This seems to be incredibly well correlated with the increase in use of oil based thickening agents, particularly for black market cartridges. This year we've s

This seems to be incredibly well correlated with the increase in use of oil based thickening agents, particularly for black market cartridges. This year we've seen a lot of these products gain popularity, along with the rise of people selling cartridges in packages that look legitimate (Dank Vapes, Mario Karts, etc.) but are just cartridge packages, with no company selling THC carts with that name or product line existing. We've also seen a rise of rip-off packaging of real brands appearing on sites like AliExpress. People purchase these, fill them with something that resembles THC concentrate, and then sell them. I know that correlation isn't causation, but my gut feeling is that we're going to find out that these additives are the culprit. To my knowledge, we're not seeing any reports of this occurring for people that are part of a state-run and well regulated medical marijuana program, where many of these products have been available for years. For recreational use, even in states that have legalized it, the stringency of regulations vary for dispensaries, so I don't know that I would necessarily assume that a cartridge purchased at a dispensary is necessarily safe from this sort of thing, either. I'm not a research scientist or medical professional of any sort, though, so no one should take any of this as anything but a layman's PoV.