A recent outbreak of severe lung disorders requiring hospitalization and in some cases even medically-induced coma, has been linked to vaping. There are a lot of news articles about it and none of them can really pin down what kind of vape, if any, is shared in common in these incidents, or indeed what specifically is causing them to happen. But it’s worrisome.
I advocated quite strongly for vapes in this thread in Great Debates. I still think it’s likely that they are, in the long term, safer than tobacco use because vapor doesn’t have the same effects on the lungs that burning tobacco particles have. But with all that being said, for the time being, I am quitting JUUL.
If, after some thorough studies, it turns out that these recent illnesses were caused by a specific kind of chemical that is NOT in JUUL, I will gladly resume using JUUL. If it is traced to some obscure off-brand or home-brewed vapor juice, and can be definitively said to be unrelated to JUUL specifically, I’ll use it. But for now I have to hold off.
Still smoke rolled tobacco occasionally (Amsterdam Shag, in a thin Zig-Zag paper) like in the morning with coffee, or during breaks at band practice. I typically don’t smoke more than one cigarette a day, if that (weeks may go by where I don’t smoke at all), but with the vape gone, I may find myself either compensating with more smoking (hopefully not) or jonesing like a motherfucker for nicotine, because I’m in the middle of a business deal that’s unbelievably stressful and full of bureaucratic bullshit red tape, uncertainty, and directly involving a bank vice president who, if you google his name, the first 4 hits involve the words “Paul Manafort”, no shit. Every day for the forseeable future until this is resolved, is going to be edge-of-my-seat anxiety. Fuck!
It’s turning out the culprit is not ecigs but rather counterfeit THC vapes being sold on the street. Buy your legal THC from a licensed, legal, regulated source and avoid the cheap knock-offs the street vendors and flea markets are selling.
I’m not surprised. IIRC, all of these mystery illnesses came from the same general location. Sounded isolated to me at the time, probably from the same batch of god-knows-what, or at least source.
And that is why I make my own damn juice. I know what goes in it (and costs about $70 for 2L)
The CDC has said that many patients reported using e-cigs with cannabinoid components, but they have explicitly said that they have not identified a single substance that is responsible. They’ve said nothing about counterfeit vapes.
And cases have been reported in at least 25 states, so I’m not sure “the same general location” is accurate.
The data is not conclusive of course, but there’s clearly a correlation between vape products containing vitamin E acetate and the recent vape-related hospitalizations.
We had a ton of them, all at the same time, in Wisconsin. When the first one or two happened, I remember at least one of the people saying that he had used a THC cart, but either wouldn’t turn it over to be analyzed or wouldn’t tell them where he got it. This guy was on death’s door and kept his mouth shut, I have a feeling he was protecting someone. Maybe he got it from a large dealer.
In any case, as more and more cases showed up, some of the news stories would mention THC carts as possibly being connected.
This may be causing some bias for me, but all of a sudden I’m hearing the CDC and other agencies telling people that they absolutely should not use e-cigs because they can do irreparable damage to your lungs while pointing to these cases. In the mean time, I keep coming back to the thought that e-cigs have been around for a while at this point and all these people all got sick and the same time, a lot of them in the same area and there were a lot of mentions of THC carts. If they’re using THC carts, it means they’re being made/filled/sold clandestine style so there’s no control over how they’re made, their ingredients etc. To me, it sounds like there’s a bad batch going around with something in it causing these problems. To tell everyone they shouldn’t use any type of vape device ever without having any idea what caused this is like telling people that they shouldn’t ever use a cell phone after a handful of li-on batteries exploded.
I’m not arguing that vaping isn’t bad, I’m saying they should wait for some actual results before jumping on this as a way to ban something they don’t want anyway. If it turns out that it was just a tainted batch making people sick, IMO, the people suggesting that no one should vape anything ever, should lose credibility pointing to this as a reason.
You have to take the reports that some of the people used only nicotine products with a grain of salt. It could be true, or it could be that they didn’t want to admit they were using THC.
It does seem like the problems started suddenly, but there were probably several cases for a long time that were misdiagnosed and never connected. Once the first doctor proposes vaping as the cause, other cases can be tied together and it appears the incidence jumped dramatically.
As far as black market cartridges, there are plenty of states where these are legally filled with regulatory guidance. It doesn’t mean people buy those (black market is cheaper), but the Oregon case at least appears to be someone who bought from a legal dispensary. We’ll see if that turns out to be the case. If the cause is the oils in the lungs, it could be a fundamental problem with vaping THC, legit or not. Unlike nicotine, THC has to be dissolved in an oil to vape.
No, there are dry herb vapers, which heat the plant material just enough to release the good stuff but not combust. They were actually going long before nicotine vaping but were generally a table top thing. Modern batteries have allowed them to be handheld.
And a new study indicates that the solvents used in vapes may cause significant damage to the lungs. In a study that compared vape solutions with nicotine to solutions wth no drugs, both found significant lung damage.
As a 30 year smoker, 20 as an ex, I am amazed that this revelation about vaping is such a surprise. We have ample examples of severe medical problems from any number of inhalation agents, both particulate and chemical.
Actually, it strikes me as being more like “we’ve got E. coli linked to romaine lettuce and until we can figure out exactly where it’s coming from don’t eat any romaine lettuce”. Clearly, there are serious serious problems linked to vaping at the moment and until someone figures out exactly what’s going on maybe dialing back on the vaping is a good idea. I think the vaping companies are concerned because they fear people entirely giving up vaping either because they go back to smoking tobacco or just finally manage to give up nicotine entirely. From my viewpoint, it’s up to the individual whether or not to continue vaping, but it would be irresponsible for authorities NOT to mention there is a new and very serious risk at the moment and they aren’t sure why. Safest is not to vape, but none of us lives a completely safe life. Keep informed and make your own choices.