October 19, 2019

Don’t Buy CBD Vape Oil if It Has This One Ingredient

In case you haven’t heard, there’s a terrible lung illness sweeping across the United States. Nearly 1,300 people are confirmed to have been stricken by the disease that resembles a severe form of pneumonia, and 26 people have died from it. All of the people diagnosed with lung illness have vaped before becoming sick, and the vast majority of those people have admitted that they used cannabis products.

Here’s the good news. If you vape only nicotine and/or CBD products, you most likely have nothing to fear because the lung illness seems to center around THC vaping products – particularly those produced for the black market. Also, aside from one occurrence in Canada, the illness has not occurred outside the United States. Nevertheless, it’s a good idea to familiarize yourself with the situation, so you’ll always know what you’re vaping safely.

Reading this article, you’re going to learn the one ingredient that should never be in any CBD oil, e-liquid or other vaping product.

What Ingredient Should Never Be in CBD Vape Oil?

The one ingredient that should send you running far, far away from any CBD vape oil is Vitamin E acetate. The CDC has reported that Vitamin E is present in many – but not all – of the vaping product samples submitted by lung disease sufferers for analysis.

Whether Vitamin E acetate is the only – or primary – cause of the lung illness is unknown. It has become a focus of attention, though, because the disease is a form of lipoid pneumonia in which oil droplets settle in the lungs and are then attacked by the immune system. Until now, no one has ever had any reason to inhale Vitamin E – but thanks to the illicit THC distribution industry, people are inhaling it now. Some people are inhaling a lot of it, and all evidence currently suggests that Vitamin E inhalation is unsafe.

Why Are People Inhaling Vitamin E?

To understand why this crisis is occurring, consider that the primary goal of any business owner is to make more money. In legitimate industries, we have regulations in place to limit how business owners can do that. Illegal businesses aren’t concerned about following laws, however, nor are they concerned about the safety of their customers. As you’re about to learn, that’s why the vaping lung illness centers around the illicit THC industry. Vitamin E, as it turns out, allows sellers of illicit THC vaping cartridges to dilute the cartridges without customers knowing.

How THC Vape Cartridges Are Produced

To produce THC vape cartridges, and illicit seller needs large quantities of cannabis. The seller grinds the cannabis flowers, places them in a container and shoots the container full of a solvent such as butane. The butane – and the extracted essential oils of the cannabis – flow out the bottom of the container. Gentle heating removes the residual butane, and the substance that remains is pure hash oil. One pound of cannabis yields an ounce or two of hash oil, and butane is an extremely flammable substance that has caused many fires and explosions during hash oil production. So, for the illicit THC vape cartridge producer, obtaining or growing a massive quantity of cannabis is extremely risky, and extracting hash oil from the cannabis is extremely dangerous. Therefore, the producer has a strong incentive to maximize his investment and minimize his risk by giving the buyer a little THC oil as possible.

Illicit THC Cartridges Are Diluted and Dangerous

Illicit THC cartridge sellers have been cutting their cartridges with other substances for years. Most recently – before the Vitamin E craze began – illicit sellers were cutting their cartridges with liquid terpenes. Since terpenes naturally occurring in cannabis, you can’t tell that you have a cartridge diluted with terpenes simply by tasting it. So, THC cartridge users came up with something they called the “bubble test.” If you have a cartridge that’s watered down with terpenes – and you invert the cartridge – the air bubble will quickly move to the other side of the cartridge because terpenes are much thinner than hash oil.

Word quickly got around about the bubble test, so illicit cartridge producers had to find another way to dilute their cartridges. Vitamin E acetate provided the perfect solution, and by Summer 2019, there were dozens of companies around the country selling Vitamin E as a diluent for THC oil. Vitamin E didn’t just dilute THC oil; it also thickened it. Illicit cartridge producers could water down their THC oil with terpenes and thicken it back up with Vitamin E. The cartridges looked exactly as they would if they had pure THC oil in them, so the bubble test was made completely useless.

Investigators have commented that some of the THC cartridges submitted to them contain more Vitamin E than THC.

The Vitamin E Problem Is Not Going Away

The adulteration of illicit THC vape cartridges with Vitamin E has become so commonplace that some believe there could be tens of millions of contaminated cartridges on the streets right now. If you don’t have a legal option for purchasing cannabis where you live, you should consider this article your wake-up call – don’t purchase illicit THC vaping products. No matter what the seller says, you have no idea what’s in those cartridges. The Vitamin E problem is real, and it’s not going away. Unless the federal government legalizes cannabis and begins regulating its production, we might still be dealing with this lung illness years from now.

Is Your CBD Vape Oil Safe?

So, now you know why you should exercise caution when using cannabis vaping products. Here’s the good news. The reason why the Vitamin E problem centers around the illicit THC industry is because illicit sellers water their cartridges down to increase their profits. Legal sellers of cannabis vaping products like CBD vape oil have no reason to dilute their products. They use outside laboratories to verify that their products contain what’s on their labels. Before you buy CBD vape oil from a company for the first time, though, It’s wise to confirm that the company doesn’t add Vitamin E to its products.