Are Cannabis Vaping Products in Hawaii Safe?

There’s been a lot of news about the vaping related illnesses and deaths that have been occurring mostly on the mainland and also here in Hawaii. So what’s going on? The short answer is nobody really knows for sure just yet. The Centers for Disease Control are leading the investigation on the mainland and here in Hawaii the Department of Health is doing it's own research and is taking the matter very seriously.

While we don’t yet know what is causing the vaping illnesses and deaths we do know that many of the patients that have come down with this mysterious illness had obtained Black Market cannabis vaping cartridges which apparently are very easy to purchase online and have shipped anywhere; including to Hawaii. It is likely that there are some chemicals in these illicit cannabis cartridges that should not be there and are causing these illnesses.

So are Hawaii dispensaries also adding outside ingredients? In short, some dispensaries have been adding lab-tested terpenes from outside sources. However, these ‘additives’ are just that, additives, and they were tested in Hawaii and found to not contain harmful ingredients. The Department of Health recently told all Hawaii dispensaries not to use any additives and they have all agreed to not do so although it increases their production costs to do that. It should be noted that Maui Grown Therapies has never used any additives and the only thing a patient will find in one of their cannabis cartridges are ingredients that came from those plants grown on Maui and to that we say Mahalo!