MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Marijuana sales are increasing as it becomes legally available in more places across the country, and that includes vaped weed. Now, that's a liquid version that's vaporized and inhaled. And if you use it, you might have wondered, what's actually in it, and how does the safety of these products compare to conventional smoked marijuana? As part of our series, How Safe Is Your Weed, NPR's Yuki Noguchi has looked into this.
YUKI NOGUCHI, BYLINE: Vaping pot from an e-cigarette can be relatively odorless and discreet, compared to smoking dried marijuana flower. And Aaron Smith, CEO of the National Cannabis Industry Association, says that's why vaping is increasingly the preferred method of consumption.
AARON SMITH: We're definitely seeing an increase in sales for vapes and a decrease in flower.
NOGUCHI: Smith, as well as some researchers, posit that vaping pot, much like nicotine, is potentially easier on the lungs than smoking because the vaporized liquid inside is heated to lower temperatures that may do less harm. On the other hand, much is still unknown. Research on the health effects of pot is sparse because it remains federally illegal. Plus, no two vapes are alike.
The huge variety of products on shelves today contain many other chemicals that make each different. And often it's those other chemicals that prove problematic. In 2019, for example, 68 people died and thousands of others fell ill with mysterious lung damage, eventually traced to e-cigarettes laced with pot and an additive called vitamin E acetate. Smith says that's where legalization and regulation are helpful.
SMITH: That's why there are regulations in every state that has legal cannabis to ensure that these products are tested, dangerous chemicals are not used in the process.
NOGUCHI: But Josh Swider says his own safety testing of vapes shows many chemicals are evading those regulations. He's CEO of Infinite Chemical Analysis Labs, a company that chemically evaluates marijuana products in all their forms. He says states that allow marijuana to be sold also screen for up to 66 pesticides. Yet there are thousands of other pesticides that growers or processors use, and he's found many of those in the country's pot supply.
JOSH SWIDER: When you concentrate your flower cannabis into a concentrate, most pesticides come over and concentrate during that same procedure.
NOGUCHI: Swider says dangers are not limited to the drugs extracted from the marijuana plant. He says in many markets, THC, the psychoactive ingredient in pot, is made synthetically through a chemical process that leaves behind residue. He says about a quarter of those contain a corrosive, toxic chemical similar to sulfuric acid.
SWIDER: Cannabis and the synthetic stuff, it's like an endless supply of possible contaminants.
NOGUCHI: Deepak Cyril D'Souza is a psychiatry professor at Yale who's researched THC for three decades. He has other concerns about vaping, too, namely their potency.
DEEPAK CYRIL D'SOUZA: The amount of THC that's present in these concentrates is far in excess of what average weed contains.
NOGUCHI: He says today, the average cannabis flower contains about 17- or 18% THC, where the concentration in vape pens is often five times higher. And that, D'Souza says, has other implications for public health, especially among teenagers and young adults.
D'SOUZA: The young brain is much more vulnerable to addiction. Concentrates are more likely to get people addicted to it.
NOGUCHI: And as pot goes more mainstream, he says that's a message that's often drowned out.
Yuki Noguchi, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
