5 People Died So Far From Illegal Unregulated Marijuana Pens #BlackMarketNews

So this isn’t good for anyone, but it may lead to solutions. The problem is clearly that marijuana is illegal, which leaves unregulated products on the street that make people sick.

Black market issues are front and center as the marijuana industry reaction to the vape pen outbreaks across the country — now totaling over 450 people sickened — blames the black market for it’s unregulated products. State officials have determined that Vitamin E Acetate may be the likely culprit. MJ Biz Daily says that 5 people total have died so far as of Saturday. Read about expected sales drop offs in the marijuana industry nationwide as a result in today’s MJ Biz Daily article, Cannabis industry insiders brace for potential fallout as health officials report new vaping deaths, issue warnings:

Industry: True culprit is black market

The Oregon case notwithstanding, most of the other cases appear connected to cannabis products or e-cigarettes purchased from illicit dealers or unlicensed marijuana shops, to the point that the CDC has warned consumers not to buy or use vape products “off the street.”

As a consequence, state-legal cannabis vaporizer companies and other industry observers are taking to heart that blame for the outbreak may not fall on them.

“I’ve seen this kind of media blitz for the past 10 years happen once every six months,” said Arnaud Dumas de Rauly, CEO of New York-based The Blinc Group, a vaporizer company. “It’s all over the media for two, three, four weeks.

“This might last a little bit longer because it mixes nicotine vaping and cannabis, but I think it’s just a fad. It’s going to pass and everyone is going to forget about it in two months.”

Dumas de Rauly, who also chairs the ISO Committee on Vaping Standards and CEN Vaping Standards Committee, pointed to statements by both physicians watching the outbreak and a former commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) noting the majority of illnesses were linked to street products diluted with some new additive, perhaps such as vitamin E acetate, as The Washington Post story indicated.

Vitamin E acetate is not used in standard cannabis oil or vape cartridge production, Dumas de Rauly said, and provides more evidence the problem is coming from illegal actors and not licensed cannabis companies.

“That is never used. Vitamin E is what we call a preservative. That’s what you add into cosmetics to make sure the product does not become spoiled,” Dumas de Rauly said.

“In no case is this a product that you should be inhaling.”

“When you add products like vitamin E … when you add different kind of lipid solvents to the mix, you’re making all of that oil stickier, and that stickiness is going to create these lung illnesses we’re seeing,” he said.

“Now, why do people add vitamin E? Because it’s supposed to help with the shelf life.”

That’s in direct contrast to lab-tested marijuana vape cartridges, which have been on the market for years without drastic health impacts reported, Dumas de Rauly noted.

“All of the patients are saying they bought it off the street. They didn’t buy it in legal, regulated environments,” Dumas de Rauly said.

“This is just basic math. … We have substantial data that shows that these products and these vaping illnesses come from the black market.

“The culprit here is the black-market product. It’s not the cartridge, it’s not the hardware, it’s not the regulators. It’s the black market.”

Read the full article here from MJ Biz Daily.