If you’re like most people, you like to buy a lot of your products online. And that most likely includes your favourite supplement – CBD oil. And one of the most common shopping sites happens to be Amazon. However, if you head on over to their website and try to purchase CBD oil you will be disappointed to only find listings of hemp oil and hemp oil extract products. And now you might be wondering, is hemp oil the same as CBD oil? Should I buy it? There are no clear CBD oil products on Amazon.com. Want to know why and what you can do in order to get your CBD online? Read on to find out.
Is there a difference between hemp oil and CBD oil?
Hemp oil and CBD are two terms that are sometimes used interchangeably even though they really do not mean the same thing. The terms are related but there is a clear distinction between the two. So what’s the difference, you might ask?
CBD oil is an extract containing cannabidiol, one of the cannabinoids contained in cannabis plants, including hemp. While most of the CBD oil is extracted from hemp oil/plants, some sellers extract their CBD oil from other cannabis plants. So you could say that most CBD oil comes from hemp oil but hemp oil is not CBD oil. Hemp oil has to be refined and purified to obtain the useful CBD within it.
The term “hemp oil” is also quite vague because it could also mean hemp seed oil. Oil from hemp seeds is great for cosmetic products and also for cooking. However, hemp seed oil, which can also be sold on Amazon under the term “hemp oil” does not contain any CBD whatsoever.
Here is a table to better illustrate the difference between hemp oil and CBD oil
| CBD oil | Hemp oil |
| Contains mostly cannabidiol as the active ingredient. | Contains all plant matter extract and may not contain CBD if derived from hemp seeds. |
| Is a supplement taken to aid in well-being due to promising studies linked to improving appetite, mood, sleep, and other benefits. | Is a natural organic product that could be used for cooking and manufacture of cosmetic products. |
| Has been processed through CO2 and other processes to separate CBD from the extract obtained from hemp leaves and stem. | May not be processed at all to remove impurities or even separate CBD from the overall extract. |
| Should indicate the potency of the CBD in terms of milligrams per bottle. | May not show potency because CBD has not been extracted. |
| Should cost more due to the extraction and purification processes the product has been passed through. | Should cost less because the product has been passed through little extraction and purification processes (if any). |
Why is Amazon selling hemp oil only?
Now you might be wondering why there are lots of listings for hemp oil on Amazon and barely any for CBD oil. The answer is simple – legal liability. Amazon is a large company selling thousands of products, boasting thousands of employees and making billions of dollars each year. And as much as lots of sellers may want to sell their CBD oil on the international platform, Amazon has restricted it in order to avoid legal liability.
What liability? You may ask. As earlier mentioned, CBD oil can be derived from both hemp plants as well as other cannabis plants with considerable amounts of THC. And THC as well as cannabis are controlled substances in the US and in many other places, including the UK. So if Amazon was to allow the sale of CBD oil, there is a high chance that some people would try to sell products containing cannabis and THC. And that would present legal and moral problems for the retail giant. So in order to avoid any potential liability, Amazon has chosen not to market any CBD oil products on their site. This is despite the fact that CBD oil from hemp contains 0.3% THC at most and zero THC if its broad spectrum oil or CBD isolate. Sure the company could try to vet which products are THC-free and which are not, but that would be very expensive and not sustainable in the long run.
Is Amazon not losing out on a huge market?
By not allowing traders to sell CBD oil on the platform Amazon sure is losing money on the hugely popular health supplement niche. The company could earn millions just from this market segment alone. However, with over 600,000 products on its site, and billions of dollars in annual revenue, the site can afford to give the CBD oil market a cold shoulder and do just fine. And it’s not that Amazon would not like to facilitate this market, it’s just that regulating the market would be very difficult at this time. Even law enforcement officers are having a hard time sorting through the legalities of CBD oil and hemp oil. Perhaps in the future CBD oil might be available to all on Amazon.com.
How good is the hemp oil being sold on Amazon?
If you are looking to buy CBD oil for your wellbeing or that of your favourite pet, the truth of the matter is that Amazon is not the place to go looking for it. And the reasons for this are:
- The authenticity of the oil being sold on Amazon cannot be verified easily.
- The CBD oil being sold on Amazon has not gone through 3-rd party lab testing.
- Most of the products are simply hemp oil extracts, not CBD extracts.
- Some of the products are from hemp seed oil and do not contain any CBD at all.
- There is no way to tell what amount of CBD they contain, if any at all.
Where can I buy CBD oil then?
If you want CBD oil that you can trust to help improve your wellbeing in various ways, the best alternative is independent stores that stock products straight from the manufacturers. At CanaBD, for example, we have various CBD brands from manufacturers that are renowned for quality cannabidiol products that are tested independently and loved by repeat customers.
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