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Comment by stronglikedan | Hacker News Reader

Why don't they name the brands that did test positive? They mention Dank Vapes, but certainly there were others.

Are there such things as brands on the black market? Any producer can imitate another producer's product.

The article states that it is easy to actually buy empty carts and even real branded packaging. Why anyone would sell that is insane...

"One of the shops visited by NBC News in Los Angeles sold packaging for Dank Vapes Gorilla Glue, the same brand of vape that Castillo was using before he landed in the hospital ICU. "

There's no such thing as a legit "Dank Vapes" cartridge. The "brand" only exists as packaging for black-market cartridges. You can buy the cartridges and "branded" boxes by the hundreds on AliExpress.

You could even buy them on Amazon(up until a few days ago, havent checked lately.)

Further reading: https://www.inverse.com/article/58581-dank-vapes

THIS appears to be the problem, or a sizable portion of it anyway. The media sensationalizes, the officials implement draconian bans, and none of it addresses the actual issues it's intended to combat.

Wow, this is a much better article; it even calls the myclobutanil connection, and a month earlier than NBC's story to boot.

Edit: gburdell3's answer – that there was never a "real" version, and it was only ever a white label package – seems likely.

My experience manufacturing in China is that unless you're paying to have your own people on the ground overseeing operations, the factory will take every shortcut they can, and then immediately offer your product for sale to anybody that asks.

Once the molds/setup is done, it's trivial to print 150k instead of 100k, for example. If there's a counterfeit market that wants more of your product, then why not make money in two places?

Western ideas about IP, fairness, etc do not translate over there.

Almost every black market drug has brands in one way or another: molly pressed with little logos, LSD dripped on blotter art, meth dyed with color, etc. The problem with brands in black markets is once a brand is successful other suppliers in the chain will clone the branding onto sub-par drugs.

Well-organized communities have popped up to combat this, track brands, and help users identify fake drugs: https://pillreports.net/

On the acid side of the house Blotter Barn has a stunning brand/art archive dating back to the 60s: http://www.blotterbarn.com/

Unfortunately brands are sold online in the form of empty kits that anyone can then fill and sell. So while there are some brands out there, not all of them are really reliable. The same black married brand in different states is unlikely to be made by the same people.

They do. It is in the embedded PDF on the site.

Direct link to PDF: https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6432192/Vape-Cart...

Clean products: Orchid, Tikun, Select

Tainted products: Brass Knuckles "Sour Apple" and "Gushers", Heavy Hitters "Pineapple Express", Dank Vapes "Dole Whip" and "Lemon Berry", Cereal Carts "Trix", Exotic Carts "Mars OG", West Coast Carts "Hybrid" and "Indica", Mario Carts "Skunk OG"

This file is no longer accessible. Could you repost?

It seems to have been moved to https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6433147/ but I can't figure out how to download the PDF on this one. There is a GIF version which I've re-hosted: https://imgur.com/a/KYywfCQ

Ah, missed that, thanks!

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