Now that CBD products are on the shelves of stores across the country, it’s only natural that people might wonder: Can you fail a drug test if you use a CBD product? In other words, can using CBD get you fired?

The short answer is “probably not, if you are careful.” It depends on your employer and their level of tolerance for cannabis use. Stories have already surfaced showing that the chances of getting into trouble depend greatly on where you work and what you do on the job. Even as more employers than ever question the use of cannabis drug tests, some workers continue to face the fear of losing their job if they use a perfectly legal product.

However, people can protect themselves by checking the levels of THC in their CBD product. THC is the psychoactive chemical in marijuana that causes the high. By law, CBD products can only contain small amounts (0.03 percent or less) of THC.

Examples Around the Country

Encountering problems on the job because of CBD product use is a bigger issue than many might realize. Recently, in Missouri, school worker Lorraine Jeffries said she got fired from her job as a school bus monitor after failing a drug test. The drug in question, according to Jeffries, is a CBD oil her doctor recommended for joint pain.

She said a school official told her, “You must have been smoking marijuana,” Jeffries told WTKP News. “I said, ‘No, ma’am, I don’t even know where to get marijuana at.’ I love my job. They took it away from me.”

In another case, a video producer in Reno, Nevada, told Consumer Reports he lost the chance for a job because the drug test he took as part of the pre-work screening came back positive for marijuana. Like the school employee in Missouri, he said he had not used marijuana.

In Pennsylvania, a woman has sued a CBD products maker after losing her job over a failed drug test.

There’s also the issue of the test itself. In Alabama, a police department recently dropped a field test it was using to check for marijuana use. They made the move after they experimented with the test and found it registered a positive result for CBD-infused bottled water that contained no THC.

Reading the Labels on CBD Products

If you use CBD products, the best step to take is to thoroughly read the label. Companies are required to list what is in the product, including the levels (if any) of THC. However, you may also be rolling the dice, because apparently not every company is doing this accurately.

In a case involving truck driver Douglas Horn in New York City, a lawsuit has been filed alleging that the CBD product the driver took for pain had a higher level of THC than what was on the label, according to a lawsuit Horn filed.

For entrepreneurs in the marijuana industry, this is an increasingly important topic. Lawsuits such as Horn’s are likely to become more frequent, especially since many consumers might be unaware there is even a possibility of THC in the CBD products they buy.

However, the answer might involve improvements made to testing equipment and changes in government regulations. That latter issue is one that is coming up frequently.

“If you aren’t regulated and you don’t manufacture under strict standards for testing, we are seeing that there are people coming out with a lot more marijuana THC in it than what people thought,” University of Illinois at Chicago toxicology expert Frank Paloucek told the ABC affiliate in Chicago.