Can truck drivers use CBD oil or other hemp-derived products?

Across the country, more and more states are decriminalizing and directly legalizing marijuana, and in the meantime, CBD, an extract from industrial hemp plants, a legal cousin to marijuana, has become an effective treatment for everything. , from chronic pain to anxiety and sleep disorders.

But despite the warming of national attitudes towards the hemp plant and all its potential derivatives, CDL holders should approach any form of the substance with great caution.

Overdrive revisited a column in our Trucking Law series, written by Dr. Alexander Underwood, in this video to review what drivers need to know about CBD, THC, and the maintenance of their CDLs: The Landscape of Derivatives of hemp / cannabis has only gotten more chaotic and murky in terms of legality, as that column was originally issued.

A wide range of consumer products have swept through gas stations and truck stops across the country. Recently, experienced entrepreneurs have started selling the so-called Delta-8 and Delta-10 THC, or THC concentrate derived from totally legal hemp plants.

These products exploit the federal divide that considers industrial hemp by-products legal, but plants grown for THC are illegal. While these products remain legal, for now they will also cause a failed drug test as the Delta-8 and Delta-10 compounds produce the same metabolites as Delta-9, the old, THC-type marijuana with the ill-fated type. legally federally.

Amid the madness of the cannabis products market and the widespread confusion, countless truckers have left their careers due to positive drug testing for THC.

From January 6, 2020 to June 1, 2021, 80,098 urine drug tests administered under the mandatory federal program for CDL drivers returned positive. More than half of those tests found marijuana.

The video tracks the legality of different products and establishes the official DOT position in the CBD.

At the top, find out what you need to know about the intersection of marijuana, CBD, and truck legislation.

[Related: Careful with CBD: Marijuana positives in drug tests are possible]