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NCIA’s Safe Vaping Task Force Latest News And Recommendations

by Andrew Kline, NCIA’s Director of Public Policy

In response to the recent wave of vape-related illnesses, NCIA’s Policy Council has formed a Safe Vaping Task Force. The purpose of the task force is to unify the industry by communicating clearly in response to press reports and state/federal governmental actions, and by clearly articulating the state-legal cannabis industry’s obligation to act with integrity as responsible actors. The task force is publishing summaries of recent developments and the cannabis industry’s response, producing and publishing a white paper on safe vaping, unifying the industry’s response, and engaging federal and state/local governments as appropriate. Members of the task force include medical doctors, scientists, cannabis license holders, and relevant ancillary businesses. 

Here’s the latest about safe vaping from the news this past week:

  • As of October 22, 2019, 1,604 (up from 1,479) lung injury cases associated with the use of vaping products have been reported to CDC from 49 states (all except Alaska), the District of Columbia, and 1 U.S. territory. 34 deaths (up from 33) have been confirmed in 24 states. The CDC is updating this information every Thursday. The good news is that it appears that illnesses and deaths are slowing down. The bad news is that we still don’t know the proximate cause and the federal government has not communicated a timeline by which we will have better information.

  • Since the specific compound or ingredient causing lung injury is not yet known, the CDC continues to recommend refraining from the use of all vaping products. NCIA’s Safe Vaping Task Force is hopeful that the CDC and FDA will act swiftly to ascertain the proximate cause of the vaping problem, expose and address those specific issues head-on, and communicate clearly the specific dangers to the American consumer.

  • Although cannabis has only been legal in Massachusetts for less than a year, the state is already putting on the breaks. Massachusetts is the first state to ban the sale of all vape products, unleashing a major financial blow to the state’s marijuana businesses and sending consumers to the dangerous, unregulated and untested illicit market. Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker secured approval from the Public Health Council to issue an emergency regulation to maintain the statewide retail ban on the sale of all vaping products. A local judge simultaneously issued a ruling allowing for medical cannabis patients to purchase crushed flower for use in vaporizers. The emergency regulation keeps the vaping ban in place while also creating a three-month timeline for rulemaking and public hearings.

  • California lawmakers are also considering an outright ban of all vape products, including nicotine and THC. This potential action comes on the heels of Charlie Baker, Governor of Massachusetts, banning all vaping products for four months.

  • Marijuana became legal for adults over 21 in Colorado in 2014, yet even with 5 to 6 years of regulatory experience, Colorado has not banned all vape products. Instead, Colorado has conducted public hearings to determine what specific products or ingredients should be banned, based on scientific evidence. Colorado is in the final stages of finalizing permanent rules for adoption of a prohibited ingredients list (due Nov 5). It should also be noted that Colorado has not attributed any deaths to THC vaping, an indication that the state regulatory regime is working.

  • A judge in Utah ruled on Monday that the state cannot immediately ban flavored e-cigarette products. The state had justified emergency restrictions on flavored nicotine by arguing that they were a gateway to vaping THC products. This leaves the state with a 120-day rule-making process.

NCIA Task Force Recommendations

  • NCIA’s Safe Vaping Task Force believes that a more thoughtful approach based on science, like the one undertaken by Colorado, will yield better results for policymakers and patients alike.

  • NCIA continues to advocate for descheduling, federal oversight, regulation, and standardized testing.

  • NCIA recommends that manufacturers avoid untested additives and flavorants.

  • NCIA recommends that when creating novel formulations, manufacturers conduct a scientific analysis that leverages the knowledge base of other inhalation products. 

Andrew Kline is the Director of Public Policy for the National Cannabis Industry Association and Chair of the Policy Council’s Safe Vaping Task Force. 

Former FDA Commissioner Calls For Descheduling And Federal Regulation

by Andrew Kline, NCIA’s Director of Public Policy

With uncertainty about the proximate cause of the vaping crisis continuing to roil state regulators, and state governors trying to determine the right short-term solution to protect the public health, the former Commissioner of the FDA has a longer-term plan. Former Commissioner Scott Gottlieb is rightly calling for descheduling and federal regulation in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. NCIA made the same argument in our Policy Council’s recent white paper on regulating cannabis post-legalization and in our public responses to the vaping crisis. 

While no one yet knows for certain what has been causing these injuries and deaths, it is readily apparent that unregulated and untested products are extremely dangerous and continue to infiltrate the market. Just last week, a mother and her two sons were arrested for allegedly illegally filling over 30,000 vape cartridges in Wisconsin from their home. That burgeoning illicit and untested market poses real risks to American consumers. And the best way to eliminate the illicit market is to create opportunities for consumers to purchase products from legal dispensaries and market awareness of the benefits of purchasing from those regulated markets. 

For example, if consumers know that legal dispensaries are selling regulated products that have been tested to improve consumer safety, then they will be more inclined to stop purchasing from the illicit market. People already know that when they step foot into a grocery store, the foods they eat and the drugs and dietary supplements they take are part of a supply chain designed to improve safety. That is because they have placed trust in the USDA and FDA. And no better way to build consumer confidence, than to make sure that trusted federal agencies are in charge of promoting public health in the cannabis industry. 

We can’t continue to leave the cannabis industry in a state of uncertainty. It’s time to deschedule, regulate at the federal level, and require mandatory lab testing. We must displace the illegal, unregulated and untested illicit market. There is no plan B. 

Andrew Kline is Director of Public Policy for NCIA and Chair of NCIA’s Safe Vaping Task Force 

Member Blog: Cannabis Seed To Sale Transparency Provides Solution To Vaping Illnesses

by Jessica Billingsley, CEO of Akerna
NCIA Board Member

The day I sat beside the MRI while my daughter’s mystery neurologic symptoms were investigated, I began my crusade for product transparency. I didn’t know then that transparency in products would become life’s work. On that day, I only knew my daughter risked potential long term physical and mental disability due to unknown causes. I then spent months, which turned into years, hunting for a solution to her neurologic events, which started with an unexplained fever that would sometimes develop into lesions in her brain causing varying symptoms depending on the location of the lesions. Often the symptom manifested as trouble walking; however, one heartbreaking time, she slurred her words and couldn’t remember many basic components of speech. 

She was diagnosed with recurrent ADEM, an autoimmune demyelinating illness that doctors didn’t understand and were at a loss to cure. The western medicine approach didn’t have an answer, and I wasn’t really surprised. Western medicine’s approach of diagnose and drug (or diagnose, surgery, and drug) rarely takes into account what we put in and on our bodies. And my gut told me I needed to take a closer look at foods and products to find the source of her illness. This is a lot easier than it sounds. We actually know very little about what’s in our products. There’s an assumption that harmful ingredients or additives have to be disclosed in products, but they don’t. My journey into product transparency — looking at ingredients, additives, and the chemicals used to make our products — led me to find a solution for my daughter that has resulted in her being 7 years in remission and counting.

My passion for saving my daughter and my tenacity in peeling back the layers in our consumer product goods supply chain left me with a sobering conclusion: Consumer transparency and public safety is not at the forefront of our current consumer goods regulations. We don’t have any requirements to give consumers transparency regarding what’s fully in the products we eat or absorb. That perspective is what inspired me to launch the first seed-to-sale tracking technology in 2010. I believed then that cannabis patients needed to know how their medicine was grown and the public needed assurances that we can identify the regulated, tested medicine from the illicit alternatives.

The number of vaping-related illnesses keeps climbing. The crisis has claimed at least six deaths and there are over 450 cases in 36 states and the U.S. Virgin Islands. And best, early thinking is additives – cutting agents, potentially Vitamin E – may be the culprit. I am reminded clearly of my daughter’s early years and my hunt for product transparency. We’ve done a lot of good with seed-to-sale tracking in cannabis. The regulated cannabis industry has the most transparent and accountable supply chain of any consumer packaged good. 

For nearly ten years, my team has refined a technology that pinpoints most every aspect of every gram of cannabis tracked in our system — the plot of land it was grown on, soil nutrients, water and light intake, additional ingredients for edibles, when it shipped out and in what batch, and finally where and when the product was sold and to what patient. The exactness and granularity of this data enables prompt reactions in times of crisis that narrows down areas/people of impact, points investigators to probable causes, and importantly allows consumers and patients to make informed decisions. 

As much as we do track in regulated cannabis, we need to track more. Most governmental compliance frameworks don’t require additives to be tracked and thus communicated to consumers and patients. We need to make this mandatory in our regulations.*

Consumers and the industry should rally around three things. First, the majority of the cartridges in this crisis were purchased on the illicit market with completely unknown ingredient sources, which gives more reason to legalize cannabis in every state for adult use. Second, legal markets should continue to implement seed to sale tracking compliance as table stakes. And third, we need to make additives information a requirement for cannabis oil manufactured products.

I knew the industry needed a means of monitoring products through its lifecycle and generating transparency and accountability to support the 3P’s — patient, product, and public safety. I know the data in our system has the power to do great good — for science and medicine, for food and agriculture, for communities and tax revenues, for governments’ ability to respond to issues and effectively direct investigations and enforcements. I contend that while the industry is part of the health crisis story today — we are part of the response tomorrow. I am as committed today as CEO of Akerna as I was when I started MJ Freeway; we can give consumers the full product transparency they deserve to make the best choices for their health. It’s what I want for my daughter, and it’s the solution I commit to deliver every day. 

Jessica Billingsley is a technology pioneer, solutions creator and industry leader, providing proven compliance software solutions to the cannabis market. She is the Chief Executive Officer of Akerna—the first cannabis compliance technology company to be traded on Nasdaq—making her the first CEO from this market space to bring a company to a major U.S. exchange. Jessica is also the CEO of Akerna’s flagship subsidiary—MJ Freeway. She established MJ Freeway in 2010 and it is the leading seed-to-sale regulatory compliance technology provider and developer of the cannabis industry’s first enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform. Akerna also offers Leaf Data Systems as a government resource for public sector compliance. Combined entities tracked more than $16 billion in world-wide, client cannabis sales to date. She is the first woman ever from the cannabis industry to receive the prestigious Fortune’s “Most Promising Women Entrepreneur Award” and is also recognized as one of Inc.’s “Female Founders 100.” Jessica received a degree in Communications and Computer Science from the University of Georgia and lives with her daughter in Denver.

 

Akerna’s MJ Platform includes “additives” as ingredients clients can use to communicate to patients any additives in a finished gram of oil. We believe additive ingredients should now be a required data field captured and communicated to patients, and we’re committed to training our existing client base on how to do so. 

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