Vaporizers Gain Popularity Among Marijuana Smokers
By Join Together Staff | March 18, 2014 |
A growing number of marijuana smokers are choosing to use vaporizers, which are similar to e-cigarettes, according to USA Today. The popularity of the devices is changing the way marijuana is packaged and sold in states where it is legal.
The vaporizers, known as “vape pens,” are compact and portable. Steve DeAngelo, a marijuana entrepreneur and activist who founded the Harborside Health Center medical marijuana dispensary in Oakland, California, says his dispensary does about half of its business in raw marijuana leaf or flowers. The rest are sold as edibles or concentrates, some of which are prepackaged for use in vape pens. “The percentage of raw (pot) flowers we sell has been dropping steadily,” he said. “The percent of extracts and concentrates … has been rising steadily.” Some vape pens use concentrated marijuana extractions, while others use marijuana leaves and flowers.
“This really portends the next generation of marijuana use,” John Lovell, a Sacramento attorney and lobbyist for the California Narcotics Officers’ Association and California Police Chiefs Association, told the newspaper. His group is concerned about the high-strength concentrates used in vape pens. Concentrates can be composed of as much as 80 percent or 90 percent THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana.
Others are concerned that vape pens allow teens to smoke marijuana without being detected, because the pens leave no odor.
The FDA recently voted in favor of pushing a new formulation of oxycodone hydrochloride for approval. The new OxyContin formula is more difficult to crush or dissolve which will hopefully make it harder to be used as a drug of abuse . The FDA recommended that Purdue Pharma's application for a new, resin-coated formulation should replace the original version, which has been on the market since 1996. Randall Flick, MD, an anesthesiologist at the Mayo Clinic who voted to recommend approval of the drug said, "Clearly the old formulation is worse than the new, although I think the difference is relatively small," Flick concluded, "Hardcore abusers are likely to devise new ways to break down the harder tablet or figure out which solvents will dissolve it fastest, within 'day or weeks' of the product's release on the market."