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Comment by ng12 | Hacker News Reader

This is a casualty of state governments dragging their feet when it comes to legalization.

You can get very "legit looking" THC cartridges very easily where I live (New York). They're Chinese-made copies of legit dispensary brands which are then filled with whatever junk. It doesn't surprise me at all that some of them are tainted.

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I find it interesting that the article is targeting vaping in general rather than buying tainted products.

(My money is on THC extraction using Butane that is meant for fuel (that's heavily contaminated) rather than lab-grade/ pure.)

> I find it interesting that the article is targeting vaping in general rather than buying tainted products.

Yea, I don't vape anything but I think it's a pretty fascinating public health issue and I'm very interested in potential developments in our understanding of its health impacts. I read the first couple of paragraphs and realized that the article has little to do with what its headline implies. I suppose I should've known better than to credulously read a headline from a clickbait rag like the NYT.

Seems unlikely, though IANAChemist. Butane is a volatile (BP ~0 centigrade) short-chain hydrocarbon, and its isomers would likely (?) be similar. Contaminants of butane might be what?

If they were longer chained they'd be less volatile but still disappear quickly. If they were long enough to hang around to mess up lungs then they'd probably not vapourise well in the first place so wouldn't make good solvents. Just a guess though.

Any solvent used at any stage of extraction from crude oil (?) to product, for starters. Random shit that was in the crude to start with. By products of heating any of these. For starters.

Anything that got into the container holding the butane would have to be as volatile as the butane, I think. So it wouldn't be a long-lasting contaminant as it'd evaporate very quickly, along with the butane.

But if I'm wrong, if it wasn't volatile at room temperature & pressure, it would remain in the container as the butane was released so probably never meet the THC/weed anyway.

I dunno, but that's my reasoning.

Wrong on all accounts. If any of that was correct, distillation could be one stage and we wouldn’t need a dozen plates to separate components. And then there’s the azeotropes of butane, most famously acetaldehyde.

Surprised terpenes aren't mentioned in article -- when heated too hot they can degrade into benzene. Seems like they are targeted for something to extract not remove (although I know nothing about cannabis - only industrial contaminants).

Not sure how hot the heating elements are supposed to get but if they get too hot you're inhaling stuff that basically creates pneumonia symptoms.

The mighty vape is pretty well respected and ranges from 180C to 200C. Would that be hot enough to convert some into Benzene?

Limonine is a terpine, and it certainly causes lipid pneumonia, or something much like it...

The teens who are being hospitalized for this wouldn't legally be able to buy thc cartridges anyway, so they may still resort to black market goods.

But, a percentage that would have bought black market goods may instead go the stereotypical route for underage drinking - getting someone of age to legally buy the product and pass it on.

That still seems preferable to black market goods.

Legal marijuana puts the unscrupulous dealers out of business and allows law enforcement to target them directly.

Possibly. But under-age drinkers don’t regularly source moonshine. If the legal market is there it’s more likely they’ll find ways to acquire store-bought stuff.

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