We hope you all had fabulous celebrating fathers, Juneteenth, and LGBTQ+ rights! Let’s get into the latest of the CBD and hemp industry brought to you by yours truly: Direct CBD Online.
Athletes’ use of CBD is coming under scrutiny
The NFL recently asked for more established studies and knowledge about cannabis products before formally allowing its athletes to use them. The league cited concerns about adequate risk and safety management, the lack of regulation in potency and purity, drug interactions, and potential liver damage.
For those same reasons the NCAA still bans all cannabinoids although the World Anti-Doping Agency allows CBD.
Those concerns arise as the CBD market for athletes is growing fast. Level Select CBD, which highly markets its products to athletes, has registered a growth of 74% in sales (YTD).
With parallel growth in concern and support for Cannabis-derived health supplements, the ultimate position of the NFL and other professional athletic leagues will play a big role in the sports hemp market towards athletes of all types.
Testing shows CBD pet products have a discrepancy in potency
Leafreports is a company based in Tel Aviv, Israel, dedicated to transparency in the CBD industry. In a recent report about pet products, they revealed inaccuracies in potencies reported on labels and the actual potency of the products.
The report states that out of the 55 products they tested, 56% contained the wrong amount of CBD. The discrepancies in potency ranged from a 10.2% to 98.5% difference from the label. In most cases, the products contained more CBD than advertised.
A reason the results might have such a high range of CBD is that CBD products for pets are usually dosed very low compared to human products (with the exception of products formulated for the very big pooch and horses). This makes accurate dosage more tricky. However, for very small animals, a higher dosage than advertised can have adverse effects.
Additionally, different forms of CBD products performed differently during the study. CBD products like topicals and edibles are by nature harder to accurately dose. In some cases, this drove the general performance of the brand down, even though their oils tested accurately to their advertised dosage.
In contrast, pet CBD product’s potency seems to be more accurate overall than human CBD edibles, topicals, and drinks tested by Leafreport in previous reports.
Make sure to check out the report to see which of your favorite brands on Direct CBD Online rank as the most accurate.
Regulations and legislation on hemp remain exactly the same — just kidding
In Washington state, the wave of interest and production in Delta 8 THC and even Delta 9 THC derived from CBD extract is constituting an unfair competition to marijuana growers. Indeed, it costs way less to convert CBD into one of the Deltas than to grow traditional marijuana.
At a virtual meeting aimed at having a deliberative dialogue between marijuana farmers and hemp producers and retailers, Vicki Christophersen, executive director of the Washington CannaBusiness Association, expressed no desire to push those actors out of the market arguing that the state’s role was not to come in the way of innovation and competition.
New York state just prohibited delta 8 THC and other isomers and introduced a new batch of new regulations on hemp products. The updates stem from the effort of Gov. Andrew Cuomo to regulate hemp operators working with flower and cannabinoids. But smokable hemp is no longer required to list all cannabinoids over 0.05 on the product label, and hemp flower is still allowed for sale if it isn’t branded as a smokable item.
The overall effort in the regulation of hemp and cannabis products in the state of New York seems to be aimed at protecting public health as well as enabling a safe marijuana and hemp market, while the USDA works on federal regulation.
CBD-only product sales are low in recreational marijuana shops
Sales of CBD-only products in marijuana stores have been on the decline since 2018 as more CBD retail spaces become mainstream. While the cannabinoid might have started as the goody two shoes of the cannabis family, CBD has created its very own platform and serves markets that even illegal marijuana hasn’t penetrated as effectively.
CBD product’s sales have shown a 110% increase from May 2018.
In addition to the rise of CBD as a solo artist, it’s also showing promise in ratio products. Ratio products are products that have a certain ratio of one cannabinoid to another. For example, 1:1 CBD to CBG.
Other news you might have missed
- More and more states are banning Delta 8 THC as regulators clarify its legality.
- The USA CBD Expo 2021 took place in Atlanta earlier this month.
Looking for more CBD news?
As we expected, 2021 is looking up! But if you find yourself wanting more news, consider looking into our past Direct CBD Online Quick Hits articles right here.