Gov. Jay Inslee just made Washington’s pot vape market a lot more luxurious. The state’s Liquor and Cannabis Board (LCB) announced last week that the governor’s temporary ban on flavored vaporizers will require pot companies to only use cannabis-derived flavoring in vape cartridges, essentially forcing the pot shops to ditch budget brands and sell only high-end vape cartridges.
Inslee’s 120-day ban comes as thousands of people across the country fall ill with a mysterious vape-related lung illness, but the governor hasn’t produced any evidence that his flavor ban will improve the safety of Washington’s legal weed vaporizers. In fact, his ban takes no emergency action against known harmful chemicals that can be found in legal vaporizers.
Instead of going after known harmful chemicals, Inslee is banning budget flavoring agents. Pot companies can still sell citrusy vaporizers, but instead of getting their flavor compounds (called terpenes) from natural products like lemons, the flavors will need to come directly from a citrusy strain of pot like Lemon Haze. Neither type of terpenes—the ones from lemons or the ones from a pot strain like Lemon Haze—have been found to cause the mysterious lung illness.
– Read the entire article at The Stranger.