The number of competing voices in the whole “vape safety” conversation has gotten alarming. It’s becoming harder and harder to know exactly who to listen to, exactly how much caution to take. Some of those voices are advocating for that classic “abstinence only” approach, suggesting that vape cartridges be completely foregone until the scientific community has had the chance to really sit down and figure out what the deal is, in terms of how these things interact with our body over the long term.
Under most circumstances, this would be one of those situations where we’d actually look to the government for a little bit of help. Now that cannabis is starting to enter the legal sphere, those regulatory bodies that we’re paying for with our taxes are supposed to step in and help us know when it’s good to go, right? In truth, legislation hasn’t really gotten the chance to help out, yet. As the industry works to build itself up, legislation also needs the time to first take shape, and then take hold. And when it comes to the cannabis industry in general — and the vape cartridge landscape in specific — neither of those things have happened to any effectively sufficient degree.
The result is a marketplace in flux, areas where cannabis has been legalized tending to be saturated with a confusing mixture of options: some legal, others not.
The question of safe vape consumption can be a tough one to answer, but it’s also a question that ignores a very important fact: There is no true consensus, at this point, when it comes to the long-term safety of vape cartridges. We simply don’t know how they interact with our bodies over a long enough period of time to really be able to make any kind of accurate statement in terms of how safe they are to use.
What we do know, however, can help you to make a much more informed decision, if purchasing vape cartridges is what you decide to do. It is a truly two-way street, in that nobody would scoff at you for deciding to hold off until further information is available…but you also wouldn’t be looked at funny for simply opting to make safer buying choices, otherwise.
The Devil in the Details
One of the first things to consider when weighing the safety of a given vape cartridge is the method by which the oil is produced. Cannabis concentrates are often far less pure than advertised, and much of this has to do with the way they’re produced.
In this case, we’re talking about oil, which is typically made through a process known as solvent extraction, where organic plant matter is very literally stripped away, chemically dissolved, leaving only the essential oils behind. The end result, understandably enough, is directly impacted by the type of solvent used
The earliest cannabis concentrates were made via butane extraction. Butane is one of the cheaper and more readily-available solvents, but it’s also one of the less-efficient, leaving behind traces in the oil itself. You can probably guess how much your lungs appreciate that nice dose of lighter fluid every time you take a big draw off your black-market vape cartridge.
Of course, if you’re buying legally, butane is the least of your problems. Given that butane is so bad for us, and that its extraction process leaves a lot behind, legal brands have moved into the much safer realm of CO2 extraction. Known as a “clean solvent,” the carbon dioxide used to extract essential oils doesn’t leave behind a residue and is far less harmful to the human body than its butane counterpart.
But there are other variables that arise in the concentration extraction process: something called cuticle wax, which exists on the outside of the cannabis plant’s stem, is niftily burned off during the combustion process any time cannabis is smoked. It’s bad for our bodies, so it has to be removed by a process known as winterization before the concentrate can be extracted. The problem with this, however, is that winterization causes the oil to become thicker, and more difficult to smoke.
The result? Additives. Our next big boogeyman.
If our first big issue with vape safety comes from residue left behind by the extraction process, our second one comes from additives that are tossed into the mix after it’s been completed, many of them added to account for issues that might affect the quality of the oil. Thinning agents might be used to make the oil smoke more readily, or even just produce bigger clouds. And while these things are seen as ideal for the end-user, the long-term effects are decidedly not.
Among the most common additives found in black-market vape cartridges:
● Polyethylene glycol, which is used to keep the oil at an ideal consistency
● Propylene glycol, also used to help maintain consistency
● Vegetable glycerin, used to help create those “fat clouds” that we all know and love
● Vitamin E acetate, which is also used for thickening or to adjust consistency
As you can see, they’re used for a variety of purposes…but almost none of them are any good for us, which is why legalized brands have moved away from their use. Still, there are dangerous chemicals that can even make their way into our concentrates unintentionally, particularly in the form of things like pesticides, and other environmental toxins that can be absorbed into the plant matter long before the extraction process even takes place. To combat this, legal brands submit their products to rigorous lab testing, the results of which you should always be able to see, right on the outside of the packaging.
Hardware Issues
So now we know what to watch for, in terms of concentrates that won’t load our bodies up with all manner of toxic nonsense…but what about the batteries we use to heat those concentrates? Turns out, they can be just as big a source of trouble, especially given the relative lack of regulation in the current marketplace. Product uniformity is another issue that raises serious concerns: Without any real regulation or standard having been put in place, there’s often no way to tell exactly how hot those heating coils are getting. And when vape oil is heated past a certain point, problems start to appear.
Consider that most vape pens aren’t even truly vaping, to begin with. Vaporization — the process by which the oil is heated only to the point that it produces a vapor, as opposed to actual smoke — only happens up to about 350 degrees. But once you pass that 400-degree threshold, you’re essentially burning that oil, which can create carcinogens and other toxins…especially if that oil has been cut with additives or other agents.
Another issue arises from a lack of regulation in terms of the materials that are used. You’d be correct if you guessed that many black-market vape batteries aren’t being made in the United States, instead having been outsourced to places with fewer regulations, and lower costs as a result. The other result, though, is that this floods the market with vape batteries that do things like leak chemicals into the oil as they heat it, particularly through the use of nickel-chromium wire that’s been coated in silver (something that isn’t used in the United States anymore).
Separating Signal from Noise
It can all get a little confusing. How do you really know where a given product came from? How do you truly know how a certain concentrate was made? And what do we really know about how safe the whole thing is for our bodies, anyway, even if we’re avoiding all those dangerous situations we just talked about?
When it comes to that last question, there unfortunately isn’t an answer yet. Despite everything we do know, there’s still a lot that we don’t. Especially when it comes to how safe these things are on a long-term basis. They simply haven’t been around for long enough for us to find out, making this generation of vape consumers canaries in the coal mine. In other words? Proceed with caution, and vape at your own risk. Because the risks are absolutely there. But with smart buying decisions, they can be minimized.
Focus on legal buying, for starters. Avoid black-market dispensaries (you know which ones they are), and avoid black-market brands. They’re easy to spot, and they’re almost always less transparent about what’s in the box. Any vape cartridge should have things like batch information, harvest date, lab testing results, and so forth — many even have a QR code that can be scanned for further information.
When it comes to safe vape buying, in these early days? Transparency is the name of the game.
