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Comment by meowface | Hacker News Reader

I stopped all use of cannabis vape pens after reading a study that found lead often leaches into the oil cartridge over time (I believe from the pen and/or the metal contact on the cartridge). I imagine there could be other risks, as well.

Vaping is definitely safer if implemented ideally, but it looks like the ultra-portable solutions are mostly still pretty sketchy.

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I don't vape or use cannabis so am ignorant. In what way is lead used? I would have thought that a metal with a low melting point out not be found near a heating element.

Lead still doesn’t melt that easily. 470 celcius is really hot.

You might be thinking of solder which is easily melted by resistive heating. But that is because its alloyed with Tin and the combination has a much lower melting point than either metals.

Lead can chemically dissolve in acidic solutions

Lead melts at 327.5°C.

Siri decoded to give me the number for Lead(II) nitrate. Neat. Still my point stands its not normal to hit that with simple resistive heaters like those in an e-cigarette.

Vaporizers that use ground up bud instead of concentrates seem ideal to me; it's much harder for producers to adulterate the product in that form.

I get the impression this style of vape has started to go out of style though. Which is a shame because it's much more efficient than smoking, particularly if you save the toasted weed to make edibles with (extraction using food-grade coconut oil, butter, etc in your kitchen is very easy, or since it's already toasted you can even consume it without any processing.)

You can also do a butane extraction of the THC left in that vaped bud, which can result in a super pure butane hash oil (BHO) that is also suitable for vaping. I say can because most butane has horrible additives (unlike the quintuple refined stuff you can buy at headshops), and the materials used in the extraction are also important (e.g. if you use a PVC pipe, the butane extracts some of the PVC as well -- I've known people who did this and smoked/sold the product out of ignorance). The whole operation is typically dangerous/flammable and releases some butane into the environment/unprotected-respiratory-system, unless you have a shwanky machine that cycles and reuses the butane. This comment isn't a how to guide, I'm just trying to note that while buying oil you don't know the origin of can expose you to crazy additives somebody who does their research can make their own BHO that is damn near 100% plant material once the quintuple refined butane evaporates away. It's not that hard, though it is either expensive or dangerous depending on the materials used.

There are a lot of new models coming out each year. However, the oil vapes tend to be easier to use when out on the street or in a place where it’s forbidden to smoke / vape as they leave very little trace and smell. But even with the dry vapes you have to be careful what you buy as some of the cheaper ones use plastics that can’t take the heat, causing you to inhale plastic fumes. For example, most of the snoop dog branded vapes.

I guess I don't understand people using black market oil based anything since you obviously never know where it came from or it's the same stuff that the CDC says is destroying people's lungs. Just seems like survival of the fittest (in this case brain power) after you hear about all the people dropping like flies.

Yeah I use a dry herb vape and I think it’s probably the best way to go about it.

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