The Center for Disease Control and Prevention has revealed that one-sixth of patients who developed lung injuries after vaping marijuana obtained the product from legal dispensaries.
This has reinforced the CDC’s recommendations to not use THC-containing e-cigs, or vaping products.
The CDC’s findings are in a report that is based on 809 patients in Illinois, Wisconsin and Utah who provided data on the source of THC-containing products.
According to the CDC, 131, or 16%, reported acquiring their products from only commercial sources. The majority, or 627, cited “informal” sources such as family, friends and in-person or online dealers. Fifty-one, or 6%, cited both types of sources.
The CDC’s report looked at 1,979 patients with available data on substance use. A total of 1,620, or 82%, had used marijuana products. Patients ages 13-17 were more likely to acquire the marijuana from informal sources than adults were.
So far vaping has been connected to 57 deaths and lung illness among more than 2,600 people since a national outbreak began in the spring of 2019.
“The data is clear on two fronts,” said Kevin Sabet, president of Smart Approaches to Marijuana. “Legal, licensed products cannot be conclusively stated as safe – as Big Marijuana’s lobbyists have so desperately tried to do – and legalization has only served to make the underground market more dangerous.”
