Does CBD Oil Come Up in a Drug Test?

Cannabidiol or CBD oil is a popular product for everything from promoting sleep to pain control that is gaining more loyal fans with each passing day. However, its rise creates concerns about whether an individual taking CBD oil may fail a drug test due to CBD oil detection. So does CBD oil come up in a drug test? What are the odds, and how can you prevent it? All these questions and more are answered right below.

Is CBD Oil THC-Free?

Urine drug tests will detect cannabis (specifically, the active chemical in marijuana that causes a person to get high, called THC), among other substances such as opiates, cocaine, amphetamines, and alcohol. In general, CBD oil products should not cause you any trouble if undergoing a drug test simply because they do not contain significant amounts of THC. Nevertheless, some CBD oil products contain low quantities of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) or THC metabolites that could make you fail a drug test.

Whether your CBD oil is THC-free depends on various factors such as the cannabis source that has been used to produce the product at hand. For example, cannabis derived from hemp is nearly THC free. In fact, a cannabis strain can be classified as hemp only if it contains less than 3% THC. For that reason, hemp is legally sold nowadays as various products. A CBD oil product, on the other hand, made from the marijuana plant, is rich in THC.

The extraction technique also plays a role in whether you fail a drug test or not when using a CBD oil product. This is because the active CBD particles can get processed as an isolate (a pure compound with no cannabinoids or other active compounds) or full spectrum oil (contains cannabinol, THC, and other active compounds on top of CBD).

Reasons You Could Fail a CBD Drug Test

The most common reason to fail a drug test is because you’ve used a low-quality CBD oil product that contains THC, despite the information on its label that may claim it to be THC-free. Unfortunately, many CBD oil manufacturers mislabel their products as THC-free hemp (which means they contain <3% THC), when in reality they contain THC.

Cross-contamination of THC is another reason to get you in trouble when performing a drug test. This usually happens when CBD is extracted from a material that has small amounts of THC. Most of the time, THC gets into the CBD oil in amounts high enough to lead to a positive drug test.

Some studies have also shown that products made with less pure CBD extraction methods break down into tiny amounts of THC in the stomach, leading to a false-positive test result.

Avoiding a Positive CBD Drug Test

When using CBD oil, it’s paramount to do diligent research to make sure the CBD product you will get is pure. For that reason, only search for legitimate and highly regarded companies. These manufacturers will never put their reputation on the line by supplying the market with low-quality tincture products rather than high-quality isolated ones extracted from a top-notch industrial hemp supply. And if you want to ensure you’ll get the right CBD oil product in your hands, feel free to ask as many questions about the possibility of cross-contamination and the processing techniques as you want.

Final Thoughts

If you buy pure CBD oil that contains less than 3% THC, it’s relatively impossible to get a false positive on a drug test from CBD oil. However, given that CBD oil is not yet well regulated, you should be extra careful when purchasing a CBD oil product. Do your research and use utmost caution to ensure its purity and that its concentration is at an effective or safe level.