Black Market Vaporizers Have 20X Legal Level of Pesticides

U.S health officials stated that most of the 1,600+ Americans with vape-related illnesses this year were using black market vaporizer oils. Officials haven’t verified a single substance causing the health crisis yet, but they have identified a few possible culprits. Vitamin E Acetate and pesticides are on that list.

California-based marijuana testing company, Anresco Laboratories, tested over 200 samples of legal vape cartridge oils from state-licensed dispensaries as well as 15 samples from the black market.

Anresco found that 9 of the 15 black market samples contained Vitamin E Acetate at over 20%, with some close to 50%. Whereas, none of the 200+ samples from the legalized market showed signs of adulteration. Furthermore, of the illegal vape oils, they found that “all samples had at least 1 pesticide present at over 20x the legal limit.”

“There are clear quality and safety differences between unregulated and regulated market samples,” Anresco stated.  “A majority of the illicit samples we tested contained Vitamin E Acetate at significant levels, whereas a large sample size of the legal market showed no such issues.  Ditto, every single illicit sample contained multiple pesticides at levels tens or hundreds of times the limit permitted by the (California) Bureau of Cannabis Control, whereas the regulated market has largely eliminated this problem.  Had additional tests been performed on the illicit samples to evaluate label claims or test for other contaminants, it is very likely they would have failed for those tests as well.”

The data provides evidence that Americans should purchase marijuana-related products via regulated, state-licensed dispensaries because they are generally safer than black market products.