A Brief History
By October 13, 2019, numerous reports have come out from across the United States over the preceding months that nearly 1,300 people have been sickened by a mysterious form of lipoid pneumonia – an illness in which oil becomes trapped in the lungs and is attacked by the body’s immune system. Doctors have searched for an underlying pathogen such as a virus or bacteria, and they have found none. Many of the victims of this disease have required treatment in intensive care units. Some have required ventilator support. At least 26 people have died. The connection between the victims is that they all have vaped. That connection has resulted in the disease being given names such as “the U.S. vaping lung illness.”
In the United States, millions of people use nicotine e-liquid as a replacement for tobacco smoking. Millions of others inhale THC and CBD oils extracted from cannabis. Others use vaporizers that heat cannabis flowers without burning them. All of those people use the term “vaping” to describe what they do, making a term like “vaping lung illness” a very confusing one. What form of vaping is actually causing the illness? Can all forms of vaping make you sick – or potentially even kill you?
This article will help you make sense of the vaping lung illness by pointing out some recent details that can help you understand what’s going on. Let’s explore this situation further.
Digging Deeper
What Are the Victims of the Lung Illness Saying?
Of those who have received treatment for the lung illness, most have admitted to using THC vaping products, and most of those products were purchased illegally. In an effort to speed the investigation and help prevent more people from getting sick, authorities have declined to prosecute those who have admitted to buying illegal THC products. Nevertheless, some victims of the disease have claimed that they vaped nothing but nicotine e-liquid. It was later determined that some of those people were not telling the truth.
Even with the promise of immunity, some people may still be reluctant to report illegal activities. It is possible, though, that some people have become sick after using nothing but nicotine e-liquid. We’ll explain why that might be important shortly.
What Have Investigators Learned About the Lung Illness So Far?
Many vaping product samples have been submitted to the CDC, the FDA and other authorities for analysis. Most of the products submitted have contained THC, and the most common brand name of those products is Dank Vapes. Keep that in mind; we’ll discuss the significance of that fact in a moment.
At the time of writing, medical authorities have not isolated a single cause of the lung illness. They have, however, focused their attention on Vitamin E acetate, a common ingredient in pre-filled THC oil vaping cartridges – particularly those produced for illegal distribution. The FDA, in fact, has come forward with a statement warning people to stop using THC vaping products.
What Is Dank Vapes?
The brand Dank Vapes is an important aspect of the investigation of the vaping lung illness because Dank Vapes is not a real company. It’s just an empty box designed to look like it comes from a real company. Printing companies in China produce the box and sell it in bulk on wholesale import/export websites. People in the United States buy the boxes, pack them with pre-filled THC vaping cartridges and sell the finished products on the street.
There is no company called Dank Vapes. Every single Dank Vapes THC cartridge is produced privately for illegal distribution, and there are people all over the country packing unknown substances into Dank Vapes boxes. Some estimates suggest that there are tens of millions of illegal – and potentially very dangerous – THC vaping cartridges circulating on the street right now. If you buy a THC vaping cartridge from any source other than a licensed dispensary, you have no way of knowing what’s in the cartridge.
What Is the Significance of Vitamin E Acetate?
What makes illicit THC vaping cartridges so dangerous? As history has shown us, drug dealers have little regard for the law or for the safety of their customers – and one thing that every drug dealer wants to do is make more money. In the case of illicit THC vaping cartridges, an easy way to increase profitability is by watering the cartridges down.
The most popular ingredient for diluting THC vaping cartridges is Vitamin E acetate. Vitamin E oil looks just like THC oil, so there’s no way to identify a watered-down cartridge by looking at it.
THC oil is expensive to produce. It takes a massive quantity of cannabis flowers to make a jar of THC oil, and the most common method for extracting THC oil involves butane, which is explosive. So, on one hand, you have an ingredient that’s expensive to buy and dangerous to produce. On the other hand, you have another ingredient – Vitamin E – that’s cheap and available everywhere. Watering down a vape cartridge instantly makes that cartridge more profitable to produce, and investigations have shown that some illicit THC cartridges actually contain more Vitamin E than THC.
Investigators are still working to confirm whether Vitamin E is dangerous to inhale, but the current thinking is that it definitely appears to be unsafe. It seems that the oil settles in the lungs. The body has trouble removing it, so the immune system begins to attack it.
What is the Bottom Line on the Lung Illness for Those Who Vape?
As we mentioned at the beginning of the article, there are several forms of vaping. The things that you should do or change in light of the lung illness outbreak will depend on the form of vaping in which you engage.
- If you vape nicotine e-liquid, buy your e-liquid only from a trusted supplier that complies with all federal and local regulations. Although no commercial nicotine e-liquid product has been found to cause lung illness, some counterfeit e-liquid products – particularly knockoff JUUL pods – do exist. It is possible that some counterfeit products could contain unsafe ingredients.
- If you vaporize cannabis flowers, buy the flowers only from a licensed dispensary that supplies lab tests for its products.
- If you vape THC oil, use whole cannabis flowers instead until the authorities complete their investigation of the lung illness.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Hale, James and HowExpert Press. Vaping 101: History of Vaping. HowExpert, 2017.
The featured image in this article, a photograph by the New York State Department of Health of Dank Vapes, is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
