Minnesota public health authorities are close to concluding that the leading culprit in the rash of serious cannabis vaping injuries is an additive called vitamin E acetate, which apparently is used by elicit street producers to thicken and dilute the THC in illegally produced vaping cartridges.  The Star Tribune reports:

“The state’s findings were circulated nationally on Tuesday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which has monitored the outbreak nationally and has reported 2,290 cases of vaping-associated lung injuries this year and 47 related deaths.

‘We now have evidence of vitamin E acetate in the lungs of Minnesotans and in illicit THC products from Minnesota during the outbreak,’ said Jan Malcolm, state health commissioner. ‘We have more work ahead, but every bit of evidence gets us closer to a resolution.'”

Assuming that Vitamin E is in fact the culprit, the obvious solution is to regulate the product to ensure that additive is no longer used.  Easy, right?

Not so fast. The problem with that obvious solution is that cannabis prohibition makes it impossible to regulate the safety of these illicit street products.

If we want to regulate marijuana-based products to keep consumers safe from dangerous additives like Vitamin E acetate, pesticides, molds, and fungus, we need those products to be legal so that they can be controlled by public regulators, just as we control other legal consumer products.

A while back, Republican Senate leader Paul Gazelka looked at this dangerous situation and somehow came to the opposite conclusion.

“Opponents of legalizing marijuana in Minnesota are seizing on the recent outbreak of vaping-related illnesses and teen nicotine addiction to urge caution on the cannabis front — even as advocates of legalization ramp up their campaign ahead of next year’s legislative session.

‘I hope this slows down the rush by [Gov. Tim Walz] and House Democrats on recreational marijuana,’ said state Sen. Paul Gazelka, R-Nisswa, the majority leader. ‘If they see the correlation, that might at least slow down the process.'”

Sen. Gazelka seems like a sincere, decent guy, but that logic makes no sense.  After all, if Sen. Gazelka learned that we have dangerous types of vehicles, insulation, ethanol, or stents harming consumers, would he back prohibition of vehicles, insulation, ethanol, and stents?  Of course not.  Instead, the sensible response would be to keep those products legal, but have public regulators monitor the products and require them to be safer.  Likewise, we need to make marijuana legal, so marijuana-based products can be regulated, tested, and required to be safer. 

So in addition to the social justice, fiscal, and logical reasons to end marijuana prohibition, we need to add another to the list.  Public health.

Disclosure:  In my public relations business, I have done work for one of two companies licensed in Minnesota to treat patients with cannabis-based medicines.  However, I’m not currently doing work for that company, and that company’s legal, regulated medicines aren’t a subject of these stories. I have never helped any clients advocating the end to marijuana prohibition.