"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. "
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.
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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.