CBD and Drug Testing for Athletes: What the Rules Actually Say

For Athletes

Most writing about CBD and sport is either a legal brief or a sales pitch. This is meant to be neither — just the rules as the governing bodies actually publish them, so you can work out what applies to you.

What WADA actually prohibits

The 2026 Prohibited List, in force since January 1, puts cannabinoids in class S8, under the heading Substances and Methods Prohibited In-Competition. The entry reads:

Cannabidiol came off the list on January 1, 2018. WADA’s own explanatory note at the time: CBD was removed “allowing Athletes who wish to use it to have access to the non-psychoactive component of cannabis.”

THC stayed on, and it is prohibited in-competition only. A laboratory reports an adverse finding when urinary carboxy-THC exceeds 150 ng/mL, with a decision limit of 180 ng/mL — a threshold raised from 15 ng/mL back in 2013. Nothing about cannabinoids changed for the 2026 list.

The part that catches people

Read that exception again. It says cannabidiol. Singular.

The hemp plant produces more than a hundred cannabinoids. WADA exempted exactly one of them. CBG, CBN, CBDV and the rest sit inside “all natural and synthetic cannabinoids are prohibited.” So an athlete in a testing pool can take a product with no THC in it at all, test clean for THC, and still have a problem.

A study published in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise in 2026 gave participants 150 mg a day of a broad spectrum CBD supplement for ten weeks. CBG turned up in 42% of pre-exercise urine samples and CBDV in 68%. After exercise those numbers rose to 74% and 84%.

What USADA tells athletes

The US Anti-Doping Agency updated its hemp guidance in February 2026, and it does not hedge:

USADA cites testing in which 13 of 46 urine samples from people who had consumed hemp products would have been reported as adverse analytical findings had they come from athletes in-competition.

Their position on labels has research behind it. A 2017 study in JAMA examined 84 CBD products bought online and found roughly seven in ten were labeled inaccurately for CBD content. THC was detected in about 21% of them. A German analysis in 2019 found THC above 2.5 mg per day in 10 of 28 commercial CBD products.

USADA also notes that third-party certification “reduces, but does not eliminate” the risk. This is the argument for reading a batch report rather than a label — on any brand, ours included.

The NCAA changed its rules

If you compete in college sport, the ground moved recently and a lot of athletes have not caught up.

In September 2023, the NCAA’s medical committee recommended removing cannabinoids from the banned drug classes, reasoning that cannabis is not a performance-enhancing drug and that testing for it had not worked. Divisions II and III adopted that change in April 2024. The Division I Council followed on June 25, 2024, removing cannabinoids from the banned class for championships and postseason football, effective immediately.

The current NCAA banned-substance list has eight classes on it, and cannabinoids is not one of them. There is no NCAA cannabinoid threshold because there is no NCAA cannabinoid testing.

One caveat worth checking: that is NCAA policy, not necessarily your school’s. Individual institutions and conferences can still run their own cannabis testing programs. Your compliance office will know.

If you are in the military, this one is simple

It is a flat prohibition, and it has been since a Department of Defense memorandum took effect on March 1, 2020. Service members may not use any product made or derived from hemp, including CBD, regardless of the product’s THC concentration, claimed or actual. Army Regulation 600-85 says so directly, and the Army restated it in May 2026.

Isolate does not change that. Zero THC does not change that. A lab report does not change that. If you are in uniform, the answer is no — and we would rather say so plainly than sell you something that puts your career at risk.

So which group are you in?

This is the part that actually decides things, and it is simpler than the rules make it sound.

Nobody collects samples from you. This is most people who train — recreational runners and lifters, masters athletes, weekend racers, people in the gym five mornings a week, and now most college athletes too. None of the above applies to you. Choose whichever product suits how you train, and read the batch report because that is good practice with any supplement.

You are in a WADA or USADA testing pool. Then the single-molecule exception matters, and the cautious path is a CBD isolate product: isolate means the CBD has been separated from everything else in the plant, so there is nothing else along for the ride. Our Recovery Standard stick and Recovery Concentrate balm are both isolate. If you are considering a broad spectrum product from us or anyone, that is a conversation worth having with your compliance officer first — not because anything is wrong with it, but because WADA exempted one compound and broad spectrum is defined by containing more than one.

You are serving. Covered above. Nothing on the market is compliant for you.

Where K61 sits

Our two topicals are made with CBD isolate — the simplest position a product can be in under a rule that exempts cannabidiol and nothing else. Our Resilience Rounds gummies are broad spectrum, which keeps a range of hemp compounds and removes the THC; our batch reports come back non-detectable for THC. For the large majority of people who train and are not in a testing pool, they are a straightforward daily option.

What we will not do is tell you a product is cleared for anti-doping purposes, because no honest brand can. USADA’s own position is that labels are not a reliable indicator, and the exemption covers one molecule out of more than a hundred. What we can do is show our work: every batch we sell has a published Certificate of Analysis. Scan the QR code on the jar, find the report matching your batch, and read the cannabinoid table yourself.