“Full-Spectrum” CBD is like “Broad-Spectrum” but also includes a small amount of THC. This can be beneficial, as a small amount of THC helps the CBD be more effective. But note that even a tiny amount of THC may cause you to fail a required drug test, so purchase mindfully.
It may take 1-2 weeks for CBD to build up in your system before you start feeling great. Track your dose and timing to determine what works for you.
My Favorite Safe and Healthy CBD: HealerCBD
I have tried SO. MANY. CBD products on the market, with mixed results. Sometimes I don’t feel anything, sometimes I feel too much.
What I want is a mental calm and focus that helps me throughout my workday. I don’t want to feel high all day, and I also don’t want to be stuck in the anxiety loop my mind loves to spin.
What I don’t want is to throw my money away on a little bottle of CBD oil that contains way less CBD than the label says, or maybe none at all.
So I was thrilled when I saw that Dr. Dustin Sulak, an endocannabinoid specialist and well-known figure in the cannabis industry, created his own line of CBD!
HealerCBD is doctor-formulated, organic, non-GMO, lab-tested, and includes a specially developed spectrum of cannabis plant compounds.
It comes with a COA that shows it’s free from pesticides, mold, and other toxins, and actually has the amount of CBD the label claims.
And it actually works! My search is over!
I use the 6:1 CBD:CBDa oil daily. It gives me the non-impairing mental calm and focus I’ve been looking for. And it works at smaller doses than any other brand I’ve tried, which saves me money.
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STILL HAVE QUESTIONS ABOUT WHICH CBD IS RIGHT FOR YOU?
If you want personalized advice on finding the right CBD products for you, including information on dosing and timing, click HERE to book a 1:1 Cannabis Consultation with me!
You’ll get 2 sessions plus a Customized Cannabis Guide that includes everything you need so you can start feeling better with CBD.
️ by Cannabizsites.com |