Category: EVALI

  • Thai Health Officials Reporting New EVALI Cases

    Thai Health Officials Reporting New EVALI Cases

    Scenes like this are rare in Thailand. This vaper in Koh Samui, Thailand could face fines or even jail. (Timothy S. Donahue)

    A 32-year-old man from Buri Ram, Thailand, has been diagnosed with EVALI (e-cigarette or vaping-associated lung injury), according to the Department of Disease Control (DDC) at the Ministry of Public Health.

    The patient, who was admitted to Buri Ram Hospital, was coughing up blood, and his condition quickly developed into acute and severe pneumonia, said Dr Chayanan Sittibusaya, director of the ministry’s Division of Tobacco Product Control.

    “We don’t usually encounter acute pneumonia and the symptoms deteriorated quickly within 24 to 36 hours. In this case, he had to be put on a ventilator,” he said, as reported by media. “All tests for infection, such as Covid-19, RSV (respiratory syncytial virus), and others, were negative. After the patient was able to remove his breathing tube, he told doctors he took about 400 puffs of an e-cigarette per day, every day.”

    Chayanan said it was unclear how long the man had pursued an aggressive smoking habit. However, he also had underlying diseases, including diabetes and high blood pressure. A detailed physical examination revealed white patches on his lungs.

    The patient’s condition is improving overall, and there is no infection. However, he was experiencing symptoms similar to nicotine withdrawal.

    The hospital brought the case to the attention of the Buri Ram provincial public health office to investigate the disease further.

    E-cigarettes are prohibited in the country, but they are easily available both online and offline, despite the authorities’ vow to deal with them.

  • New UNC Report Pushes False EVALI Narrative

    New UNC Report Pushes False EVALI Narrative

    Credit: People Images

    A new report from University of North Carolina researchers pushes the false claim that nicotine vaping products cause e-cigarette or vaping product use-associated lung injury (EVALI).

    “At its core, EVALI is a serious disease that primarily affects the lungs and results in a substantial number of hospitalizations and deaths in a relatively young and otherwise healthy population across the United States,” said Meghan Rebuli, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics in the UNC School of Medicine, stated in a press release. “This epidemic is largely caused by the unregulated and quickly evolving nature of the e-cigarette industry and certainly highlights the need for continued action by both researchers and government agencies.”

    In 2021, Rebuli co-led a virtual workshop which brought together pulmonologists, public health officials, epidemiologists, and toxicologists from across the U.S. to discuss their latest research findings and recommendations. A new report, with Rebuli as its lead author, was published in the Annals of the American Thoracic Society in December 2022.

    The the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has stated that vitamin E acetate used in THC-based vaping products was “more than likely responsible” for causing EVALI. However, Vitamin E acetate wasn’t found in all of the EVALI-associated products, according to Rebuli.

    “So, it is still quite possible that there are other components in e-cigarettes that can cause EVALI,” said Rebuli. “We just have not identified many of those yet.”

    No components of nicotine-based vaping products have been associated with EVALI, according to the CDC.

    In July of 2020, the CDC said states no longer have to track lung-related injuries caused by marijuana-based vapor products, partly because cases have dropped. The CDC said it stopped requiring states to report the numbers after it “pinpointed vitamin E acetate as the culprit in THC e-cigarettes” making people sick. The CDC said it is monitoring EVALI cases and hasn’t seen an uptick nationwide. However, It said the agency will continue to provide assistance to states as needed.

    EVALI and false reporting surrounding its cause has boosted misinformation surrounding nicotine vaping products. A new study led by researchers at the American Cancer Society (ACS) shows perceptions of e-cigarettes as being “more harmful” than cigarettes by adults in the United States more than doubled between 2019-2020 and perceptions of e-cigarettes as “less harmful” declined between 2018-2020, when the EVALI concern was at its peak.

    Dr. Kumar Subaramaniam, a physician based in Malaysia, says he finds the increased usage of the term EVALI worrisome, as it is often discussed in the wrong context, according to the New Strait Times. Kumar said that the issue lies with certain parties, who bring up EVALI at the mention of vaping, while repeating and spreading mistruths about vaping.

    When the CDC identified the real culprit behind the EVALI outbreak, the presence of vitamin E acetate that was added into illegal tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) products, Kumar said the CDC’s slow reaction to announcing the cause caused the mishap that left a bad reputation on vaping, which was touted to give many smokers a chance to quit smoking tobacco products for good.

    “So, it was not vaping that was the problem, rather the misuse and abuse of the products. But the damage has been done and the half-baked truths surrounding EVALI live on to this day,” he says. “The EVALI saga should not be used as a ‘boogeyman’ to dissuade us from seeking to regulate vaping and adopt a ‘zero-tolerance’ attitude. In fact, the EVALI saga in the U.S. shows above all the importance of regulations.”

  • Doctor Says EVALI is Often Used in Wrong Context

    Doctor Says EVALI is Often Used in Wrong Context

    E-cigarette and vaping-associated lung injury (EVALI) is a term that is coming up more often in countries like Malaysia that are just beginning the journey towards regulating next-generation tobacco products.

    Dr. Kumar Subaramaniam, based in Malaysia, says he finds the increased usage of the term EVALI worrisome, as it is often discussed in the wrong context, according to the New Strait Times. Kumar said that the issue lies with certain parties, who bring up EVALI at the mention of vaping, while repeating and spreading mistruths about vaping.

    Credit: Fotolia Premium

    When the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) identified the real culprit behind the EVALI outbreak, the presence of vitamin E acetate that was added into illegal tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) products, Kumar said the CDC’s slow reaction to announcing the cause caused the mishap that left a bad reputation on vaping, which was touted to give many smokers a chance to quit smoking tobacco products for good.

    “So, it was not vaping that was the problem, rather the misuse and abuse of the products. But the damage has been done and the half-baked truths surrounding EVALI live on to this day,” he says. “The EVALI saga should not be used as a ‘boogeyman’ to dissuade us from seeking to regulate vaping and adopt a ‘zero-tolerance’ attitude. In fact, the EVALI saga in the U.S. shows above all the importance of regulations.”

    Kumar believes that Malaysia needs to regulate vaping for the safety of its users. Regulations will allow the authorities and consumers themselves to be sure that the e-liquids in the market meet regulatory standards.

    Perhaps regulations will pave the way for a greater understanding of how vaping, which is scientifically proven to be a less harmful alternative to smoking, can help the estimated five million smokers in the country kick the habit, he says. “If we are to move forward in this country and put an end to the menace that is smoking, we need to arm ourselves with good science, facts and data,” said Kumar. “

  • U.S. Army Article Wrongly Places EVALI Cause on E-Cigs

    U.S. Army Article Wrongly Places EVALI Cause on E-Cigs

    Credit: Media VN

    It doesn’t stop. Since the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and U.S. Food and Drug Administration wrongly blamed nicotine vaping products as the cause of e-cigarette or vaping use-associated lung injury (EVALI) numerous news outlets continue to spread the misinformation.

    The official website for the U.S. Army yesterday published an article wrongly blaming EVALI on nicotine vaping products. The article states that “vaping has been commercially available since the early 2000s, and there have been hundreds of reports” of EVALI since then. “Public Health officials advise against the use of e-cigarettes, but highly recommend purchase from known vendors, if consuming … Washington says an estimated 200,000–300,000 active duty service members are diagnosed with acute respiratory issues annually.”

    After the CDC announced that vitamin E acetate in black market marijuana vaping products was the cause EVALI more than two years ago, many media outlets continue to falsely blame nicotine vaping products for the lung illness that was first identified in 2019.

    Credit: Master1305

    A study published in January 2020 in the journal Toxics provided important insight into the lung intoxication epidemic. The study presented, for the first time, a comprehensive analysis of products used by EVALI patients. Vitamin E acetate was the main finding in cannabinoid liquids. No compound that could be linked to EVALI was found in the two nicotine products tested.

    Some tobacco control experts said the CDC created panic with its refusal to directly blame the actual causes of EVALI, vitamin E acetate in illegal THC vapes. Following CDC’s lead, state health departments spread the word that using an e-cigarette to quit smoking could be life-threatening — so much so that seven states issued emergency bans on the sale of most or all electronic cigarettes.

    “Throughout its investigation of the first outbreak, CDC created public hysteria over the dangers of electronic cigarettes by attributing the outbreak to all vaping products, whether they contained nicotine or THC and whether they were purchased at a highly regulated vape shop or from a drug dealer on the street,” wrote Michael Siegel, a professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences, Boston University School of Public Health, where he has conducted research on tobacco for 25 years, at the time. “The very name that CDC attached to the outbreak directly implicated electronic cigarettes, which are nicotine-delivery devices that are effective in helping adult smokers to quit smoking. Following CDC’s lead, state health departments spread the word that using an e-cigarette to quit smoking could be life-threatening — so much so that seven states issued emergency bans on the sale of most or all electronic cigarettes.”

  • Scientists Say Some EVALI Cases May Have Been Covid-19

    Scientists Say Some EVALI Cases May Have Been Covid-19

    Some victims of the mysterious vaping-related lung disease that swept through all 50 U.S. states in 2019 were actually Covid-19 patients, according to a group of Chinese scientists and radiologists. After reviewing some 250 chest CT scans from published papers, the group says they are confident in the conclusion that some patients were wrongly diagnosed with e-cigarette or vaping use-associated lung injury (EVALI).

    Credit: Kawee

    The scientists are now urging U.S. officials to start screening for Covid-19 in patients who in 2019 were diagnosed with EVALI. . According to the Global Times, sources close to the matter said that after studying 250 chest CT scans of 142 EVALI patients selected from some 60 related studies that have been published, the scientists found that 16 EVALI patients were involved in viral infections, which indicates that they could have had Covid-19. Five of the cases were determined as “moderately suspicious.”

    The 16 EVALI patients were all from the U.S., and in 12 patients symptoms started before 2020. Researchers concluded that there were viral infection cases among EVALI infections reported in the U.S. in 2019, and the possibility of Covid-19 in the vaping-related lung disease in the U.S. cannot be ruled out, sources said.

    Yang Zhanqiu, a virologist at Wuhan University, said that due to the similarity of symptoms between EVALI and Covid-19 patients and since no nucleic acid detection kits were available at the time, it’s highly likely that some Covid-19 patients were actually misdiagnosed as EVALI patients in 2019.

  • Michigan to Formally Ban EVALI-Linked Additive

    Michigan to Formally Ban EVALI-Linked Additive

    The additive that has been found as the source of THC vaping-related lung injuries and death would be formally banned in Michigan under legislation passed in the Michigan House this week. House lawmakers on Thursday approved a package of bills aimed at prohibiting the sale of tobacco and marijuana vaping products containing vitamin E acetate or other additives not approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

    Credit: Spirit of America

     

    The Centers for Disease Control has “strongly linked” THC products containing vitamin E acetate to 68 deaths — including three in Michigan — and more than 2,800 hospitalizations nationwide from a disease the CDC has called e-cigarette or vaping use-associated lung injury (EVALI), even though e-cigarettes had nothing to do with the diseases causes.

    A processor or provisioning center found in violation of the ban would face a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $10,000, according to M Live.

    House Bills 4249 and 4250 passed the chamber with wide bipartisan support. The package now heads to the Senate for further review. The legislation is similar to bills introduced last session that also passed the House, but were never taken up for a vote in the Senate.

    During a March 16 Regulatory Reform Committee hearing, one lawmaker said the harmful effects of vitamin E acetate were discovered in 2019 amid an “emergency when young people were dying after vaping.”

    “This chemical is actually inserted in the vaping process and the manufacturing process, and there it was discovered that it was extremely dangerous to be inhaled,” they said at the time

    The Marijuana Regulatory Agency in November 2019 created testing requirements banning the presence of vitamin E acetate in all marijuana vaping products and halted marijuana vaping sales until they could be tested for the presence of vitamin E acetate. In December 2019, the state recalled thousands of marijuana vaping products that tested positive for the additive.

    Vitamin E acetate is safely consumed in food and applied to the skin in cosmetic products. When it comes to vaping, Vitamin E acetate can be used as a filler added to THC vaping cartridges – it’s a cheaper substance that dilutes potency.

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention pointed to vitamin E acetate as a factor in many of the vaping-related deaths around the country, noting it “may interfere with normal lung functioning” when inhaled through a vaping product.

  • Dr. Phil Spreads False Info, Blames Nicotine for EVALI

    Dr. Phil Spreads False Info, Blames Nicotine for EVALI

    Misinformation continues to be a challenge for the vaping industry. After the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that vitamin E acetate in black market marijuana vaping products was the cause e-cigarette or vaping product use-associated lung injury (EVALI) more than a year ago, many media outlets continue to falsely blame nicotine vaping products for the lung illness that was first identified in 2019.

    Credit: drphil.com

    On his Friday episode of the show Dr. Phil, American TV personality Phillip Calvin McGraw, also known as Dr. Phil, wrongly blamed the EVALI lung illness outbreak on vaping nicotine products. Speaking to a guest who stated she only used nicotine vaping products, McGraw said he “was puzzled” by the guest’s understanding that vaping, while not entirely safe, is safer than smoking combustible cigarettes.

    “Ventilators, hospitals, deaths … there is lots of news out there on this,” McGraw said. “This isn’t a matter of opinion, it’s a matter of science.” The host then went on to use several news reports wrongly blaming nicotine for EVALI to support his statements. According to Nielsen data, the average daily audience of the Dr. Phil Show is 2.9 million viewers.

    Reports of serious illnesses and deaths related to vaping began mounting in summer 2019. By mid-February 2020, the CDC reported more than 2,800 cases of lung injuries requiring hospitalization across all 50 states, and 68 deaths. After nearly six months of falsely claiming nicotine vaping products were the cause of the outbreak, the CDC finally admitted that the cause was illicit THC vaping products and not nicotine vaping products.

    By July of 2020, the CDC said that states no longer needed to track lung-related injuries caused by marijuana-based vapor products, partly because cases have dropped. The CDC said it stopped requiring states to report the numbers in February of 2020 after it pinpointed vitamin E acetate as the culprit in THC vaping products that were making people sick, but didn’t make the public announcement until nearly five months later.

    McGraw holds a doctorate in clinical psychology, though he ceased renewing his license to practice psychology in 2006, according to Wikipedia. The CDC and U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) now strongly recommend that people avoid use of “e-cigarettes or vaping products containing THC, especially from the illicit market.”

    The UK and EU have a different view on e-cigarettes and whether or not combustible tobacco smokers should make the switch. More and more smokers began transitioning over to vapor products after the Public Health England stated that vaping is 95 percent safer than smoking cigarettes. Experts have pointed out that EVALI cases are almost exclusive to the United States and haven’t made a blip on the radar globally. In the UK, there are approx. 3.6 million e-cigarette users with virtually no EVALI cases reported during the media coverage period in 2019 and early 2020.

    There were also little to no cases of EVALI in Canada and Mexico, the closest foreign neighbors to the US. “EVALI was largely the result of an unregulated illicit THC vape market in the United States which didn’t follow safe production standards” says Allan Rewak, executive director of Canada-based Vaping Industry Trade Association (VITA) in Nov. of 2020. “Canada’s nicotine vape market was on the final path toward federal regulation at the time, which prevented EVALI from occurring in any significant way north of the border.”

    The use of EVALI to spread fear on nicotine vaping in Mexico and in Latin America was particularly crude, dishonest and more intense than in other places, according to Roberto Sussman, senior researcher and lecturer at the National University of Mexico and founder and director of Pro-Vapeo. .

    “Up to this day, all officials of the health ministry in Mexico are still blam[ing] nicotine vaping,” says Sussman. “And when you try to engage them, they say, ‘No, no, no. That’s it. Full stop. End of discussion.’ That’s it.” Since EVALI has now been found to be caused by illegal THC vape pens, not nicotine-based e-cigarettes, Sussman says “no one has told Latin America.”

    In late 2020, Mexico’s president signed legislation prohibiting the importation, manufacture and distribution of all noncombustible products tobacco (vaping) products, including heat-not-burn products. “Their justification was that we need to protect Mexican youth from EVALI. Given the proximity of the U.S., this epidemic can come to Mexico any time,” says Sussman. “Pure fear-mongering and they’ve refused all debate.”

    Brad Jemmett, a former long-time smoker and now general manager for SnowPlus – an innovation based vape company – suggests that the core of what drove the negative media was a localized, US issue. 

    “Globally, we don’t really see EVALI cases like there were in the US, because EVALI was linked to illicit marijuana vapes, and most specifically the addition of Vitamin E acetate as a thickening agent. Our products on the other hand, are developed and tested to the highest degree, and designed specifically for adult smokers looking to transition out of smoking,” he said. “At SnowPlus, we never have and never will use Vitamin E acetate in any of our products. Through innovation, we’ve aimed to simulate the smoking ritual with vape technology, to provide a less harmful alternative compared to smoking cigarettes.”

  • Oregon Considers Measures to Stop Another EVALI Outbreak

    Oregon Considers Measures to Stop Another EVALI Outbreak

    Oregon wants some cannabis vape manufacturers to recall products that might cause lung injuries.

    The Oregon Liquor Control Commission is asking for a voluntary recall of two potential cannabis vape ingredients: squalene and squalane. They’re derived from olives and have been used to dilute the liquid that goes into vape pens so it can easily vaporize, according to an article on opb.org.

    lab
    Credit: Michal Jarmoluk

    The agency said the ingredients have been linked with Vitamin E acetate and the safety problems that put thousands of vapers in the hospital with lung damage last year.

    OLCC spokesperson Mark Pettinger said commissioners will meet this week to consider a mandatory ban on the ingredients and, perhaps more importantly, a more stringent product review process.

    “We can go and pull samples of stuff off the shelves and get it tested,” he said. “But if we find ingredients or additives that are injurious, or potentially injurious to public health, there’s very little we can do right now.”

    Much of the recalled product has already been bought and consumed, but some remains on the market. Bulk Naturals LLC, which does business as True Terpenes, used squalene and squalane to make a product called “Viscosity.” It in turn was used to make cannabis vaping products by the Bend company Oregrown.

    Consumers can verify whether items are subject to the recall: They will be labeled “Oregrown PAX Era D9 Elite” and have the identification number 2520. They will also have been made before Aug. 31, 2019.

    Pettinger stressed that Oregrown did not know Viscosity was potentially harmful and stopped selling it as soon the OLCC reached out.

    “Oregrown in this situation is not a bad actor … they are a poster child for a licensee that stepped up,” he said. “When we said, ‘Hey, we believe there’s a problem,’ they were basically, ‘What can we do to help? What can we do to track this down?’”

    The OLCC statement on the recall said: “OLCC recently commissioned a study that determined that when exposed to heat, squalene and squalane produce harmful chemicals. It has also been documented that inhaling squalene has been associated with exogenous lipoid pneumonia. Initial evidence about these additives also suggests a potential for consumer harm similar to that already proven about Vitamin E Acetate.”

    Oregon regulators have been concerned about the presence of undisclosed ingredients in cannabis vaping products and examining non-cannabis additives over the last year.

    At the OLCC Thursday meeting, the commission will consider new rules for cannabis vaping products that would establish greater accountability for non-cannabis ingredients used in cannabis vaping products.

  • MIchigan Recalls Marijuana Vapes With Vitamin E Acetate

    MIchigan Recalls Marijuana Vapes With Vitamin E Acetate

    The Marijuana Regulatory Agency (MRA) in Michigan has issued a recall for any vape cartridges containing Vitamin E Acetate. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has said vitamin E acetate is responsible for a rash of lung disease.

    Many of these products were sold from Plan B Wellness, located on 20101 8 Mile Road in Detroit. Most of them were sold late 2019.

    The substances has failed safety compliance testing in August. According to a news release, these cartridges were made before November 2019, when the rules for marijuana products were filed in the state.

    The vape cartridges will all have a license number of the marijuana facility on it. They will also have a tag number that is followed by a statewide monitoring system.

    MRA suggests customers and patients to return the affected products to Plan B Wellness, who will properly dispose them. The store will also contact customers who have bought these items.

  • Legal Marijuana Sales Growing After EVALI Declines

    Legal Marijuana Sales Growing After EVALI Declines

    cannabis vape
    photo: Jeremynathan | Dreamstime

    It was a year ago that lung disease caused by vitamin E acetate in illegal THC pens that caused legal marijuana sales to plummet. Today, marijuana vapor companies report that sales are returning to normal as consumers begin to understand the danger of consuming black market marijuana vape pens.

    Arnaud Dumas de Rauly, co-founder and CEO of New York-based vape manufacturer The Blinc Group, sees this as the biggest impact of the vaping health scare. “It made consumers realize that you can’t just buy any cannabis vaping product,” he said. “You can’t go to the black market.”

    The outbreak of what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention dubbed e-cigarette or vaping product use-associated lung injury (EVALI) in the summer of 2019 slowed the growth of some companies and stifled sales toward the end of the year, according to a story posted on mjbizdaily.com.

    But vape products, like other cannabis goods, seem to also be weathering not only the health crisis but the current economic downturn. “We’ve seen tremendous bounce back from the vape crisis,” said Sammy Dorf, chief growth officer and co-founder of Verano Holdings, a vertically integrated cannabis company in Chicago. “Business is extremely strong.”

    The COVID-19 pandemic hasn’t slowed business much, either, according to the vape companies, despite fresh warnings that vaping and smoking can make a person more vulnerable to the virus. “We haven’t seen a change in the purchasing pattern of our patients or customers due to the pandemic,” Dorf added.

    How it played out

    The vape health crisis unfolded rapidly, beginning in the summer of 2019 with mainstream media reports seizing on the news that people were dying from allegedly vaping mainly THC products. Some states with regulated cannabis markets such as Washington temporarily banned additives in vapes, while others, including Massachusetts, banned the sale of vape products altogether.

    It took a few months for more information about the illness to surface. Scientists identified one substance, vitamin E acetate, which is added as a cutting agent to some vape oil, as a possible culprit in the lung illness.

    Many industry officials claimed that vitamin E was more commonly found in illicit market products and pointed out that legal cannabis is regulated, tested and safer than unregulated street products.

    Most recently, an academic study published in August confirmed that states lacking licensed, regulated cannabis saw the highest rates of EVALI, particularly those in the northern Midwest. (See chart above.) The report, from the Society for the Study of Addiction, noted “these results suggest that EVALI cases did not arise from e-cigarette or cannabis use per se, but rather from locally distributed e-liquids or additives most prevalent in the affected areas.”

    “We believe the bigger lesson here is that the data clearly indicate that there were fewer cases of lung illnesses and injury in states where legal, regulated cannabis products were available,” said Steve Fox, strategic adviser to the Cannabis Trade Federation. “In fact, the lowest rates of incidence were in Colorado, Washington and Alaska – three of the first four legal states – with Oregon and Nevada close behind.”

    ‘Very scary’

    According to Seattle data-analytics company Headset, sales of adult-use vape products in three of four states with recreational markets generally have recovered, though Nevada retailers saw sales still lower than pre-health scare levels after the state enacted stricter lockdown measures for marijuana retailers during the pandemic.However, market share for vape pens is lower year-over-year, according to the Marijuana Business Factbook, as flower tends to represent a more economical choice amid COVID-19 and greater economic concerns.

    Several cannabis vape business executives interviewed for this story said sales have completely rebounded. George Sadler, president of San Diego-based Platinum Vape, which sells products into several markets, said sales plateaued right after the initial scare but started trending upward in the early winter. “We never really saw much of anything on the level of decline that we thought,” Sadler said.

    Dumas de Rauly said his sales started to recover in December as consumer confidence in the legal market returned. “We have doubled our revenue in terms of vaping hardware since the vaping crisis,” Dumas de Rauly said.

    But he added that his business likely lost a year of growth because of the earlier drop in sales. In Denver, Dan Gardenswartz, chief operating officer at Spherex, said his company’s sales never took a “meaningful hit,” but the end of 2019 was “a little bit of a roller coaster.”

    “It was a very strange time,” he said. “The vape crisis was a very scary thing for people in the industry.”

    Seth Wiggins, chief revenue officer for Clear Cannabis, also in Denver, saw a decline in sales for about 60-90 days before the trend began to reverse. The health crisis “was very painful initially,” he added. However, Wiggins said his company has posted record sales in recent months.

    Illicit to licit

    Wiggins attributes that lift in sales to customers who are shifting from illicit suppliers to legal providers. “The compliant market allows for more regulations and safety,” he added. “It’s breaching the tipping point where the cost basis is not worth the risk” to buy off the street.

    Morgan Fox, spokesman for the National Cannabis Industry Association, also identified that trend. “Across the board, we’ve seen a lot of people moving away from the unregulated market largely because of public-health concerns,” he said.

    Gardenswartz said he saw more people transition from the illicit to the legal market in California than in Colorado, which has imposed tighter controls on illegal dispensaries peddling products. Sadler agreed. He believes there has been some decline in vape sales on the unlicensed market, and he noted that some of his consumers have made the shift from the illicit market to licensed businesses.

    He cited Weedmaps’ decision to curtail advertising for unlicensed dispensaries as helping consumers find legal, tested vape products. Consumers are more aware that they’re going to a licensed dispensary, and stores in California have even displayed QR codes on storefronts so customers know they’re buying from a legal shop.

    “People are more diligent about asking the questions,” he said.