Are CBD products age-restricted?
All our CBD food supplements and the vast majority of our CBD based beauty products are restricted for sale to those aged 18 years and above.
Can I take them during pregnancy?
CBD is not suitable for pregnant or breastfeeding women, children, prospective parents trying for a baby or by people taking medication. Before using any CBD products, it’s also best to check with your GP that they are safe for you to use and to make sure they don’t interact with any medication being taken.
Can CBD interact with my medications?
Responsible producers and retailers exercise an abundance of caution towards groups with particular health sensitivities for which there is presently less data on use.
Unfortunately, there is no definitive list of medications that are known to interact with CBD, and therefore as a responsible retailer, we would advise that if you are on medication you should always check with your GP first before using any CBD product.
Can CBD products be abused?
The World Health Organisation’s 2018 Critical Review Report on CBD stated that to date, there is no evidence of recreational use of CBD or any public health-related problems associated with its use.
Furthermore, individuals cannot readily recover any negligible quantity of THC residues present in quality products. This is due to its near absence in the first place and the technical difficulties that it would pose to obtain a yield that constitutes a risk to health and could therefore be misused.
What about tests for cannabis abuse and CBD?
The responsible CBD industry appreciates that individuals should not be under the influence of substances impairing their judgement during daily duties, and therefore, employs quality controls to ensure that residues of THC in CBD products are negligible – most importantly ensuring that residual levels have no psychoactive effect.
The actual amount of THC residue may vary from product to product and batch to batch. Health and safety considerations demand that individuals in certain roles are subject to substance testing to safeguard colleagues and the public. We are aware that CBD supplements have been subject to monitoring as part of official controls (under (EU) 2016/2115) using tests for THC residues that detect a limit of quantification of 200 ppm.
In light of this limit used independently for testing, we believe that it is unlikely that quality-controlled CBD products should give rise to adverse test results. As both sensitivities of tests and THC content of products can vary, Holland & Barrett cannot take any responsibility for positive test results and we would suggest that this be investigated with the tester before taking CBD.
A final note
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) recommends a daily CBD intake of 10mg (for a 70 kg adult) for products with 98% purity.
This advice from FSA is precautionary and relates to long term sustained use of CBD.
H&B recommend customers check labels and consider their daily intake of CBD and length of time they choose to take CBD for, based on this updated FSA advice.
For more information please visit the
FSA website