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The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/candidengineer on 2025-06-17 02:33:54+00:00.

This didn’t happen today, it happened a couple months ago. I quit my well paying job in MA to move back to NJ to take care of my mother (she has osteoarthritis) and be close to family/friends.

Paid an arm and leg to move back, and within 2 weeks I was miraculously able to get a written offer for a Senior Electronics Engineer job at a well known Japanese medical instrumentation manufacturer with an on-site US-based office 10 mins away. I was set to start in two weeks and needed to simply pass the drug employment screening.

Around the same time, I was taking care of my mom as she has osteoarthritis. She currently takes meds but they don’t help much with nerve pain. So I did some research and some folks sweared by CBD.

Disclaimer: I take non-THC CBD time to time, it helps me sleep/relax and is non-psychoactive. The full spectrum oil has < 0.03% amount of THC and the company that makes it is HIGHLY reputable and FDA approved. I don’t smoke weed nor take anything with THC, I’ve been sober off that stuff for over 6 years.

So it turns out this same CBD company makes a CBD cream for muscle/joint pain - so I figured I’d order some and try administering it to my mom’s knee to see if it helps.

The cream arrives, and for all 5 days before the drug test, I applied the cream on my mom’s knee with my hands. It helped her a little, but overall I didn’t think much of it.

Fast forward to after the drug test. It’s about a week before I’m due to start the new job - I get a call from the lab that I had marijuana/THC in my system.

I’m like “What…the…f****!!!” How!?

Turns out this cream, that is advertised as a CBD cream (no mention of THC anywhere) had some THC in it, and it transdermally passed through my skin as I was the one applying it on my mom’s knee. I looked up the lab summary data on the company’s website and the cream does have enough THC to be reported.

I explained to the company everything, showed them the lab summary of the cream and everything. They initially sympathized were allowing a re-take. I spend a whole week doing cardio and eating clean to detox it out of my system. But eventually they decided to rescinded the offer after “further investigation”.

I resumed job hunting and now I’m headed to Austin to join another company because aside from this role, New Jersey is f***ing barren in the type of engineering work I do.

EDIT: I’m getting a two bedroom apartment in Austin, my parents will be living with me occasionally on and off. They’re retired and still have this place in NJ, and since we have relatives in NJ, they’d like the option to move back and forth.

TL;DR: I transdermally got THC into my system by physically applying a “CBD cream” on my mother’s knee and subsequently failed a drug test and lost the job offer.