Gas Station CBD – Why the Federal Government is to Blame for Vaping Deaths and Illnesses
In true Jeff Foxworthy tones, if you are buying your CBD at a gas station, you might not be a redneck, but you might not be getting the safest products either. The proliferation of CBD products since President Trump signed the Farm Bill has caused some to think that maybe there is a sliver lining in the beating the vape industry is taking due to the lung illnesses and deaths being reported “from vaping black market cartridges and pods”.
Gas station CBD exists because of poor federal oversight, just like the current vaping crisis. The federal government got caught flat-footed on CBD legalization and vape pen popularity.
A recent article in Forbes suggested that the vaping illness outbreak could push legalization forward for cannabis and THC due to the public safety risks involved with so many people buying products on the black market due to the vast price differences with the legal market. The author, Mike Adams, also said the inablity of police to tell the difference between hemp and marijuana was also a big reason legalization may happend sooner rather than later. To be honest, I thought no way, the vape sickness numbers were not big enough, and the whole “hundred dying from black market vape cartridges all of a sudden” seemed very convenient for Big Tobacco and Big Cannabis in order to steer people back to their legal products. How have people been vaping nicotine and cannabis products now for up to 10 years or so, helping millions of people break their smoking habits, and not a word of death or illness? It seems the hundreds of cases of vaping illnesses and deaths seemed to appear out of nowhere and come at a fast and furious pace. Were people not using black market products for the past ten years and suddenly all rushed over there in a tizzy in two months?
As officials investigate the causes of the vape illnesses some are saying they are black market THC cartridges cut with Vitamin E, a common thickener added to oils. More reports and testing show some cartridges had synthetic cannabis in them. Yes, the same synthetic marijuana that is actually pieces of plastic made in a lab in China that when smoked cause hallucinations, rapid heartbeats, and feelings of paranoia and wishes of death.
These problems were all created by the US Federal government. When states started to legalize cannabis and CBD, the Federal government, the DEA, and the FDA refused to budge on legalization, testing, and creating a safety testing standard. Forget flavored vapes containing nicotine for a second, but when 33 states of your union that only contains 50 states to begin with, have legalized a product you deem illegal, you need to move and change your position. The FDA sat idly by and blamed the DEA, the DEA pointed the finger at the FDA to change cannabis scheduling first. The attorney general pointed at Congress and said change the laws if you want it legal, he just enforces laws, he doesn’t make them. While different branches of the US government pointed fingers at each other, the states legalized cannabis and the black market grew and grew. People stuck by ideologies and didn’t put public safety first.
The first hint that something was amiss should have been the massive price imbalance between the legal market and the black market for cannabis products. The arbitrage was so great it begged for people to enter the space to make quick profits. The price difference drove consumers to the black, unregulated markets.
The demand for products from non-legal states from legal states, hence smuggling weed from California to New York City, was intense. You had a commodity product that was fetching $800 a pound in California and selling for $3000 a pound in New York City. All you had to do was to buy 10 pounds, drive under the speed limit for 3 days, and make $22,000….cash, tax free. The appeal and lure of that kind of money at 100-pound increments was just to great for human nature to turn away from.
Political ideology and votes won out over public safety and health. Republicans would never be responsible for making the Devil’s Lettuce legal, they would be voted out of office in the next term. Democrats dragged their feet at the Federal level, tip-toeing into the pro-cannabis position very carefully as they watched pubic polling data on marijuana sentiment. No one said, holy crap, this is going to get big, and fast, we need to get ahead of this.
At this point over 80% of American people have access to some form of legal marijuana, whether medicinal or recreational. Yet the Federal government that is suppose to serve those 80% are keeping the plant illegal at the Federal level, creating a terrible monetary incentive to break the law and creating terrible health risks for people.
Hey Federal government, the genie is out of the bottle. It happened when California legalized cannabis on the same election ballot Donald Trump was elected president. Colorado has over $1 billion in tax revenue from cannabis, 280,000 Americans work in the legal cannabis industry, there is no turning back now. Stop wishing it was 1972 and protect your citizens that have already legalized cannabis and use it regularly.
VAPING ILLNESSES AND CANNABIS, READ MORE..
VAPING ILLNESSES AND CANNABIS, CLICK HERE.
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CAN VAPING KILL YOU NOW, CLICK HERE.
