Clearing the Smoke on America’s Vaping Crisis | THCnet

Yup, that’s vaping.

This story originally ran on THCnet in 2020.

For most companies, a Saturday in early September is a strange day to publish a strong stance on social media. Even in an always-on world, fewer folks are obsessively refreshing Twitter feeds, famished for fresh info. Cresco Labs couldn’t wait till Monday morning.

For weeks, the vertically integrated cannabis company, headquartered in Chicago, had been tracking August’s tragically accelerating reports of vaping-related illnesses and, allegedly, deaths as well. The root cause remained elusive, leading to a blizzard of finger pointing at potential culprits, contaminants and quality issues.

Cresco Labs believed in its rigorous protocols that tracked from cultivation to extraction to packaging—seed to sale, as the saying goes. So on Saturday, September 7, Cresco tweeted a statement that laid bare its airtight production process, and how it avoided potentially problematic additives and cutting agents.

“People were appreciative that we were being so forthcoming with what’s in our products, and what’s not in them,” says Jason Erkes, the chief communications officer. The tweet quickly became the company’s most popular social-media post, its message declaring “there’s a need for regulation.”

In recent years, vaping has become an increasingly popular method of consuming cannabis. Cartridges and disposable devices accounts for around 15 to 30 percent of sales in legalized states including California, Oregon, Washington and Colorado, according to data from Headset, which tracks sales in the cannabis industry.

The widespread appeal of vaping cannabis oil lies in its fast-acting vanishing act. Unlike smoking flower or consuming edibles, vaping is discrete, odorless and packs a near-instant onset of THC, the psychoactive compound in cannabis. Puffing on an electric pen can seem like magic made real, all fun and no fuss or repercussions.

Now, dark clouds have started surrounding vaping, as likely related lung illnesses have, to date, sickened more than 1,600 people and left 34 dead in 24 states, according to the Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention. (It The epidemic has stuck the cannabis industry in the crosshairs of public officials looking for a target to blame.

In September, Massachusetts banned all tobacco and cannabis vaping products, while Oregon enacted a six-month ban on flavored cannabis vaping products in October. (The Oregon Court of Appeals placed a temporary stay against the ban for flavored tobacco products.)

Legal-cannabis states that lack bans have also seen sales slide. Vaping pens accounted for around 32 percent of California’s cannabis market in early August, dropping to 24 percent by mid-September, according to Headset. (Most steep declines stabilized in mid-September.)

“The initial national inclination is to start banning things,” Erkes says, “but it’s important for regulators and enforcement agencies to look at where the problem is coming from. ”

Early reports suggested that the culprits could be additives and cutting agents such as Vitamin E acetate, which can be used to thicken and dilute cannabis oil. That seemed like a likely smoking gun until NBC News commissioned CannaSafe, a California-based testing lab, to analyze 18 THC cartridges—three acquired from legal dispensaries, the remainder from black-market sellers.

The authorized cartridges contained no Vitamin E acetate, heavy metals or other contaminants. The majority of the unregulated cartridges contained Vitamin E acetate and, troublingly, a fungicide called myclobutanil. It’s commonly used on wine grapes to prevent diseases such as powdery mildew.

The government deems the pesticide safe to ingest in small amounts. But when myclobutanil is heated to 400°F, it releases a stew of toxic gases including hydrogen cyanide. Yes, that cyanide.           

As the news cycle filled with fearmongering stories such as “The Dangers of Vaping Doctors Want Everyone to Know,” the cannabis-vaping crisis cranked the heat on another simmering health concern, teenage vaping. Electronic-cigarette companies such as Juul were under fire for manufacturing flavored cartridges (strawberry, watermelon, mango, etc.) that proved wildly popular, and addictive, to underage teenagers.

Vaping tobacco and cannabis became intertwined, confusingly so. “The real problem is illicit vaporizers,” says John Oram, the CEO and founder of NUG, a vertically integrated cannabis company based in California. “It’s not the tobacco vaporizer. That’s a teen issue. You have to be 21 to even walk into a [cannabis] store. The public health issue around people getting sick and dying is around the illicit market. How do you stop the illicit market?

In California alone, it’s estimated that the illicit market is three times as large as the legal market. And not everyone possesses the scientific chops to package cannabis vape products.

“It’s one thing to grow weed in your closet and sell it, but it’s another thing to become a junior chemist in your closet,” says Max Simon, the CEO and cofounder of Green Flower Media, a cannabis education platform. “Fake chemists are playing important chemistry roles. Unfortunately, we’re seeing the repercussions of unregulated, untested, unverified products ultimately getting tainted and making people sick.”

Part of the blame goes to uneven, and even nonexistent, cannabis regulation. When America exited alcohol Prohibition, the government enacted a strict legal framework for the production, distribution and sale of alcoholic beverages. The decriminalization of cannabis, however, is occurring in a patchwork, state-by-state manner with no federal oversight.

Nationally, cannabis remains a Schedule I drug, unsafe for use even under medical supervision. In legal states, the regulatory onus sits on cannabis producers, who take seriously their roles in manufacturing safe products with dependable dosing.

“Our standards are higher than what you find in the organic food industry,” says Erik Knutson, the CEO and cofounder of Colorado’s Keef Brands. Around 50 percent of the Keef’s sales are vaping-related products, and “as a company, safety is our primary concern.”

As a golden rule, Knutson cautions consumers against purchasing cannabis products anywhere but a regulated and licensed store. In states where cannabis remains illegal, “if you’re purchasing a vape pen, it’s more than likely not being produced in a regulated facility.”

In a doom-and-gloom scenario, the ongoing crisis could block the bumpy road toward national legalization efforts, halting and even reversing hard-fought gains. At the minimum, cannabis has taken a serious reputational hit. “This has associated the risk that cannabis can cause people to die,” says Simon of Green Flower.

Cannabis companies, though, hope that the vaping crisis can help point toward a safer, healthier and even a fully legalized future. Licensed and fully accountable stores, planted widely and selling traceable products, might be the necessary medicine to cure the ills of the black market.

“This very tragic experience is a very strong motivation to enact legalization efforts to ensure that unregulated products don’t cause more consumer-safety issues,” says Jeff Mascio, the chief executive officer of Cannabis One, a Colorado aggregator of cannabis retailers and manufacturers. “Vaping technology is not going anywhere. The genie is out of the bottle, if you will. The only thing you can effectively do is regulate it.”