Fake Vape Pens Scattered Across The Big Apple, Another Wrench In New York's Cannabis Rollout

In addition to New York’s already beleagured legal weed rollout, its runaway illicit cannabis market and licensing process that seems to be moving at glacial speed…throw a bunch of fake vapes into the works and now you’ve got a possible public health crisis. 

Mayor Eric Adams, along with DA Alvin Bragg and a list of city officials and lawmakers, gave a press conference on Tuesday in which they issued one of the strongest warnings to illict weed-selling smoke shops, including a threat to go after the landlords of the buildings in which they operate.

It's one thing to buy or sell on NYC's huge gray market, especially in view of the fact that the legal market is not yet established, but the invasion of fake vape pens now poses a problem, maybe not new but an issue nevertheless.

Per a Bloomberg report, counterfeit products range from generic weed in branded packaging to non-psychoactive hemp sprayed with delta-8, which the FDA has warned could be unsafe, something many people found out for themselves. Bloomberg also noted that there are many are counterfeit in-demand vape pens and products with falsified lab results and state certifications. 

Ron Gershoni, CEO of California vape company Jetty Extracts reported the recent discovery of “a large number” of imitation Jetty vape products in New York City. 

Counterfeit vape products, which may be crafted with inferior materials, continue to raise health concerns. 

Remember The 2019 Vaping Crisis?

The outbreak of e-cigarette or vaping product use-associated lung injury caused great concern to the medical community, “particularly given that this novel illness has coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic, another cause of severe pulmonary illness,” according to a study published by the National Institutes of Health. 

“Despite the recent deadly outbreak of EVALI, cannabis vaping has continued to proliferate and novel products are introduced at a daunting rate.”

And now, fake vapes: Damian Fagon, chief equity officer at New York’s Office of Cannabis Management noted how easy it is to create fake packaging by using good old photoshop and a label printer. 

Much to Mayor Adams and NY’s cannabis authorities' chagrin, an estimated 1,400 illicit smoke shops and bodegas selling weed products have popped up around NYC since last summer. There are only two legal retail shops in NYC, in the entire state for that matter - Housing Works and Smacked, both of which opened in the past two months.

According to one survey, noted Bloomberg, 71% of New York cannabis users are under the impression that they were buying their cannabis on the legal recreational market in 2022, despite the fact that it only officially began functioning on Dec. 29.

“Consumer perception and industry standards don’t always meld,” said Maddie Scanlon, senior insights analyst at Brightfield Group, the cannabis industry data firm that conducted the survey. “And you’re like, ‘Oh my god, they all are thinking they’re shopping recreationally?’ They just don’t know.” Yep, they're buying at smoke shops.

Conclusion? NY state should get a move on and set up the legal market. 

One suggestion: How about allowing the existing medical marijuana dispensaries to also sell recreational cannabis - a system that was successfully undertaken by neighboring states like Connecticut and Rhode Island and will be done in Maryland when that state launches sales this coming July. Just a suggestion.

Photo: MapensStudio, Pikepicture and cla78 on Shutterstock