Ever driven behind someone with a bad catalytic converter? Ever burned the bacon? How about too much starter juice on the charcoal? We inhale bad air all the time. Jeeez – who let that bad boy! We also inhale aerosolized liquids all the time – air pollution is largely vaporized petroleum, industrial chemicals and particles of combusted stuff – AKA smoke. Industrial and commercial vapor and smoke – bad shit indeed. We probably shouldn’t be inhaling it, and governments probably shouldn’t be allowing it – right? It’s probably killing a lot of people too, including plenty who haven’t smoked or vaped anything else in their lives.
See, that’s why I have a hard time with all the sudden “gotcha” yowls about a few people, recently departed, who apparently succumbed after vaping from some kind of nicotine or THC delivery device.
First of all, I dislike these devices intensely. They do to Cannabis what’s been done to the Coca plant – extract one molecule and forget the rest. But I believe that anyone who smokes or vapes any of todays’ Cannabis synthetics, extracts and magic molecules – anything but whole flower – already knows that there are hazards to smoking or vaping, and would agree that doing it with anything but whole, organic Cannabis flower is clearly more risky behavior. But a lot of people think that convenience, price, glamor, fruity and sweet tastes, and feel-good techno-bling make vaping THC and/or Nicotine in one exotic form or another worth what they perceive as the risk, which of course most vapers, being young, discount way too far.
But the really big problem is that these few isolated incidents of vaping-associated deaths give the Aunties (meaning anti-everything fun) another reason to spend millions more public dollars paying themselves extremely well to wring their hands and preach to empty churches.
These vaping deaths are also a great opportunity for the ever-vigilant regulators to move in and try to ban e-cigarettes and vaping devices. As a lifelong advocate of smoking or vaping nothing but organic Cannabis flower and organic Tobacco leaf I have to admit that I think e-cigs and vaping pens are silly and, yes, probably dangerous. But so what? People really do have a choice – at least so far.
For the same Federal and State regulators who look the other way when the Tobacco Cartel loads its products with banned pesticides so hazardous that they kill 400,000 American smokers a year to then turn around and bitch about a few people dying from vaping is beyond ludicrous. I think that inhaling anything but combusted or vaporized organic Cannabis or Tobacco or any other natural plant is stupid, crass, gross, dangerous, idiotic, exploitative, and dumb – but kinda as the man said, I will defend until the death (probably yours) your right to do it. If the Feds and the Aunties want to lecture you and me on our dime about the dangers of e-cigs and vaping then they damn sure ought to do their job and regulate the Tobacco Cartel and its criminally dangerous products that kill so many, so preventably.
And while we’re at it, being a crotchety old man that is, why all the surprise over people getting sick and dying from inhaling volatilized oil? Is this really news to US scientists and doctors, or are all these expressions of surprise and dismay at the health effects of inhaling volatilized oil simply because of their ignorance of what goes on in the rest of the world?
“Lung cancer accounts for ~17% of cancer-related deaths around the world, and cigarette smoking is regarded as the principal risk factor for lung cancer in males.1 As it is well known, other risk factors also increase the risk of lung cancer in female nonsmokers. A study demonstrated that 15% of male patients and 53% of female patients with lung cancer in five continents were not due to smoking.”
“The risk of lung cancer among cooking adults: a meta-analysis of 23 observational studies.”
“CONCLUSION: Cooking oil fume is likely to be a risk factor for lung cancer for female, regardless of smoking status. Poor ventilation may increase the risk of lung cancer. Cooking methods may have different effect on lung cancer that deep frying may be healthier than stir frying.”
Bubba always knew that last bit.
I think the bottom line here is that Cannabis product manufacturers need to do a little more due diligence with their formulations and the performance of their devices, like maybe paying attention to some fairly obvious research on oils and other carrier solutions, but what I really think will make smoking and vaping safe and even healthy is for people to smoke, vape or otherwise consume only organic Cannabis flower and organic Tobacco leaf. And by the way, they make a fantastic pair in my little old Pax 2.
