Thankfully the national hemp industry is starting to implement testing standards and some of the growers are already using third party testing to prove the cleanliness of their products
I was hesitant to try hemp products when they first became legal across the country. Since it was 2014, I was a little surprised to see CBD wax being sold at my local head shop. I asked the owner if it was legal, and he said “for now.” Thankfully that stayed true from that point moving forward. Now we have a robust hemp industry with a mix of both large commercial and small conneurseur businesses growing CBD flowers and selling hemp products. At the outset, this wasn’t the case. There were a lot of sketchy companies selling CBD products that were derived from hemp plants grown in large greenhouses with chemical pesticides. There were also hemp extracts on the market with residual solvents in them. Unless you lived in a state with medical cannabis products, you couldn’t be sure that your CBD was safe, clean, and effective. That’s because most states with medical cannabis programs force their growers and manufacturers to submit their products to third party lab tests. This is to check for purity and cleanliness, assuming that there aren’t stray pesticides, solvents, heavy metals, fungal spores, or any other nasty contaminants. Medical marijuana patients have to be assured that their cannabis products are safe to consume daily for their medical needs, and that includes CBD products as well. Thankfully the national hemp industry is starting to implement testing standards and some of the growers are already using third party testing to prove the cleanliness of their products. We have surely come a long way since 2014. It’s nice to have so many options for cannabis, even if you don’t live in a state with recreational or medical THC products.