Varsity Stack is now officially working with Banned Substances Control Group, better known as BSCG, on its Certified Drug Free program: the one BSCG certification built for drug tested athletes, and the only one Varsity Stack will show.
That scope is deliberate, and it is worth explaining, because certification itself is worth explaining. For a drug tested athlete, choosing a supplement involves more than reading the Supplement Facts panel.
A product can contain a substance that was never printed on its label. Manufacturing practices vary from one facility to the next. And under strict liability, an unintended exposure to a prohibited substance is still the athlete's responsibility.
That is the gap independent certification programs exist to narrow. BSCG combines decades of anti doping laboratory experience with product testing, manufacturing quality review and certification designed to help athletes and consumers make better informed supplement decisions.
From Olympic drug testing to supplement certification
BSCG's history runs directly through the development of modern sports anti doping.
Dr. Don Catlin founded the UCLA Olympic Analytical Laboratory in 1982, the first sports anti doping laboratory in the United States, and directed it for 25 years. He oversaw drug testing at multiple Olympic Games beginning with Los Angeles in 1984, and for the NCAA, the NFL and Major League Baseball. His analytical research produced many of the tests still used to detect performance enhancing drugs, including the work on the designer steroid THG at the center of the BALCO case. [1]
Over time a second problem became impossible to ignore. Athletes were not only encountering prohibited substances through deliberate use. They were encountering them through dietary supplements.
In 2004, Dr. Catlin founded BSCG with his son Oliver Catlin and Ryan Connolly, an anti doping and civil litigation attorney. The idea was to move anti doping testing expertise upstream into the supplement industry, and certify products proactively rather than investigate contamination after an athlete had already failed a test. [1][2]
Oliver Catlin, President and Co Founder of BSCG. Photo courtesy of BSCG.
Not every BSCG seal means the same thing
BSCG runs five certification programs. They look similar on a shelf and they answer very different questions. Knowing which one you are looking at is the difference between a meaningful check and a false sense of security.
Only one of the five answers the question a drug tested athlete is actually asking. That is the one we partnered on.
BSCG Certified Drug Free
This is the flagship program, and the only one built specifically for drug tested athletes.
The testing menu covers more than 450 drugs, including over 400 substances on the WADA Prohibited List plus more than 50 prescription, over the counter and illicit compounds that are not banned in sport but have been targeted by the FDA or by retail compliance programs. For finished supplement products, every production lot is tested, with ongoing quality verification and the possibility of random off the shelf purchases. [3]
Certification also goes beyond the banned substance screen. It incorporates review of ingredients and suppliers, toxicology considerations, manufacturing quality controls, and periodic verification of label claims and contaminants. [3]
That distinction matters more than it sounds. A label review can only tell you whether a listed ingredient looks like a problem. Laboratory testing tells you what is actually in the bottle, including what the manufacturer never declared.
The other four BSCG programs
The remaining four programs are real and useful, but none of them is a substitute for Certified Drug Free, and none of them is part of our partnership. They are worth knowing so a seal that looks right is not mistaken for one that is.
BSCG Certified Quality is aimed at product quality and consumer protection rather than sport. Annual testing of participating products verifies ingredient identity and label claims and screens for environmental contaminants including heavy metals, pesticides and microbiological agents, alongside the same 450 plus drug menu. Manufacturers must be GMP audited every two years. [4] BSCG draws the line itself, and athletes should read it carefully: the Certified Quality program is not designed for athlete, military or first responder protection. [4] One batch per product per year is a quality control regime. It is not lot by lot anti doping assurance.
BSCG Certified CBD tests every finished product lot of a hemp or CBD product against the full 450 plus drug menu, plus cannabinoid testing to verify CBD claims and THC daily dose limits, with every tenth lot screened for environmental contaminants. [5] Even so, athletes should follow their own governing body's rules and talk to their sports medicine or sports nutrition staff before using these products at all.
BSCG Certified GMP certifies the factory, not the bottle. BSCG conducts an onsite audit every two years against the subparts of 21 CFR 111, the FDA's manufacturing regulation for dietary supplements, and issues a certificate for the facility audited. [6] This is the most commonly misread seal on the list. A GMP certified manufacturer is not the same thing as a Certified Drug Free product. Good process reduces the odds of a problem. It does not test the lot in your hand.
BSCG Certified Facility sits on top of GMP. It combines facility level GMP compliance with ingredient risk review and ongoing random testing of finished products for label claims, environmental contaminants and banned substances. [7] Random testing of a facility's output is still not every lot of a specific product.
Why the lot number matters
Here is the concept that gets skipped most often, and costs the most when it is skipped.
Certification applies to a specific production lot, not to a brand name.
For Certified Drug Free, testing is performed on every finished product lot, and certified products and lot numbers are published in a public BSCG database that can be searched by lot, product, brand or category. BSCG states the point plainly: it is vital to verify that a specific lot has been certified and tested. [3][9]
So there is a real difference between asking:
"Is this brand BSCG certified?"
and asking:
"Is this exact product, and this exact lot, covered?"
A brand can hold certification on one product line and not another. A product can be certified while the bottle in an athlete's bag came from a lot that was never submitted. For a sports nutrition department tracking hundreds of products across a full roster, that gap is where the risk actually lives.
Certification reduces risk. It does not remove it.
No certification should be sold to an athlete as permission to stop thinking.
The NCAA is direct about this. There are no NCAA approved dietary supplements. Supplements may contain banned substances that are not declared on the label. Student athletes have lost eligibility this way, and even third party testing cannot completely eliminate the risk. Athletes are told to review any product with the appropriate athletics staff before using it. [8]
Certification is best understood as an additional layer of independent evidence, sitting alongside institutional review and athlete responsibility rather than replacing either one.
Why we partnered on Certified Drug Free only
Varsity Stack shows an athlete one thing about a product's certification: whether it has been tested for banned substances by a program that tests every lot. A green mark in the app answers exactly one question, can I take this without failing a drug test, and it has to keep meaning that.
Of BSCG's five programs, Certified Drug Free is the only one that answers it. Certified Quality tests one batch a year and BSCG says outright it is not for athlete protection. Certified GMP and Certified Facility certify a factory. Certified CBD covers a category most governing bodies still tell athletes to avoid. Showing any of those under the same mark would make the mark mean less, and an athlete cannot tell from a seal on a shelf which of the five they are looking at.
So the partnership is scoped to Certified Drug Free, and Varsity Stack will not display the other four BSCG seals as certification. That is the same standard we hold every program to: NSF Certified for Sport and Informed Sport are in the app for the same reason, and programs that verify quality rather than banned substances are not.
Bringing Certified Drug Free into Varsity Stack
Our work with BSCG serves a larger goal: putting trusted supplement information in front of people at the moment they actually need it, which is usually while holding a tub in one hand and a phone in the other.
Today that means an athlete has to know that five different BSCG programs exist, understand which one applies to sport, find the right database, and manually confirm that the product in front of them matches a certified listing. Most athletes will not do that. Most staff do not have time to do it 300 times.
Varsity Stack is working to fold that check into a single supplement workflow. An athlete scans a product. Staff can see what athletes are actually taking. Certified Drug Free status becomes part of the review alongside ingredients, product details and team approval, instead of a separate errand nobody runs.
As lot level information becomes part of that workflow, the question an athlete can answer in ten seconds stops being "is this supplement certified?" and becomes "is this exact product, and this exact lot, certified?"
That is the level of precision athletes and sports nutrition teams should expect.
About the partnership
Varsity Stack and BSCG are officially working together to make BSCG Certified Drug Free certification information more accessible inside the athlete supplement management experience. The partnership covers the Certified Drug Free program only. You can learn more about BSCG and all of its certification programs at bscg.org.
Download Varsity Stack to check and track the products you actually take, or request access for your program.
This article is for educational purposes only. Consult a qualified healthcare provider, registered dietitian, or your athletics compliance staff before starting any supplement regimen. Third party testing reduces risk but cannot guarantee that a supplement is appropriate for a particular athlete or eliminate all risk. For questions about specific governing body rules, consult your athletic compliance officer.
Sources
- BSCG, Don Catlin, M.D., CSO and Co Founder: bscg.org
- BSCG, Drug Testing and Supplement Certification: bscg.org
- BSCG, Certified Drug Free Certification and Testing for Banned Substances: bscg.org
- BSCG, Certified Quality Identity and Label Claim Certification: bscg.org
- BSCG, Certified CBD Details and Process: bscg.org
- BSCG, Certified GMP Certification, Compliance and Auditing: bscg.org
- BSCG, Certified Facility GMP, Quality and Banned Substance Certification for Manufacturers: bscg.org
- NCAA, FAQs About NCAA Banned Substances and Medical Exceptions Procedures: ncaa.org
- BSCG, Certified Drug Free Database: bscg.org
