DEA to Join Fight Against Illicit THC Cartridges Behind Lung Illness Outbreak
The Food and Drug Administration is asking the DEA to help with the ongoing investigation into a lung illness outbreak linked to vaping.
The FDA wants the DEA to help crack down on the supply side of the crisis because health experts have linked the illnesses to black market cannabis vape cartridges.
Health experts are increasingly focusing on illicit cannabis cartridges that are cut with vitamin E acetate, a thickening agent that resembles marijuana oil.
“To be clear, if we determine that someone is manufacturing or distributing illicit, adulterated products that caused illness or death for personal profit, we would consider that a criminal act,” acting FDA Commissioner Dr. Ned Sharpless testified before the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on Wednesday.
Last week, the FDA launched a criminal investigation focused on the black market makers of the cartridges.
In the past month, law enforcement has busted at least two major distributors of counterfeit, black market cannabis cartridges.
More than 53o people have been sickened by the mysterious lung illness, and at least nine people have died. In a vast majority of the cases, the patients vaped black market cannabis cartridges.
The lungs do not like a non-aqueous substance ( oil based)… they tend to “clog” the alveoli in the lungs.. the more that get clogged the more difficulty the lungs have in facilitating the air in the lungs and transporting it to the person’s arterial system.. thus the person basically suffocates and DIES.
It is amazing that a reported NINE DEATHS is a CRISIS and yet that many or more people gets shot/killed in CHICAGO on the average WEEKEND… yet when the last time that you have heard about a SHOOTING CRISIS IN CHICAGO on the national news ?
Filed under: General Problems
Why don’t the people getting I’ll from this just tell where they bought it from, is anyone even asking them? I know too simple.
The FDA? Whats that? They must be powerful to ask the DEA to ‘do something’.
Spot on. The same CDC that went hysterical over 400 – 500 vaping illnesses has reported nearly 800 cases (and up to 1,500 more suspected) of multi-drug resistant C.auris (described as a “deadly” and “emerging”).
In June of this year, the Mayo Clinic Proceeding (Vol 94, Iss 6) described a real epidemic (“The Slow Motion Catastrophe of Antimicrobial Resistance”): AMR claims 700,000 lives per year worldwide (23,000 in the US at an estimated cost of $55B), and is expected to kill 10,000,000/yr by 2050.
The WHO warns: “[a] post antibiotic era – in which common infections and minor injuries can kill – far from being an apocalyptic fantasy, is a real possibility.”
But, you know… vaping.