Whether herb, tincture or powder: permitted hemp products are booming. Hemp shops sell them at steep prices. But a «Kassensturz» spot check shows: some products contain only a fraction of the declared CBD. With 9 percent less cannabidiol than stated, «Green Passion Purple Haze» shows the smallest deviation of all samples tested.
CBD stands for cannabidiol, a compound of the hemp plant. Unlike THC, cannabidiol is not classified as a narcotic in Switzerland.
Since 2011, hemp in Switzerland has only counted as a narcotic from a total THC content of one percent (BetmVV-EDI, FDHA Ordinance on the Narcotics Lists, SR 812.121.11, Annex 5, list d, as of 13 March 2026).
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What is known about CBD
CBD has not yet been researched enough, says Barbara Broers, addiction expert at Geneva University Hospital.
According to Barbara Broers, important basic data is still missing. Business with CBD hemp is going well. In specialised hemp shops and online shops, customers can buy a wide range of permitted hemp products.
The range goes from oils to ointments. The most popular, however, are hemp flowers.
Together with the French-speaking Swiss programme «A Bon Entendeur», «Kassensturz» had eleven permitted hemp products tested for their CBD and THC content. The THC content of all products in the sample is below one percent, so they are permitted.
The CBD content is usually declared on the packaging. In the sample it is 10 to 23 percent. But customers cannot rely on these figures.
Results
In the test by the University Centre of Legal Medicine of Western Switzerland, all products deviate from the declared CBD content. Most clearly the hemp flowers «Colorado Light» from the shop Dr. Green. A content of 14 percent is declared. In the lab, however, only 2.1 percent was measured. That is almost six times less CBD than promised.
For «Sonnenfeld Marie&Anna» hemp flowers it is 53 percent less CBD than declared, for «Acapulco Gold» from the shop «CBD bestellen» 45 percent. All these suppliers emphasise that the CBD content of their hemp products has been tested by external labs. In addition, the content can vary from flower to flower.
Urs Lengwiler, production manager at Ai Fame, a hemp producer in Wald-Schönengrund in Appenzell Ausserrhoden, says the same. «Natural fluctuations and deviations of 20 to 30 percent cannot be ruled out with flower material and remain within the normal range. With the THC values, we always stay below the permitted maximum to be safe», says Urs Lengwiler. Every batch of hemp is tested for its content in the company's own lab.
The hemp product «Swiss CBD Alessia», produced by Ai Fame, shows a deviation of 30 percent in CBD content in the test. For test leader Marc Augsburger, the declarations are not reliable: every flower, every piece of hemp can have a different CBD content. The label on an orange does not say which segment contains how much vitamin C either. It is similar with hemp.
The Swiss CBD product also stands out because it contains boscalid, a fungicide, even though it is advertised as an organic product. The manufacturer says the agent is used in indoor cultivation in case of occasional mould infestation. The lab also found traces of pesticides in the hemp «Budz Purple Haze» and in «Colorado Light» from Dr. Green, although the manufacturers advertise them as organic hemp.
There are also products that are closer to the declared CBD content.
«Green Passion Purple Haze» contains 9 percent less cannabidiol than stated. That is the smallest deviation in the sample.
Source: Kassensturz SRF report (23.05.2017, German)
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