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Tests show bootleg marijuana vapes tainted with hydrogen cyanide

AgentPothead

Just this guy, ya know?
The article says pesticide but myclobutanil (Eagle 20) is a fungicide.
<sup> The term pesticide includes all of the following: herbicide, insecticides (which may include insect growth regulators, termiticides, etc.) nematicide, molluscicide, piscicide, avicide, rodenticide, bactericide, insect repellent, animal repellent, antimicrobial, and fungicide.[2]
Source, wikipedia.</sup>
 

BongFu

Member
Can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not, but I can't agree with this. In places (including the past) where it's still illegal, if your weed products make people sick, you're not gonna sell a lot.

Funny you say that when 15 out of 15 black market tests red flagged Eagle 20 and two samples that were from regulated dispensaries came up clean. Growers regulating themselves in a black market is a shit show period
 

GOT_BUD?

Weed is a gateway to gardening
ICMag Donor
Veteran
The Black Market could be manufactured anywhere any way they're not following any regulations.


Notice



Heavy Hitter Diablo OG - perfectly Clean


Heavy Hitter Pineapple Express - POISON


So heavy Hitters is playing Russian roulette by Buying untested raw ingredient, then also not testing there end result
Damn. This is the third time(?) Brass Knuckles has been found to be tainted.

Were all of these purchased in a dispensary or in an illegal state?
 

Ringodoggie

Well-known member
Well, one thing the news is pressing for sure..... if you buy a vape that has been TAXED you are safe. However, if you buy a vape that is UNTAXED... you will die, for sure.

Oh, and it you use e-cigs you're going to die, too.

So... only smoke cigarettes (with a valid tax stamp) and buy ALL your pot from the government controlled stores.

A piece of solid advice, brought to you buy your friendly neighborhood mainstream media.






.
 

I'mback

Comfortably numb!
Well, one thing the news is pressing for sure..... if you buy a vape that has been TAXED you are safe. However, if you buy a vape that is UNTAXED... you will die, for sure.

Oh, and it you use e-cigs you're going to die, too.

So... only smoke cigarettes (with a valid tax stamp) and buy ALL your pot from the government controlled stores.

A piece of solid advice, brought to you buy your friendly neighborhood mainstream media.
.
... that's pretty much the msg
 

Douglas.Curtis

Autistic Diplomat in Training
Natural raw Cannabis is loaded with vitamin e. I dont run a lab so not sure how much in the raw flower but Google says about 10% in hemp oil.
Sorry, but hemp oil is from pressed seed. Nobody is smoking this, and vitamin E is not 10% of your flowers.
 

White Beard

Active member
This reinforces my suspicions about vape cartridges (and e-juice, basically).

Yeah, I’ve had a few, but they’re all over the map in quality (IMO), are easy to consume rapidly (for me), and I get little else out of it except a covert method; covert method would be cool, except for the inherent issues.

I can only hope this will be good for flower sales, as all anyone has here is cartridges, and flower prices are up 50% in 6 mo.
 

I'mback

Comfortably numb!
This reinforces my suspicions about vape cartridges (and e-juice, basically).

Yeah, I’ve had a few, but they’re all over the map in quality (IMO), are easy to consume rapidly (for me), and I get little else out of it except a covert method; covert method would be cool, except for the inherent issues.

I can only hope this will be good for flower sales, as all anyone has here is cartridges, and flower prices are up 50% in 6 mo.
No worse than buying "laced" weed off the streets. Buy from reputable dealers and you don't have these issues. Wrt vaping, I have been vaping (nic) for 9 yrs+ no issues. OTOH introduce the "fake" news media in there (the sky is falling) and you have what you see. When it comes to cannabis... I grow my own, make my own resin and make my own juice. I know what goes in it. The money I saved over the years of not smoking more than paid for my cannabis excursion :biggrin:
 

DemonTrich

Active member
Veteran
Brass knuckles
Dank vapes
Mario carts
And 99% of all that fancy fluff packaging can and is easily bought in china.

Just cause it has a package, does NOT mean its safe. Nor does buying from a dispensary deem it safe.

I ONLY dab the distillate I make, and the vape pens I produce. I am not sick or dead nor any of my patients, so I must he doing it correct.
 

prune

Active member
Veteran
No worse than buying "laced" weed off the streets.

That's just not true. Any contamination that occurs on flower is generally drawn out and CONCENTRATED by the extraction process.

(and as an aside to everyone who is so proud to call out "fake" media, you can assume that all the "normal" people are :laughing: at best, probably :stfu:, and likely thinks :spank:. So no, you're not smarter than the average dog, you're not in the "know", you are just really stupid or a whacko...)
 
Does anyone know if there is a way to get these various Poisons/cuts out of Distillate?

Hopefully an easily done way that doesn’t involve Chromatography?

I’ve been using Medical Marijuana Flowers and Distillate from Florida dispensaries (I have my Card) but I’m still kinda worried that the Distillate could be contaminated...
 

G.O. Joe

Well-known member
Veteran
Does anyone know if there is a way to get these various Poisons/cuts out of Distillate?

Even good fractional distillation, or in some cases washes, does not necessarily clean up ppm levels of contaminates. Recrystallization works best but that would be done with CBD or at the pre-distillation THCA stage. It depends on what the contaminants are. Another distillation wouldn't hurt.

It's not like myclobutanil is converted to pure HCN at 420 F. Even if it was, how much would be produced? Do they tell the concentration? It would be good to know. Did they spend the money to test how much HCN these products produce?

Cigarettes and joints make HCN. Not hypothetically - real, actually measured HCN.
 

'Boogieman'

Well-known member
The first time I hit a vape the taste was just horrible, some nasty flavored crap and I never even caught a buzz after taking quite a few hits. That pretty much turned me off from vaping for good.

As far as the msm they certainly could be pushing an agenda, I would not rule that out at all. I wouldn't be surprised if this was intentionally done to push for regulations and scare people into buying legal products.
 

robotwithdreams

Active member
Veteran
Here is a story from just a couple years ago from california. An l.a paper tested carts from a bunch of legal dispensary’s, and 93% failed massively for pesticides such as eagle 20. And they of course talked about cyanide in the article as well. I believe cali supposedly has adopted tighter and more stringent regulations since then. But i imagine lots of outdoor tainted garbage likely being processed into carts. Mixed with thinners and thickners and possibly synthetic compounds, and who knows what else.

NBC4 I-Team investigation found evidence suggesting that pesticides could be present in a lot of marijuana legally sold in California. Joel Grover reports for the NBC4 News at 11 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2017. (Published Thursday, Feb. 23, 2017)

When Todd Gullion of Orange County was suffering with back pain last year, he decided to try medical marijuana, thinking it was a safer alternative than prescription drugs. But Gullion says after using the pot, he ended up in the emergency room with serious neurological symptoms.

"My hands go numb, my arms go numb, my feet go numb," Gullion told NBC4. "I feel like I was poisoned."

Gullion was worried that the pot had poisoned him. So he had the product tested at a nationally-known lab. The lab found high levels of toxic pesticides in it--chemicals that scientists say could cause serious health problems.

An NBC4 I-Team investigation found evidence suggesting that pesticides could be present in a lot of the marijuana legally sold in California. And, some scientists are especially concerned about those pesticides being inhaled when people smoke or vape marijuana.



"It's really like injecting that pesticide right into your bloodstream," said former USC Chemistry professor Dr. Jeff Raber, who now runs another prestigious cannabis testing lab.

Dr. Raber co-authored a peer-reviewed study in The Journal of Toxicology about the dangers of smoking marijuana with pesticides on it.

"It could cause damage to your kidneys, to your liver, or other organs," Dr. Raber told the I-Team.

Pesticides and Pot: Lab Results, Company Statements

That's because the body doesn't filter the pesticides when inhaled like it does when you eat something with the same chemicals on it.

"You are running a great risk by introducing some of these things which we know have known toxicity with them," said Dr. Raber.

To get a better sense of how widespread pesticide use on California's marijuana products may be, the I-Team obtained 44 samples of marijuana products from 15 dispensaries in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino counties.

At each dispensary, we bought flower marijuana often used for smoking and cannabis cartridges used for vaping. Cartridges are now one of the most popular forms of marijuana consumption. The cartridges contain concentrated cannabis oil and they slip into a "pen" that heats up the marijuana. The marijuana vapors can then be inhaled.

Almost every salesperson at the dispensaries we visited told us their products were pesticide-free.

So the I-Team had the 44 marijuana products tested for 16 pesticides at Steep Hill Labs in Berkeley, one of the nation’s largest cannabis testing labs.

Steep Hill Labs found 41 out of 44 samples, 93 percent, tested positive for pesticides, at levels high enough that those products would've been banned for sale in some other states that currently regulate the use of pesticides in marijuana products.

"It appears pesticides are very widely used" on California's marijuana crops, said Dr. Don Land, a UC Davis chemistry professor who is Steep Hill’s chief scientist. "It was surprising that so many (samples) had so much contamination."

Dr. Land said one possible reason is that California has no laws or regulations banning use of pesticides on marijuana crops, unlike many other states and there are no federally approved pesticides for cannabis

Twenty-six states have laws allowing the sale of marijuana for medical or recreational use.

States like Massachusetts ban use of non-organic pesticides on pot altogether. Other states, like Nevada, Oregon, and Washington have strict limits on how much pesticide residue is allowed on marijuana that's sold. Those states require testing pot products before they go on sale. But California does not.

Dr. Land said some pesticides become more dangerous when they're heated up or burned, like Myclobutanil, a fungicide Steep Hill Labs found in 23 of the samples we sent.

According to the manufacturer, Myclobutanil can turn into hydrogen cyanide when it's heated up. Hydrogen cyanide has been used in gas chambers to kill people.

Even at low doses, Dr. Land said "hydrogen cyanide is very toxic." And someone smoking or vaping pot with Myclobutanil in it "could become ill immediately," Land said.

Although Todd Gullion's doctors have not linked his pot use to his symptoms, Gullion believes pesticides are causing his symptoms.

"It's affecting my balance a bit, my vision, my hearing literally shuts off," said Gullion.

He said he began experiencing those symptoms for the first time after inhaling marijuana from cartridges from a well-known company called Bhang. Bhang says on its website that its products are lab tested for the absence of pesticides.

But Gullion said when he sent one of his partially-used Bhang cartridges to Steep Hills Labs, they found 355 times the amount of myclobutanil allowed on pot in some other states. He said he's stopped using marijuana.

The I-Team bought two other Bhang cartridges and had them tested by Steep Hill. They also tested positive for multiple pesticides including myclobutanil.

"This is terrible for us," said Marco Rullo, a Bhang executive.

He said because of the I-Team's findings, the company is recalling all cartridges from stores that match the lot numbers of those purchased by NBC4.

Rullo said Bhang has all its products tested for pesticides by another lab, which found them to be clean of pesticides. Rullo and others said it's not unusual for different labs to come up with different results when testing cannabis products, because California still has no regulations for testing marijuana.

Rullo told the I-Team that Bhang is going to "take a closer look at the testing we've done and see if there’s a better way to guarantee a pure product."

People who work in the legal marijuana industry say California needs regulations severely limiting and prohibiting use of pesticides on pot and ensure a safe legal marijuana supply.

"I'm seriously concerned about the potential problems of pesticides," said Dr. Jeff Raber. "You're more susceptible when you're doing things by inhalation."

Regulations might not be far off. Proposition 64, passed by voters last November, legalizes recreational marijuana in California in 2018. Prop 64 also requires the state to "establish standards for marijuana products."

The Chief of California's Bureau of Medical Cannabis Regulation, Lori Ajax, told NBC4 they are currently drawing up regulations for pesticide use on pot crops and they should be in effect in 2018.

"All cannabis will need to be tested before it is passed on to the dispensary to be sold," Ajax said.

Click here for company statements provided to NBC4.
 

I'mback

Comfortably numb!
That's just not true. Any contamination that occurs on flower is generally drawn out and CONCENTRATED by the extraction process.

(and as an aside to everyone who is so proud to call out "fake" media, you can assume that all the "normal" people are :laughing: at best, probably :stfu:, and likely thinks :spank:. So no, you're not smarter than the average dog, you're not in the "know", you are just really stupid or a whacko...)
To sum it all up in one word, GREED.

The problem I have with MSM is that tainted cannabis products are being mixed in with vaping and the rise of kids taking up vaping who have never smoked before @ a tune of 24%. Is that number accurate? Who knows, but yes we are seeing more and more kids in the last couple of years taking up vaping, because it is cool.

What is it about Juul advertising vaping when it is illegal to advertise both in the US and Canada. Yet, we were seeing commercials on TV every day. The commercials have stopped. I can understand with cable TV these days that commercials originating in the US might find there way into the "Canadian" channels. A lot of the kids are vaping Juul.

One of the things we fought for with activism is the experts stating that vaping was a gateway to cigarettes. The other very hot topic with them was "it is re-normalizing smoking", the latter was a big one. Same thing happening with cannabis as being a gateway to stronger drugs ect... Well we know that cannabis is helping the opiate addicts get off that shit, created by MAN.

In Jan 2013 NS introduced legislation. The 1st province in Canada to do so. At that meeting the provincial health minister was dead set against it, and the BS he was coming up with, could fertilize the entire cannabis industry LOL. The meeting lasted 3 hrs or so. We saw the shift in attitudes from the panel as the meeting progressed. The minister left in the middle of the meeting, because he wa required elsewhere. (the mtg had been re-scheduled because of a snow storm) His body language has he left the room was that of someone who had just been defeated. BTW that mtg (above) was forced upon him by the NS premier.

The announcement for its readings of the proposed legislation was railroaded through. It was announce at 3pm on a Friday afternoon and would take place on Mon and Tue respectively. After we found out about it, we mobilized and it wasn't until Tue were we must have made an impact, because that is when the premier ordered a review on the subject, especially wrt their intent of banning flavours, something that is still on the table with the latest round. Yes they banned all advertising etc... but they had loop holes in the marketing dept. Anyway...

I smoked for 41 yrs. I am smoke free for 9+. It was the only way I could quit smoking. All the NRTs I had tried failed and, I was always back to smoking. The best one was lazer therapy that worked. Unfortunately the company closed. You got it, back on the smokes.

Let me tell you a story about a man name Jed... Oops, wrong story.

I remember when the taste of tobacco when I started smoking. I am a firm believer that tobacco was not as addictive in those days compared to what tobacco is today. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPtCZawoIbw I enjoyed the taste of tobacco just like folks enjoyed a beer. Nonetheless over the years the product changed. I use to roll my own and in the '90s you had these tins with 30-35% more called "Players Light roll more. Well that shit used to give me headaches and I would avoid it. I was not the only one that had these experiences as reported by the store. I asked they stock the regular "Players Light" and I had no issues with that. Prior to quitting in 2010, I was no longer smoking out of pleasure but out of habit. The re was also a broadcast either on the 5th estate or 60 minutes about the BT whistle blower. That was interesting to say the least.

BT an BP control government. Can someone please explain to me the deal BT reached in their lawsuit against them, where the agreement had to include not banning tobacco for perpetuity. WTF! That is still the way it stands today.

BT and BP are in bed together. One gets you hooked, the other will get you off the hook. Yeah right! BT gets you hooked and you head towards NRT. That fails you are back to smoking and the circle starts all over again. You are providing money to both industries and, lets not talk about the FDA in this mess <--- need I say more. The Feds oppose THC yet, the FDA supports artificial THC. We all know the success story about Charlotte's Web. Well, BP created Epidiolex, a synthetic CW. The 1st side effect listed was "may cause liver damage" WTF! That side effect was removed from the list for a spell. We still see it sporadically. This is the shit that is not reported. Fuck, the opiod crisis was man made, need I say more and, what is this shit about spice and K2. God only knows what that contains but it is not good news.

At the time of that mtg, the European union reveled that in 2012 $12B, (yes that is billions with a B) was spent on treating smoking related illnesses. Do you really think that BP was willing to take a pay cut, would you?

I found this story quite fascinating... I don't remember the year but Obama had proposed raising tobacco tax to help fund a preschool program that would cost $117B, all this on the back of smokers. On the surface this was an admirable gesture on the part of Obama. What wasn't stated is that it cost the US $180B/year for being in Iraq. Get the hell out of Iraq and you got all kinds of money to fund your preschool program! IMO that suggestion was prejudice against smokers. The public at large di8dn't give a fuck because their taxes wouldn't go up, and well, we all know what the main population feels about smokers. Nuff said!

In the fall of 2012 I participated in a town hall with the CEO of the Nova Scotia lung association, where there, we once again, we debunked some of the shit coming out of the panel with facts. The only studies these folks deemed credible were from the FDA and HC. Excuse me!

Nonetheless, his closing argument (CEO) vaping/ecigarettes are THR (tobacco harm reduction) and in that light we should "embrace" the effort. That being said, let's keep an eye on this industry so it doesn't manifest itself like BT did. I spent over an hour in the parking lot discussing with officials, that were amazed about the stuff they were being told, that they were unaware of, to include but not limited to BP funding to various health agencies part of the alphabet soup.

At the mtg (Jan 2013) Dr Strange (health minister) said that the lung association was not supported/sponsored by BP. Uh, you may want to check their website (law), where it is stated where the organization receives their funding funds the organization. That was his 1st kick in the nuts.

There has been no death associated with vaping, from the vape itself. MSM another ecig blows up! So do cell phones and by the way, you know what happens should a cell phone blow up while your on a call. There was a # of incidents of mfr'd batteries blowing up but, the majority was user error, or user using chargers or non suitable batteries etc, etc... Some of these were reported but not many. In those days, it was to ban vaping period. The agenda! BTW leave you laptop or cell phone on the front seat of a car during a hot day (for an extended period) and see what happens to your car.

Recently, they state that tobacco sales have decreased 11%. That number might seem minimal, but that number is quite substantial. It also indicates a loss of tax revenue for the same % points. Trump the economy is doing great! Excuse me? The stock market is doing great but there is no "disposable income" or else the FED wouldn't be flooding the market with money and, people wouldn't working 2 and 3 jobs to make ends meet. Do you honestly believe that the housing crisis is created by bums? We are living (most) pay check to pay check. That homeless dude could be you/anyone tomorrow. We had the Internet bubble in '97, the housing bubble in 2008 and now we have the Trump bubble and, that fucker will implode as well. Recessions happen about every 10 yrs. We are overdue!

In closing, I am not trying to be a smart ass but, does anyone remember the role the CDC played in the tainted blood scandal. Hear anything these days about "new gun laws". I am a firm believer that both the senate and congress should be ltd to 2 terms, just like the President. It would/could work as the re-elections of the various entities are staggered. The sad truth is 1% are controlling what goes on in the world. If you don't think so, spark one and continue to live in oblivion!
 
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