CBD and its byproducts are becoming increasingly popular due to their medicinal benefits. Since its FDA approval back in 2018, we’ve used CBD to treat everything from acne to depression. Truckers, like many well-informed people, now use CBD to treat a number of ailments. In fact, CBD is extremely helpful with conditions that are very common among truckers – insomnia, anxiety, migraines, muscle and joint pain.
If the FDA approved it and it helps truckers, what’s all the fuss about? Well here’s the rundown. Truck drivers are allowed to use CBD products but there’s a slight hitch. According to Transport Topics, CBD products are “legal provided they contain a concentration of up to 0.3% tetrahydrocannabinol or THC, the intoxicating substance in marijuana.” Seems simple, right? Wrong.
According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, they don’t certify the THC levels in CBD products. As a result, there is currently no federal oversight to ensure that CBD products’ THC content doesn’t exceed the legal limit. As a result, the packaging for a lot of CBD products underreports how much THC is in the product.
The Federal Scheduling System currently classifies marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug – in the same company as meth and heroin. As such, the DOT maintains that “it remains unacceptable for any safety-sensitive employee subject to the Department of Transportation’s drug testing regulations to use marijuana.” Bus drivers and truckers, they’re talking to you!
Drug tests are unable to distinguish THC that comes from CBD products and that which comes from actual marijuana. For this reason, and the lack of federal oversight, CBD products could endanger a trucker’s livelihood. There’s even been instances of truckers losing their jobs for using CBD to treat chronic injuries they got on the job.
Given the strictness of the penalties surrounding CBD use among truckers, we recommend that drivers get their CBD products through prescriptions. Be sure to communicate your restrictions to your doctor and they’ll take the necessary precautions. After all, reputable vendors test their oils in a lab. Also, truckers have a far smaller chance of testing positive for THC if they’re applying it topically than ingesting it.
As governing bodies and the country as a whole come to terms with CBD’s benefits, we can only hope for more relaxed policies and more attentive supervision of CBD’s production and advertising in the future.
Leave a comment and let us know what you think. Should there be more permissions for truck drivers to use CBD? Should the government play a more active role in monitoring the THC content of CBD-infused goods?
Source: Vox, Trucking Info, Transport Topics, U.S. Department of Transportation, Colorado Botanicals,
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