17 ms·

The Evolution of THC Vape Cartridges

92 points by rd 4y ago

jrace 4y ago
> Even though the intended use for these devices is a 2-5 second draw at no more than 2 draws before the device must be rested so as to not overheat, not every consumer uses the devices in this way or knows this technique. > users should not be taking more than three draws per hour on average -------- Even in fully legal store (up in canada) I have never seen either of those warnings.
- onphonenow 4y ago
  Three draws per HOUR?! Pot smokers routinely go way way way over that limit. Is this a limit because THC levels will be supposedly deadly or because of something else (technical etc). Public health / medicine has just gone off the rails. I believe pot smoking is bad for you, but where do they even come up with these recommendation.
  - robonerd 4y ago
    I think it's one of those liability things like "don't put q-tips in your ear".
  - humanistbot 4y ago
    The amount of THC you would have to ingest to overdose is more than you could feasibly consume. In lab rats with zero existing tolerance to THC, the LD50 of THC is 36-40 mg/kg in a single dose [1]. For a 100kg individual with no tolerance, that means a single dose of 3600-4000 mg of pure THC inhaled continuously until consumed would result in death 50% of the time. That is an absurd amount. [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0041008X74901264 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/004100... Edit: And that 40mg/kg is the inhalation LD50 dose. For edibles / intragastric, the LD50 is 800-1200 mg/kg. So a 100kg individual who consumes 80000mg of THC-laced edibles. A standard gummy bear dose is 10mg, so a 100kg individual with no tolerance would have to eat 8000 of those to have a 50% chance of death. Edit 2: FYI, the standard THC vape cartridges that are 1g of ~75-90% pure THC oil, which is good for 200-300 pulls of 3-5 seconds each.
    - mikestew 4y ago
      When replying to someone that believes pot smoking to be bad for you, there might be a need to translate that 3600mg is going to 360 of those 10mg gummy bears. If the THC doesn't kill you, the 360 gummy bears in your gut are going to make you wish you were dead. Except I guess you'll be so high that you won't notice.
      - humanistbot 4y ago
        That was the inhaled dose. I edited my post to include the edible / intragastric LD50, which is 800-1200 mg/kg.
      - dole 4y ago
        A quick google says 70 gummi bears in a pound, so 5.15 lbs for those who were also wondering.
      - 0des 4y ago
        In no way would an amount so little lead to death. Maybe if you aspirate vomit or trip and fall.
        the_only_law 4y ago
        > trip and fall. Not too impossible I guess, I've fainted from orthostatic hypotension after smoking too much before.
    - PragmaticPulp 4y ago
      > The amount of THC you would have to ingest to overdose is more than you could feasibly consume. In lab rats with zero existing tolerance to THC, the LD50 of THC is… Overdose and LD50 aren’t the same thing. There is a wide middle ground between a typical dose and a fatal dose where the effects range from distinctly unpleasant to potentially triggering a number of other health conditions. The LD50 of THC is indeed very high, but I think the excess focus on LD50 has misled a lot of people into ignoring the other potential problems with excessively high dose, prolonged THC ingestion.
  - jklinger410 4y ago
    From my understanding the concern about vapes is super heating the chemicals inside the vape (or the vape itself). Also potentially over-heating the filament in the cartridge, or the metal conducting parts of the battery. My guess is the restriction is based on those things.
    - jrace 4y ago
      That is correct, according to the article. Not sure if that is an actual concern, or even an actual warning, but that is what the article states.
  - Lammy 4y ago
    "Please drink responsibly."
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  I have a flavour-only vape that I got just to check out what were all the kid going crazy over these days - and never heard that kind of warning either
  - aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
    No disrespect intended, but this sounds more foolish than doing it due to being addicted to something!
    - eyelidlessness 4y ago
      It’s no more foolish than trying a mocktail to get a sense of what people like in a comparable cocktail.
      - aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
        Ordering a Shirley Temple at the pool or bar isn't the same as buying a whole device and special non-nicotene juice to use in it, ha. No real hate, just weird — to me!
- divs1210 4y ago
  3 draws per hour? I recently switched to vaping from smoking, and I hope that's not the case for nic vapes, because then I'm seriously overdoing it.
- honkdaddy 4y ago
  I think this is just a mistake or miscalculation on the author's part. I use one of these devices every day and anyone who's familiar with the operation would easily be able to tell when it's overheating; the vapor becomes uncomfortably hot and smells different. This will happen when you heat the element for maybe than 7-10s, the frequency per hour has never made any difference in my experience.
jamal-kumar 4y ago
One of the more interesting innovations that I've seen in this kind of technology is atomizing it using a piezoelectric ultrasound emitter which vibrates it into a vapour instead of using any combustion at all.
- GloriousKoji 4y ago
  But that technology has been around for decades?
  - jamal-kumar 4y ago
    Yeah it's basically what you find in those novelty gnome and mushroom fog fountains at the shopping mall
- pstuart 4y ago
  Combustion is required to decarboxylate the THC (which is why eating raw bud will not get you high). Obviously the workaround would have the juice decarbed but I think that it would be difficult to find that in the wild.
  - jamal-kumar 4y ago
    Interesting, I've only ever seen it for nicotine vapes so far but that would make sense
  - droopyEyelids 4y ago
    You're repeating a persistent myth. Eating raw cannabis will absolutely get you high, and heating it doesn't noticeably affect the potency. "Decarboxylation" or the removal of a carboxyl group, where it's usually released as CO2, is a common reaction in chemistry, and it doesn't tend to require a lot of activation energy. Every amino acid is decarboxylated after you consume it. Carbonic acid in soda decarboxylates itself at standard atmospheric temperature. And in the case of your stomach, the HCl will decarboxylate the weed you eat just fine.
    - 4y ago
imtringued 4y ago
As a fan of industrial hemp I am bitter that recreational drug use has given hemp a bad reputation in so many countries. Legalization is a very recent development. 2018 was a turning point in the US.
- tiahura 4y ago
  As Howard Stern asked 30 years ago - don’t we have enough rope?
  - _jal 4y ago
    It was a stupid question then, it is a stupid question now. But if Howard wants to share his 5 year plans for various industries, I'm sure we'd all love to see how he'd allocate our goods and labor. I'd love to learn which materials car companies use are "cheap enough" now, and don't need to get better, for instance.
  - cwkoss 4y ago
    Much of the rope market is synthetic fiber. I wouldn't be surprised if many modern ropes spew a cloud of microplastic particles whenever they are bent.
    - moistly 4y ago
      Now think about your fiber-fill pillow.
- robonerd 4y ago
  Industrial hemp is a jack of all trades, master of none. Anything it can do, other materials can do better. Can you make a tshirt out of hemp? Of course. Is it better than cotton, let alone synthetic fibers? No. Hemp ice cream? Possible, but not better than regular ice cream. Hemp rope? Has been commercially available the whole time but fell out of favor in nearly all applications (sailing is an exception.)
  - deleted 4y ago
LASR 4y ago
I am amazed at the level of R&D & economies of scale with vaporizers. The tech in these - high-power electronics, computer controlled heating profiles etc is quite sophisticated. Societal evils aside, this could be a very precise drug-delivery system that can be cheaply mass-produced.
- newsclues 4y ago
  It blows my mind the market is so slow because of legal issues. It’s billions of dollars a year
  - akhmatova 4y ago
    Well the customer base isn't too picky, by and large.
- lmg643 4y ago
  That's a great and positive way to look at vaping. Every time I hear about "medical marijuana" I think about the probable link to schizophrenia, which will likely dwarf the pot economy in both direct and indirect costs. -- edited to add citations -- Spent about 10 seconds finding these using Brave search. For folks who can't resist snarky comments, you have to admit it's strange that this is not at least acknowledged amidst a state-by-state push for legalization. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2424288/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2424288/ >> "There is now reasonable evidence from longitudinal studies that regular cannabis use predicts an increased risk of schizophrenia and of reporting psychotic symptoms. These relationships have persisted after controlling for confounding variables such as personal characteristics and other drug use. The relationships did not seem to be explained by cannabis being used to self-medicate symptoms of psychosis." https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/article-abstract/2782160?guestAccessKey=13668b0c-b3e4-45c9-a35c-e4c44d500ea9&utm_source=For_The_Media&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ftm_links&utm_content=tfl&utm_term=072121 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/article-abst... >> "The results from these longitudinal analyses show the proportion of cases of schizophrenia associated with cannabis use disorder has increased 3- to 4-fold during the past 2 decades, which is expected given previously described increases in the use and potency of cannabis."
robonerd 4y ago
These cartridges are sketchy as fuck; I don't trust any of them and I don't think anybody else should either. Do yourself a favor and buy a vape you can pack ground herb into.
- asdff 4y ago
  You can buy tested cartriges or even make your own distillate from flower too.
  - robonerd 4y ago
    The marijuana testing lab industry is rife with fraud, it doesn't give me much confidence. (Flower could be compromised too, but I think the less processing done before purchase, the less chance there is for something to go wrong.) DIY extracts seems like a good alternative. But vaping ground flower is very straight forward and low effort, so it seems like the obvious choice to me.
    - dole 4y ago
      Vaping ground flower is fine, but IMHO it takes a considerable amount more vaping of ground flower (handheld style vape, not volcano) than it does just smoking it to have the same effects. And it takes a considerable amount more of smoking flower to have the same effect, than it does taking a hit off a THC vape cart.
  - Bud 4y ago
    Neither of those options fix this issue. Cartridge metals can seep into the vape material over time or after elements have been heated up a few times; testing won't catch that. Making your own distillate, similarly, won't protect you against heavy metals in the cartridge.
    - asdff 4y ago
      You can buy ceramic cartriges now too.
- 4y ago
octagons 4y ago
I have found that the industry for the production of extracts that go in these cartridges is very widespread, sometimes operating in plain site. For example, I bought a very large (15 gallon) vacuum chamber system directly from a US-based vendor. My use-case was to off-gas various slurries and compounds I use for my hobbies, such as casting molten aluminum. Although it was not directly mentioned on their e-commerce site, after a few follow-up marketing emails, I quickly realized they were geared towards solutions for businesses performing high-yield CBD extraction processes. Ignoring all the politics of the related industries, I thought it was pretty interesting to find such a business by accident and that anyone with the right circumstances could potentially perform these processes with equipment available to general consumers - though I imagine there may be some chemicals that require a permit at the necessary concentrations.
- ghostly_s 4y ago
  I'm not following what surprises you about this. You are aware 2/5ths of the USA have legalized marijuana?
- MrStonedOne 4y ago
- loeg 4y ago
  It’s pretty similar buying indoor gardening equipment.
- lovich 4y ago
  It was the same deal with buying any sort of hydroponics or aquaponics systems. I was a hobby gardener in a city apartment so had to do sealed systems for growing plants and I always got the oddest looks when the employees at various stores realized that when I was discussing growing my "peas" and "tomatoes" that I actually meant peas and tomatoes. Its a plant with no novel mechanical or chemical properties as far as I am aware when it comes to processing, so there's no real way for the government to block the marketing of the tools without hitting many other industries
- veeti 4y ago
extr 4y ago
I used to smoke regular weed but in recent years have totally converted over to using vape cartridges. The benefits are too great: - No odor. - More consistent dosing. - More control over the exact CBD:THC ratio. - Lower cost per dose. - Less paraphernalia lying around/more discreet. In fact, it's actually significantly reduced my intake. I now take 1-2 puffs of a 10:1 CBD:THC mixture before bed some nights of the week. I get the calm without paranoia or disorientation. If I want to "feel high", I can take a few extra puffs, or try the 5:1, or even 1:1. I don't even touch the "Max THC" stuff clocking in at 80% THC by weight anymore, whereas in a past life that would have been my go-to. It really changes things when a "bowl" of "sour skunk" is no longer the minimum unit of dosage. However, I am very thankful I now live in a legal state. When grey market cartridges first started becoming available I did a lot of research into them. Definitely there is a greater risk smoking a black or grey market THC cart than smoking black or grey market marijuana (see all the vitamin E stuff). When they first came out, I smoked them with no ill effects. But I didn't even know the risk I was taking, and today I would not touch the stuff. See r/fakecartridges, r/cleancarts, for other people who actually care about how shady some of this stuff is. Today I only buy cartridges from reputable brands from licensed dispensaries, that have lab reports FROM THE SAME BATCH included on the packaging, that test for above and beyond what is legally required. Is this confirmed to keep me safe...no. There is always a risk with untested and understudied products like this. However it's a lot different than grey market carts or vaping nicotine, where you might take 300 puffs/day, versus 1-2. I have to imagine if there are heavy metals, the former is resulting in far more concentrated doses of it. It's a risk I'm willing to take for something I enjoy and that I feel improves my life. I honestly hope for even stricter regulation. The price per dose is still incredibly cheap even with the taxes and overhead from compliance. I would gladly pay $100/1G for something that lasts months and has a heavily scrutinized chain of custody, that's cheaper than a single nice dinner or a weekend or two of drinks.
- emerged 4y ago
  Investing in a quality dry herb vaporizer is even more cost effective. I don’t even smoke very often but have the coveted Volcano and it is incredible.
  - 4y ago
skinnymuch 4y ago
I know this isn’t Reddit. However, if absurdist or incredibly dry humor is your thing, Tim Heidecker (playing himself) hosts a movie review show that ends up using TCH (for Tom Cruise Heidecker, his late son) that gets 20/19 kids killed. There’s a 4.5 hour straight forward Trial special where Tim is on trial for their deaths (2nd degree). The entire 4+ hour trial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rsn4UxSqr_M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rsn4UxSqr_M It is so boring at times, like a real trial. Amazing. Day 1 clipped highlights: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWotb3gci0A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWotb3gci0A — For the actual topic. Since being legalized in my state. I have only used the vape cartridges too.
- smoldesu 4y ago
  I've tried many times to get my friends to sit through this "masterpiece" with me, only a select few have ever made it. It's great to put on in the background though, Tim Heidecker is really good at keeping the rest of his faux jury on their toes.
  - arolihas 4y ago
    It's a real luxury to have friends that will sit down for 4.5 hours to watch Tim Heidecker with you. Best I can do is share Tim's Cooking Tips and hope haha.
  - skinnymuch 4y ago
    Yeah for sure. I put it on to sleep when I’m stressed often. Same with an On Cinema without the intros that are too loud.
jjcm 4y ago
As a daily THC/CBD user, these days I switched to an electronic dab rig to minimize unknowns involved in what I'm putting in my lungs. I currently use a Puffco peak pro as well as CO2 extracts. Highly recommend the move for anyone who doesn't trust what's in generic carts.
tag2103 4y ago
The irony is not lost on my that at the same time on HN Homepage JUUL is being banned and benefits of THC Carts is being discussed. Exciting, and rather confusing times.
- prpl 4y ago
  The irony here is that the Juul was spun out of Pax Labs, and THC came first.
- m0llusk 4y ago
  The devices themselves are closely related, but the marketing and sales are worlds apart. Most THC carts are marketed to adults as cannabis delivery systems. JUUL were targeted at children as harmless tasty fun and JUUL was deceptive about the amount of nicotine in the product. What took JUUL down was the reaction they generated to protect children from a habit forming product with documented harmful characteristics.
i_am_toaster_2 4y ago
I respect the attempt to accurately create a report on vape cartridges, however I'd like to note a couple important inaccuracies. My source for this is myself -- I worked in the cannabis industry for about 4 years (worked in California for 2 years, then in Massachussetts for 2 years - up until about a year ago). The first inaccuracy I noted was the $ amount per gram extract and the 10x markup remark (they REALLY don't make sense, where do you get these numbers?). Also related, in most states, a company would actually lose money if they were to process their flower for vape cartridges. Vape cartridges are often only worth the investment because the byproducts of plant trimming and packaging aren't sellable otherwise. The second inaccuracy is in regards to cartridge filling; forgive me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like you were talking directly to the people marketing the vape-cartridge filling machines? The reason I say this is because it's very difficult to machine-fill extract in carts due to how highly variable the viscosity can be from batch to batch (trim from different strains is enough to create the inconsistent viscosity). This makes it incredibly difficult to fill without the injectors getting clogged; a manual employee process is often needed. Personally, it sounds a lot like someone was trying to get some free advertising from you. Outside of that, there were some minor issues or discrepencies, but I won't harp on them as the article does seem to make an honest effort at giving an unbiased report.
- bogomipz 4y ago
  >"Vape cartridges are often only worth the investment because the byproducts of plant trimming and packaging aren't sellable otherwise." Interesting. Can you say what those byproducts are exactly? Is it stems, seeds and a bit of resin then?
  - iaw 4y ago
    Not seeds or stems, trimmings. There are non-negligible amounts of THC is the trimmings of the flower even though they aren't comparable to the actual flower. These used to be a waste product sold/given away but now it is turned into distillates/oils.
  - i_am_toaster_2 4y ago
    To add to iaw's response, it's worth noting that a large amount of value flower has is in relation to it's presentation and appearance. Trimming of flower is done to both remove excess plant material as well as create a more favorable product for consumers. Because this process of trimming is necessary for the sale of flower, any vertically integrated business that both grows and sells their own flower will inevitably create this excess of trim byproduct.
majorpothead 4y ago
Gotta love HN hand-wringing about THC. I've done stupid amounts of research on this. I own multiple dab rigs, multiple Volcanos, multiple DTv4, went through .... lots of carts during 2020, etc. If you are looking to consume concentrate, the solution is quite easy - get an electronic dab rig, take baby dabs. It's the same thing as "vaping" from a cart, but there's no heavy metals, and at least in WA, the quality of raw concentrates is very high. Not as portable as a pen, but also I'm not really trying to be stoned all the time or in public anyway.
- redisman 4y ago
  What would be something close to a pen in convenience and guaranteed no heavy metals?

92 points by rd 4y ago

> Even though the intended use for these devices is a 2-5 second draw at no more than 2 draws before the device must be rested so as to not overheat, not every consumer uses the devices in this way or knows this technique. > users should not be taking more than three draws per hour on average -------- Even in fully legal store (up in canada) I have never seen either of those warnings.

onphonenow 4y ago
Three draws per HOUR?! Pot smokers routinely go way way way over that limit. Is this a limit because THC levels will be supposedly deadly or because of something else (technical etc). Public health / medicine has just gone off the rails. I believe pot smoking is bad for you, but where do they even come up with these recommendation.
- robonerd 4y ago
  I think it's one of those liability things like "don't put q-tips in your ear".
- humanistbot 4y ago
  The amount of THC you would have to ingest to overdose is more than you could feasibly consume. In lab rats with zero existing tolerance to THC, the LD50 of THC is 36-40 mg/kg in a single dose [1]. For a 100kg individual with no tolerance, that means a single dose of 3600-4000 mg of pure THC inhaled continuously until consumed would result in death 50% of the time. That is an absurd amount. [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0041008X74901264 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/004100... Edit: And that 40mg/kg is the inhalation LD50 dose. For edibles / intragastric, the LD50 is 800-1200 mg/kg. So a 100kg individual who consumes 80000mg of THC-laced edibles. A standard gummy bear dose is 10mg, so a 100kg individual with no tolerance would have to eat 8000 of those to have a 50% chance of death. Edit 2: FYI, the standard THC vape cartridges that are 1g of ~75-90% pure THC oil, which is good for 200-300 pulls of 3-5 seconds each.
  - mikestew 4y ago
    When replying to someone that believes pot smoking to be bad for you, there might be a need to translate that 3600mg is going to 360 of those 10mg gummy bears. If the THC doesn't kill you, the 360 gummy bears in your gut are going to make you wish you were dead. Except I guess you'll be so high that you won't notice.
    - humanistbot 4y ago
      That was the inhaled dose. I edited my post to include the edible / intragastric LD50, which is 800-1200 mg/kg.
    - dole 4y ago
      A quick google says 70 gummi bears in a pound, so 5.15 lbs for those who were also wondering.
    - 0des 4y ago
      In no way would an amount so little lead to death. Maybe if you aspirate vomit or trip and fall.
      - the_only_law 4y ago
        > trip and fall. Not too impossible I guess, I've fainted from orthostatic hypotension after smoking too much before.
  - PragmaticPulp 4y ago
    > The amount of THC you would have to ingest to overdose is more than you could feasibly consume. In lab rats with zero existing tolerance to THC, the LD50 of THC is… Overdose and LD50 aren’t the same thing. There is a wide middle ground between a typical dose and a fatal dose where the effects range from distinctly unpleasant to potentially triggering a number of other health conditions. The LD50 of THC is indeed very high, but I think the excess focus on LD50 has misled a lot of people into ignoring the other potential problems with excessively high dose, prolonged THC ingestion.
- jklinger410 4y ago
  From my understanding the concern about vapes is super heating the chemicals inside the vape (or the vape itself). Also potentially over-heating the filament in the cartridge, or the metal conducting parts of the battery. My guess is the restriction is based on those things.
  - jrace 4y ago
    That is correct, according to the article. Not sure if that is an actual concern, or even an actual warning, but that is what the article states.
- Lammy 4y ago
  "Please drink responsibly."
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
ClumsyPilot 4y ago
I have a flavour-only vape that I got just to check out what were all the kid going crazy over these days - and never heard that kind of warning either
- aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
  No disrespect intended, but this sounds more foolish than doing it due to being addicted to something!
  - eyelidlessness 4y ago
    It’s no more foolish than trying a mocktail to get a sense of what people like in a comparable cocktail.
    - aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
      Ordering a Shirley Temple at the pool or bar isn't the same as buying a whole device and special non-nicotene juice to use in it, ha. No real hate, just weird — to me!
divs1210 4y ago
3 draws per hour? I recently switched to vaping from smoking, and I hope that's not the case for nic vapes, because then I'm seriously overdoing it.
honkdaddy 4y ago
I think this is just a mistake or miscalculation on the author's part. I use one of these devices every day and anyone who's familiar with the operation would easily be able to tell when it's overheating; the vapor becomes uncomfortably hot and smells different. This will happen when you heat the element for maybe than 7-10s, the frequency per hour has never made any difference in my experience.

jamal-kumar 4y ago

One of the more interesting innovations that I've seen in this kind of technology is atomizing it using a piezoelectric ultrasound emitter which vibrates it into a vapour instead of using any combustion at all.

GloriousKoji 4y ago
But that technology has been around for decades?
- jamal-kumar 4y ago
  Yeah it's basically what you find in those novelty gnome and mushroom fog fountains at the shopping mall
pstuart 4y ago
Combustion is required to decarboxylate the THC (which is why eating raw bud will not get you high). Obviously the workaround would have the juice decarbed but I think that it would be difficult to find that in the wild.
- jamal-kumar 4y ago
  Interesting, I've only ever seen it for nicotine vapes so far but that would make sense
- droopyEyelids 4y ago
  You're repeating a persistent myth. Eating raw cannabis will absolutely get you high, and heating it doesn't noticeably affect the potency. "Decarboxylation" or the removal of a carboxyl group, where it's usually released as CO2, is a common reaction in chemistry, and it doesn't tend to require a lot of activation energy. Every amino acid is decarboxylated after you consume it. Carbonic acid in soda decarboxylates itself at standard atmospheric temperature. And in the case of your stomach, the HCl will decarboxylate the weed you eat just fine.
  - 4y ago

imtringued 4y ago

As a fan of industrial hemp I am bitter that recreational drug use has given hemp a bad reputation in so many countries. Legalization is a very recent development. 2018 was a turning point in the US.

tiahura 4y ago
As Howard Stern asked 30 years ago - don’t we have enough rope?
- _jal 4y ago
  It was a stupid question then, it is a stupid question now. But if Howard wants to share his 5 year plans for various industries, I'm sure we'd all love to see how he'd allocate our goods and labor. I'd love to learn which materials car companies use are "cheap enough" now, and don't need to get better, for instance.
- cwkoss 4y ago
  Much of the rope market is synthetic fiber. I wouldn't be surprised if many modern ropes spew a cloud of microplastic particles whenever they are bent.
  - moistly 4y ago
    Now think about your fiber-fill pillow.
robonerd 4y ago
Industrial hemp is a jack of all trades, master of none. Anything it can do, other materials can do better. Can you make a tshirt out of hemp? Of course. Is it better than cotton, let alone synthetic fibers? No. Hemp ice cream? Possible, but not better than regular ice cream. Hemp rope? Has been commercially available the whole time but fell out of favor in nearly all applications (sailing is an exception.)
- deleted 4y ago

LASR 4y ago

I am amazed at the level of R&D & economies of scale with vaporizers. The tech in these - high-power electronics, computer controlled heating profiles etc is quite sophisticated. Societal evils aside, this could be a very precise drug-delivery system that can be cheaply mass-produced.

newsclues 4y ago
It blows my mind the market is so slow because of legal issues. It’s billions of dollars a year
- akhmatova 4y ago
  Well the customer base isn't too picky, by and large.
lmg643 4y ago
That's a great and positive way to look at vaping. Every time I hear about "medical marijuana" I think about the probable link to schizophrenia, which will likely dwarf the pot economy in both direct and indirect costs. -- edited to add citations -- Spent about 10 seconds finding these using Brave search. For folks who can't resist snarky comments, you have to admit it's strange that this is not at least acknowledged amidst a state-by-state push for legalization. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2424288/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2424288/ >> "There is now reasonable evidence from longitudinal studies that regular cannabis use predicts an increased risk of schizophrenia and of reporting psychotic symptoms. These relationships have persisted after controlling for confounding variables such as personal characteristics and other drug use. The relationships did not seem to be explained by cannabis being used to self-medicate symptoms of psychosis." https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/article-abstract/2782160?guestAccessKey=13668b0c-b3e4-45c9-a35c-e4c44d500ea9&utm_source=For_The_Media&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ftm_links&utm_content=tfl&utm_term=072121 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/article-abst... >> "The results from these longitudinal analyses show the proportion of cases of schizophrenia associated with cannabis use disorder has increased 3- to 4-fold during the past 2 decades, which is expected given previously described increases in the use and potency of cannabis."

robonerd 4y ago

These cartridges are sketchy as fuck; I don't trust any of them and I don't think anybody else should either. Do yourself a favor and buy a vape you can pack ground herb into.

asdff 4y ago
You can buy tested cartriges or even make your own distillate from flower too.
- robonerd 4y ago
  The marijuana testing lab industry is rife with fraud, it doesn't give me much confidence. (Flower could be compromised too, but I think the less processing done before purchase, the less chance there is for something to go wrong.) DIY extracts seems like a good alternative. But vaping ground flower is very straight forward and low effort, so it seems like the obvious choice to me.
  - dole 4y ago
    Vaping ground flower is fine, but IMHO it takes a considerable amount more vaping of ground flower (handheld style vape, not volcano) than it does just smoking it to have the same effects. And it takes a considerable amount more of smoking flower to have the same effect, than it does taking a hit off a THC vape cart.
- Bud 4y ago
  Neither of those options fix this issue. Cartridge metals can seep into the vape material over time or after elements have been heated up a few times; testing won't catch that. Making your own distillate, similarly, won't protect you against heavy metals in the cartridge.
  - asdff 4y ago
    You can buy ceramic cartriges now too.
4y ago

octagons 4y ago

I have found that the industry for the production of extracts that go in these cartridges is very widespread, sometimes operating in plain site. For example, I bought a very large (15 gallon) vacuum chamber system directly from a US-based vendor. My use-case was to off-gas various slurries and compounds I use for my hobbies, such as casting molten aluminum. Although it was not directly mentioned on their e-commerce site, after a few follow-up marketing emails, I quickly realized they were geared towards solutions for businesses performing high-yield CBD extraction processes. Ignoring all the politics of the related industries, I thought it was pretty interesting to find such a business by accident and that anyone with the right circumstances could potentially perform these processes with equipment available to general consumers - though I imagine there may be some chemicals that require a permit at the necessary concentrations.

ghostly_s 4y ago
I'm not following what surprises you about this. You are aware 2/5ths of the USA have legalized marijuana?
MrStonedOne 4y ago
loeg 4y ago
It’s pretty similar buying indoor gardening equipment.
lovich 4y ago
It was the same deal with buying any sort of hydroponics or aquaponics systems. I was a hobby gardener in a city apartment so had to do sealed systems for growing plants and I always got the oddest looks when the employees at various stores realized that when I was discussing growing my "peas" and "tomatoes" that I actually meant peas and tomatoes. Its a plant with no novel mechanical or chemical properties as far as I am aware when it comes to processing, so there's no real way for the government to block the marketing of the tools without hitting many other industries
veeti 4y ago

extr 4y ago

I used to smoke regular weed but in recent years have totally converted over to using vape cartridges. The benefits are too great: - No odor. - More consistent dosing. - More control over the exact CBD:THC ratio. - Lower cost per dose. - Less paraphernalia lying around/more discreet. In fact, it's actually significantly reduced my intake. I now take 1-2 puffs of a 10:1 CBD:THC mixture before bed some nights of the week. I get the calm without paranoia or disorientation. If I want to "feel high", I can take a few extra puffs, or try the 5:1, or even 1:1. I don't even touch the "Max THC" stuff clocking in at 80% THC by weight anymore, whereas in a past life that would have been my go-to. It really changes things when a "bowl" of "sour skunk" is no longer the minimum unit of dosage. However, I am very thankful I now live in a legal state. When grey market cartridges first started becoming available I did a lot of research into them. Definitely there is a greater risk smoking a black or grey market THC cart than smoking black or grey market marijuana (see all the vitamin E stuff). When they first came out, I smoked them with no ill effects. But I didn't even know the risk I was taking, and today I would not touch the stuff. See r/fakecartridges, r/cleancarts, for other people who actually care about how shady some of this stuff is. Today I only buy cartridges from reputable brands from licensed dispensaries, that have lab reports FROM THE SAME BATCH included on the packaging, that test for above and beyond what is legally required. Is this confirmed to keep me safe...no. There is always a risk with untested and understudied products like this. However it's a lot different than grey market carts or vaping nicotine, where you might take 300 puffs/day, versus 1-2. I have to imagine if there are heavy metals, the former is resulting in far more concentrated doses of it. It's a risk I'm willing to take for something I enjoy and that I feel improves my life. I honestly hope for even stricter regulation. The price per dose is still incredibly cheap even with the taxes and overhead from compliance. I would gladly pay $100/1G for something that lasts months and has a heavily scrutinized chain of custody, that's cheaper than a single nice dinner or a weekend or two of drinks.

emerged 4y ago
Investing in a quality dry herb vaporizer is even more cost effective. I don’t even smoke very often but have the coveted Volcano and it is incredible.
- 4y ago

skinnymuch 4y ago

I know this isn’t Reddit. However, if absurdist or incredibly dry humor is your thing, Tim Heidecker (playing himself) hosts a movie review show that ends up using TCH (for Tom Cruise Heidecker, his late son) that gets 20/19 kids killed. There’s a 4.5 hour straight forward Trial special where Tim is on trial for their deaths (2nd degree). The entire 4+ hour trial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rsn4UxSqr_M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rsn4UxSqr_M It is so boring at times, like a real trial. Amazing. Day 1 clipped highlights: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWotb3gci0A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWotb3gci0A — For the actual topic. Since being legalized in my state. I have only used the vape cartridges too.

smoldesu 4y ago
I've tried many times to get my friends to sit through this "masterpiece" with me, only a select few have ever made it. It's great to put on in the background though, Tim Heidecker is really good at keeping the rest of his faux jury on their toes.
- arolihas 4y ago
  It's a real luxury to have friends that will sit down for 4.5 hours to watch Tim Heidecker with you. Best I can do is share Tim's Cooking Tips and hope haha.
- skinnymuch 4y ago
  Yeah for sure. I put it on to sleep when I’m stressed often. Same with an On Cinema without the intros that are too loud.

jjcm 4y ago

As a daily THC/CBD user, these days I switched to an electronic dab rig to minimize unknowns involved in what I'm putting in my lungs. I currently use a Puffco peak pro as well as CO2 extracts. Highly recommend the move for anyone who doesn't trust what's in generic carts.

tag2103 4y ago

The irony is not lost on my that at the same time on HN Homepage JUUL is being banned and benefits of THC Carts is being discussed. Exciting, and rather confusing times.

prpl 4y ago
The irony here is that the Juul was spun out of Pax Labs, and THC came first.
m0llusk 4y ago
The devices themselves are closely related, but the marketing and sales are worlds apart. Most THC carts are marketed to adults as cannabis delivery systems. JUUL were targeted at children as harmless tasty fun and JUUL was deceptive about the amount of nicotine in the product. What took JUUL down was the reaction they generated to protect children from a habit forming product with documented harmful characteristics.

i_am_toaster_2 4y ago

I respect the attempt to accurately create a report on vape cartridges, however I'd like to note a couple important inaccuracies. My source for this is myself -- I worked in the cannabis industry for about 4 years (worked in California for 2 years, then in Massachussetts for 2 years - up until about a year ago). The first inaccuracy I noted was the $ amount per gram extract and the 10x markup remark (they REALLY don't make sense, where do you get these numbers?). Also related, in most states, a company would actually lose money if they were to process their flower for vape cartridges. Vape cartridges are often only worth the investment because the byproducts of plant trimming and packaging aren't sellable otherwise. The second inaccuracy is in regards to cartridge filling; forgive me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like you were talking directly to the people marketing the vape-cartridge filling machines? The reason I say this is because it's very difficult to machine-fill extract in carts due to how highly variable the viscosity can be from batch to batch (trim from different strains is enough to create the inconsistent viscosity). This makes it incredibly difficult to fill without the injectors getting clogged; a manual employee process is often needed. Personally, it sounds a lot like someone was trying to get some free advertising from you. Outside of that, there were some minor issues or discrepencies, but I won't harp on them as the article does seem to make an honest effort at giving an unbiased report.

bogomipz 4y ago
>"Vape cartridges are often only worth the investment because the byproducts of plant trimming and packaging aren't sellable otherwise." Interesting. Can you say what those byproducts are exactly? Is it stems, seeds and a bit of resin then?
- iaw 4y ago
  Not seeds or stems, trimmings. There are non-negligible amounts of THC is the trimmings of the flower even though they aren't comparable to the actual flower. These used to be a waste product sold/given away but now it is turned into distillates/oils.
- i_am_toaster_2 4y ago
  To add to iaw's response, it's worth noting that a large amount of value flower has is in relation to it's presentation and appearance. Trimming of flower is done to both remove excess plant material as well as create a more favorable product for consumers. Because this process of trimming is necessary for the sale of flower, any vertically integrated business that both grows and sells their own flower will inevitably create this excess of trim byproduct.

majorpothead 4y ago

Gotta love HN hand-wringing about THC. I've done stupid amounts of research on this. I own multiple dab rigs, multiple Volcanos, multiple DTv4, went through .... lots of carts during 2020, etc. If you are looking to consume concentrate, the solution is quite easy - get an electronic dab rig, take baby dabs. It's the same thing as "vaping" from a cart, but there's no heavy metals, and at least in WA, the quality of raw concentrates is very high. Not as portable as a pen, but also I'm not really trying to be stoned all the time or in public anyway.

redisman 4y ago
What would be something close to a pen in convenience and guaranteed no heavy metals?