In 2019, the United States media began to circulate reports of a mysterious lung illness that was sending hundreds of people across the country to hospitals. Some victims of the illness required intensive care treatment and had to be placed on ventilators. Eight people didn’t recover from the illness and ultimately died. The connection between the victims of the disease was that they all vaped. Seemingly overnight, vaping – once largely considered a healthier alternative to smoking – was vilified and became a subject of fear and confusion.
For consumers and parents – and especially for the over 10 million adults in the United States who formerly smoked and now vape nicotine e-liquid instead – a major source of confusion is the fact that there are two types of vaping, and the media reports have largely failed to make the distinction between them.
One type of vaping has caused people to become sick. The other type has not. The website ecigaretteempire.com recently published an article explaining what’s going on, and we’ll summarize the website’s findings here.
What Are the Two Types of Vaping?
In case you’re unfamiliar with the term, vaping is the act of using a device that heats a compound and turns it to vapor. Vaporizing the compound releases its active ingredients as an aerosol. By inhaling the aerosol, you absorb the active ingredients though your lungs.
The first type of vaping is nicotine vaping. In nicotine vaping, the substance that you inhale is a flavored, nicotine-infused liquid. People generally use nicotine vaping as a smoke-free alternative to tobacco cigarettes.
The other type of vaping is cannabis vaping. In this case, people are using cannabis for recreational or medicinal purposes. The principle is the same – people vaporize cannabis because they hope that it’s healthier than smoking it – but the material that they’re vaping is entirely different. Some people vaporize whole cannabis flowers, and others vaporize cannabis extracts.
So far, the only confirmed causes of the vaping lung illness are cartridges filled with cannabis extracts and another ingredient. It’s time to learn what that mystery ingredient is and why it’s in THC vaping cartridges.
Illicit THC Vaping Cartridges Have Caused Lung Illnesses
The type of vaping that concerns us is the vaping of cannabis extracts. A cannabis extract is a thick, tarry substance that’s usually captured with heat and pressure or through the use of a solvent. Cannabis extract is so thick that you can’t put it in a standard vaping cartridge. To reach the heating coil in a vaping cartridge, the substance that you’re vaping must travel through a tiny opening, where it is absorbed by a ceramic or cotton wick. To make cannabis extract work in a small vaping cartridge, you need to dilute it with another substance. THC isn’t water soluble, so you need to use an oil – and that’s where the problems begin.
You’ll notice that we used the word “illicit” when describing the types of THC vaping cartridges that have made people sick. That’s because cannabis products sold in licensed dispensaries need to undergo testing and must contain what’s stated on their labels. Many people, however, don’t have access to legal cannabis dispensaries. If those people want to buy cannabis, they’ll need to buy it on the black market – and black-market THC cartridges are readily available. They’re easy to produce, conceal and transport. Police in Wisconsin recently arrested a man accused of producing as many as 5,000 THC vaping cartridges per day. He allegedly ran the operation for nearly two years. That’s just one operation, and that one operation may have produced and distributed many hundreds of thousands of illicit THC cartridges around the country. There are undoubtedly many other operations just like it.
Why Vaping Black Market THC Could Make You Sick
The difference between legal and illegal cannabis operations is that illicit operations don’t necessarily bother with conforming to standards or ensuring that their products are consistent in quality. When it comes to making THC vaping cartridges, an illegal operation may not have a consistent supply of raw cannabis extract to use in its products. So, not only will the manufacturer need to dilute the THC oil in its cartridges, but some cartridges may actually contain more cutting agents than THC. That’s exactly what has happened in the black-market THC industry. Demand has outstripped supply, so makers of THC vaping cartridges are diluting their products like crazy.
Vitamin E acetate is the cutting agent used in most THC vaping cartridges. It’s an oil, so it creates a product that looks consistent and uniform. Unfortunately, medical experts are finding that inhaling Vitamin E can cause severe lung damage. Although researchers aren’t completely sure that Vitamin E acetate is the only cause of the vaping lung illness that’s affected hundreds of patients throughout the country, it is the only confirmed cause of the illness to date.
No commercial nicotine e-liquid has been found to cause this lung illness. Oil isn’t used to dilute nicotine.
How Can I Vape Without Getting Sick?
If you vape nicotine or cannabis, you’re probably wondering whether this lung illness has any chance of affecting you. Medical authorities have stressed that they don’t yet know everything about the illness. Based on what we know so far, though, these are the steps you should take to ensure your safety.
- If you vape nicotine e-liquid, buy it only from a trusted retailer. Although no nicotine e-liquid has been implicated as a cause of the illness, there is still a chance that some unsafe ingredient has found its way into knockoff cartridges or pods from overseas.
- If you vape cannabis, your best option is to buy only whole flowers from a licensed dispensary. It’s probably best to avoid pre-filled THC or CBD vaping cartridges until we know more about the cutting agents and other ingredients in those cartridges.
- If buying cannabis from a dispensary isn’t an option for you, buy whole cannabis flowers only. Regardless of what the package says, you don’t know what’s in an illicit THC cartridge and could be taking a terrible risk.