Hydrogen Cyanide Found In Counterfeit Vape Liquid!

Contaminant found in marijuana vaping products linked to deadly lung illnesses, tests show - The Washington Post https://apple.news/A-wW5xT3FSeiVgNBMOrbVew  

Just watched a news video... "Vape pen charger explosion"
Vape pen charger explosion causes thousands of dollars worth of damage to California woman's home
The lady was charging a vape pen and the charger "explodes" causing a nearby paint can to shoot up into the ceiling. The fire dept guy says "those lithium ion batteries..." and so on. Now wait just a minute! Technically, it wasn't a "vape charger" and they showed the vape pen looked fine. Pens don't come with a charger, just a USB cord, so it was just a universal USB charger (like for phones, ect) and the pen battery didn't explode. Also, why did she have a paint can sitting next to it? Did she leave the vape pen on (might not matter)? Was the USB cord damaged (short)? Pens use a LiPo battery not Lithium Ion. I know I'm nitpicking, but all people will really "hear" is vape pen explodes... nobody really thinks things out. Could this have happened anyway while charging a phone or something else? Right after watching this, I see an article in the local paper telling people to stop vaping immediately because of the recent events (and they don't mention ANYTHING about the real cause!) Final thought: there was also a water bottle next to where the charger was... maybe she spilled water on the charger? I'm like Peter Falk in the old TV show Columbo... "but what got me thinking was..." Maybe I overthink things, but at least I do think (and ask questions)  

Any veteran vaper will tell you this truth.
We have all probably tried them at first. I know I did. I can tell you a universal and undeniable truth about them.
They are garbage.
They are nothing more than a most introductory lesson into vaping. I know of no vaper in my circle of friends that started with a cigalike and continue to use them. They have many flaws and 1 in particular comes to mind.
In the cartomizer, the unit that holds the 'liquid', no one has any idea what is in there. Sure, the package might tell you but how do you know? These cigalikes were the only product used in a study in 2008 to determine what was in the liquid. The results were disturbing but not surprising. They found formaldehyde, cyanide and other toxic chemicals usually found in cigarette smoke. So, yes, they really are cigalikes. But at the same time, painted the entire industry with a broad brush so now everyone thinks that vaping is just as deadly, if not more so, than smoking analog cigarettes which is nothing but one gigantic lie. Any vaper will tell you that.
Why were these chemicals found in a vaporizer? Because most cigalikes are, and have been, produced by Big Tobacco. They don't want to lose customers or money. They want every former smoker to be just as addicted to their cigalikes as they were to their cigarettes. There are several videos on YouTube of interviews with BT representatives that say this very thing.
Don't buy the garbage because it's cheap. Go to your local vape shop and talk to someone who was in your shoes.  

So I'm walking across the parking lot yesterday, vaping with my trusty ProVari Ti3. The looks I was getting were unbelievable. You'd think I was dragging a puppy by its hind legs. The anti-vape media blitz has successfully achieved its intended purpose. One woman was watching the vapor plums, as though I were releasing cyanide into the atmosphere. A visible visceral reaction. It was quite funny, actually. I wouldn't be surprised if "they" elevate the daily rhetoric; by declaring vaping a public health hazard. I suppose we'll soon need to switch to something safe, like... oh, I don't know... cigarettes?  

My girlfriend sent me this--

Colorado Lab Results Point to New Culprit in Vaping Cases: A Specific Chemical Used in Cheap Vape Pens

Anyone hear of this? Apparently the "culprit" now is a chemical used in making cheap vape pens, "Silver Solder". Seems to me that they're having a hard time blaming e-liquids without coming down on THC and the black market crap, so now they're blaming the equipment.

Any thoughts? Sorry if this has been posted already.  

Takes a different angle... it’s the metals which have caused irreparable damage on a woman’s lungs...

in California though

The article goes on to say;

“Professor John Britton, director of the UK Centre for Tobacco & Alcohol Studies and consultant in respiratory medicine at the University of Nottingham, suggested that the conclusions were not all they seemed.

He said there was no evidence of any cobalt particles in the lung samples and that claims made about vaping were wrong.
He added: “There is nothing in this new paper that should change advice to smokers. If you smoke, switch. If you don’t smoke, don’t vape. And just as you wouldn’t buy unlicensed alcoholic drinks, don’t vape cannabis or other bootleg products.”  

Our daughter said that she found a vape in her 13-year old daugher's room. I can hear it now: "Well PopPop vapes." If it had been cigarettes, it would be "Well mom, you smoke." I don't know who she would have blamed if it was alcohol.

You hate to play the Age Card with teenagers, but sometimes that's all you got.  

Just received a newsletter from Innokin a short while ago. As part of it, they linked to the following Vape News article. I found it really interesting and thought others would also. The UK has already had a totally opposite view toward vaping than the powers-that-be have had here in the US. Now, the potential outlook for the future of "vaping" in the UK is even more positive.

Vaping Weekly: UK MPs Call for Progressive Approach to Vaping  

There seems to be more and more News Articles/Stories concerning the actual causes of Vape Lung. It is bad enough that most of the media, politician's and anti-zealots do not provide all the information - nor findings to the public. But when some of them do - it is only one or 2 lines buried in the report/article. However, recently there are more articles and news reports coming out mentioning that they are finding the cause is actually illegal THC that has been cut with vitamin e acetate and synthetic marijuana/CBD oils. But, these article/stories are "Hidden" in minor quick TV news-spots or in Newspapers. Today in the local paper - Sun Sentinel - they actually had an article by the Associated press in the Money Section (8 - B) of the newspaper:

CBD vapes illegally spiked with synthetic marijuana
Associated Press seeks to understand story behind Yolo

Spoiler: Printed Story . . . CBD vapes illegally spiked with synthetic marijuana
Associated Press seeks to understand story behind Yolo


A vape called Yolo containing synthetic marijuana appeared on shelves in Salt Lake City last year, sickening dozens. (Allen G. Breed/AP )
BY HOLBROOK MOHR

ASSOCIATED PRESS

CARLSBAD, Calif. — Some of the people rushing to emergency rooms thought the CBD vape they inhaled would help like a gentle medicine. Others puffed it for fun.

What the vapors delivered instead was a jolt of synthetic marijuana, and with it an intense high of hallucinations and even seizures.

More than 50 people around Salt Lake City had been poisoned by the time the outbreak ended early last year, most by a vape called Yolo — the acronym for “you only live once.”

In recent months, hundreds of vape users have developed mysterious lung illnesses, and more than 30 have died. Yolo was different. Users knew immediately something was wrong.

Who was responsible for Yolo? Public health officials and criminal investigators couldn’t figure that out. Just as it seemed to appear from nowhere, Yolo faded away with little trace.

As part of an investigation into the illegal spiking of CBD vapes that are not supposed to have any psychoactive effect at all, The Associated Press sought to understand the story behind Yolo.

The trail led to a Southern California beach town and an entrepreneur whose vaping habit prompted a career change that took her from Hollywood parties to federal court in Manhattan.

When Janell Thompson moved from Utah to the San Diego area in 2010, the roommate she found online also vaped. Thompson had a background in financial services and the two decided to turn their shared interest into a business, founding an e-cigarette company called Hookahzz.

There were early successes. Thompson and her partner handed out Hookahzz products at an Emmy Awards preparty, and their CBD vapes were included in Oscar nominee gift bags in 2014.

Indeed, Hookahzz was among the first companies to sell vapes that delivered CBD, as the cannabis extract cannabidiol is known. Now a popular ingredient in products from skin creams to gummy bears, cannabidiol was at that time little known and illegal in some states.

By autumn 2017, Thompson and her partner formed another company, Mathco Health Corp. Within a few months, Yolo spiked with synthetic marijuana — commonly known as K2 or spice — began appearing on store shelves around Salt Lake City.

Synthetic cannabis is man-made and can be manufactured for a fraction of the price of CBD, which is typically extracted from industrial hemp that must be farmed.

Samples tested at Utah labs showed Yolo contained a synthetic marijuana blamed for at least 11 deaths in Europe — and no CBD at all.

Authorities believed that some people sought out Yolo because they wanted to get high, while others unwittingly ingested a dangerous drug. What authorities didn’t understand was its source.

Investigators with Utah’s State Bureau of Investigation visited vape stores that sold Yolo, but nobody would talk. The packaging provided no contact information.

By May 2018, the case was cold. But it was not dead.

That summer, a former Mathco bookkeeper who was preparing to file a workplace retaliation complaint began collecting evidence of what she viewed as bad business practices.

During her research, Tatianna Gustafson saw online pictures showing that Yolo was the main culprit in the Utah poisonings, according to the complaint she filed against Mathco with California’s Department of Industrial Relations.

Gustafson wrote that while at Mathco she was concerned about how Yolo was produced, that it was excluded from Mathco’s promotional material and that the “labels had no ingredients or contact listing.”

Justin Davis, another former Mathco employee, told AP that “the profit margins were larger” for Yolo than other products.

Gustafson’s complaint asserted that Mathco or JK Wholesale, another of the companies that Thompson and her partner incorporated, mixed and distributed Yolo. Financial records in the complaint show Thompson’s initials as the main salesperson for Yolo transactions, including with a company in Utah. The records also show Yolo was sold in at least six other states, including to an address in South Carolina where a college student said he vaped a cartridge that sent him into a coma.

The former bookkeeper also tipped the Utah Poison Control Center about who she believed was behind Yolo, according to her complaint.

Barbara Crouch, the poison center’s executive director, recalled getting a tip in late 2018 and passing it along to the State Bureau of Investigation. SBI agent Christopher Elsholz talked to the tipster, who told him she believed the company she had worked for distributed Yolo. Elsholz said the company was in California and therefore out of his jurisdiction, so he passed the tip to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

The DEA offered to help but took no law enforcement action, spokeswoman Mary Brandenberger said. Spiked CBD is a low priority for an agency dealing with bigger problems such as the opioid epidemic, which has killed tens of thousands of people.

In the end, it wasn’t the synthetic marijuana compound in Yolo from Utah that caught up with Thompson. It was another kind of synthetic added to different brands.



SO - The question is . . . What "Stories" and news reports are you seeing in the area where you live? Are they another front page story as the original government warning about Vaping, E Cigarette Use, Vape Lung & Deaths ? Or are they hidden away ? Does anyone write the editor of the News Paper - to inform them about their use of e-Cigarettes and vaping .. .Or - mentioned that they should do more research about the causes and effects about Vaping - and then publish these finding without relying on just supposed Public Health anti-smoking - vaping zealots information ? OR - Possibly Contacting CASSA for more information ? Just Wondering . . . What Would or do "You" Do when you see/hear these articles/stories . . . Or - Do "You" feel it is a lost cause and nothing Ya' say or do will change the inevitable coming Bans / Regulations . . .



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I have surgery coming up in 1 week and have to pass a urine cotinine. I went to 0mg nicotine 4 weeks ago and still am testing positive with the home urine tests. I have tested the ejuice and it is negative. My BMI is normal, Been drink a gallon of water a day for about 1 week, exercising and drinking detox tea. Any suggestions and has anyone tested positive this long? Help I’m freaking out that I won’t clear this.