Will CBD Show up on a Drug Test?

Since the dawn of humanity, contemporary laws have always failed to keep up with public opinion and perception of divisive social issues. It can be seen in the history of fighting racism across the world, as well as other equal rights movements, from feminists to LGBT activism. Despite the shift in public opinion on those matters, outdated, repressive laws have continued to slow progress down in its tracks.

Cannabis users and activists have also fallen victim to this process. Although the 'green wave' has already kicked off with various American states fully legalizing the substance for medical and recreational use, marijuana enthusiasts still have a long way to go when it comes to reforming the judicial system's flawed relationship with this revolutionary plant.

One of the last, more powerful bastions of discrimination against marijuana users are mandatory drug testing practices on the employees of many major companies. It is one thing not wanting people to show up at work intoxicated, but testing for the substance's presence in one's body is a completely different question, as marijuana's components stay in your system long after its effects wear off. Mandatory drug testing is very common even in states that legalized cannabis, such as Washington DC.

Before you go "hold up, is weed legal in DC, or has something changed again," it is worth considering that corporations' internal policies can be different from the state's laws, although they do have to comply with them. This is why, even though marijuana use is completely legal in DC, you can still lose your job because of it, which reverses much of the progress that has been made in the recent decade.

Even though all of them originate from the same plant, there are multiple compounds of marijuana, most of which have nothing to do with generating psychoactive effects. The most prominent one of them is CBD (short for cannabidiol), which is responsible for much of the health benefits associated with cannabis.

Although most corporate drug tests do not screen for CBD and tend to focus on THC (the psychoactive ingredient) instead, it does not mean that you're entirely in the clear if you stick to CBD products only. Most of these flowers, oils, and edibles are still made with a minuscule amount of THC in them since it's impossible to get rid of it altogether while maintaining the same level of CBD.

While these amounts are usually lower than 1% of the product's composition, it is still enough for you to fail your company's testing and suffer the consequences. These practices in no way reflect the employees' actual effectiveness or highlight their substance abuse problems, but until anything better comes up, or corporations decide to abandon testing altogether, there is not much you can do about it.

Some of the most draconian (and common) corporate policies regarding the substance abuse are based around random drug testing, which basically works on the same premise as a really messed up lottery.

Employees are randomly selected for testing on the spot, without any prior announcement on the employer's side. They are designed in a way so that they cannot be predicted, which makes them particularly tricky to outsmart.

If you think you know when the 'random' testing usually happens at your workplace, there are a couple of things you should know so that you can successfully cleanse your body from the forbidden chemicals.

The lion's share of all test kits out there are urine-based, but the more stringent bosses favor bloodwork. Typically, THC is detectable in your urine for up to 15 days. However, if you're a daily user, in case of blood testing, the time varies from as short as 2 days to as long as 25 days. If you think you know when you'll get tested, stop using marijuana products at least a month before the date. You can find information about how long THC stays in your system based on usage patterns here.

It is important to remember the fact that while THC does show up even after ingesting tiny quantities, the less of it in a product, the shorter it takes for your body to get rid of it. If you only use CBD products for health or recreational purposes, it should not take longer than 3 days at a time for you to be clean of any traces of THC, because they only contain a tiny amount of it.

If you are used to smoking or ingesting potent marijuana with high volumes of THC and are considering taking up a job at a company that practices random testing, you should think about switching to CBD-based products to rid yourself of the psychoactive elements before accepting the offer.