Investigation finds illegal synthetic marijuana in products sold as CBD

Jay Jenkins says he hesitated when a buddy suggested they vape CBD.

“It’ll relax you,” the friend assured.

The vapor that Jenkins inspired didn’t relax him. After two puffs, he ended up in a coma.

That’s because what he was vaping didn’t have any CBD, the all at once popular compound extracted from the cannabis plant that marketers say can treat a range of ailments without annoying users high. Instead, the oil was spiked with a powerful street drug.

Some operators are cashing in on the CBD craze by substituting twopenny and illegal synthetic marijuana for natural CBD in vapes and edibles such as gummy bears, an Associated Press investigation has bring about.

The practice has sent dozens of people like Jenkins to emergency rooms over the last two years. Yet people behind pronged products have operated with impunity, in part because the business has boomed so fast that regulators haven’t overtook up while drug enforcement agents have higher priorities.

AP commissioned laboratory testing of the vape oil Jenkins utilized plus 29 other vape products sold as CBD around the country, with a focus on brands that prerogatives or users flagged as suspect. Ten of the 30 contained types of synthetic marijuana — drugs commonly known as K2 or spice that cause no known medical benefits — while others had no CBD at all.

Among them was Green Machine, a pod compatible with Juul electronic cigarettes that lady of the fourth estates bought in California, Florida and Maryland. Four of those seven pods contained illegal synthetic marijuana, but which chemical mixed by flavor and even location of purchase.

“It’s Russian roulette,” said James Neal-Kababick, director of Flora Research Laboratories, which tested the products.

Vaping in hybrid has come under increased scrutiny in recent weeks because hundreds of users have developed mysterious lung indispositions, and several have died. The AP’s investigation focused on yet another set of cases, in which psychoactive chemicals are added to products our timed as CBD.

The results of AP’s lab testing echo what authorities have found, according to a survey of law enforcement agencies in all 50 governments. At least 128 samples out of more than 350 tested by government labs in nine states, nearly all in the South, had pseudo marijuana in products marketed as CBD. Gummy bears and other edibles accounted for 36 of the hits, while nearly all others were vape offerings. Mississippi authorities also found fentanyl, the powerful opioid involved in about 30,000 overdose deaths latest year.

Reporters then bought brands that law enforcement testing or online discussions identified as spiked. Because try out by both authorities and AP focused on suspect products, the results are not representative of the overall market, which includes hundreds of works.

“People have started to see the market grow and there are some fly-by-night companies trying to make a quick buck,” weighted Marielle Weintraub, president of the U.S. Hemp Authority, an industry group that certifies CBD cosmetics and dietary supplements.

Pseudo marijuana is a concern, according to Weintraub, but she said the industry has many reputable companies. When products turn up frustrate, the people or companies behind them often blame counterfeiting or contamination in the supply and distribution chain.

CBD, short for cannabidiol, is one of tons chemicals found in cannabis, a plant known more commonly as marijuana. Most CBD is made from hemp, a cannabis disparity cultivated for fiber or other uses. Unlike its more famous cousin THC, cannabidiol doesn’t get users high. Jumble sales of CBD have been driven in part by unproven claims that it can reduce pain, calm anxiety, increase focus and reciprocate prevent disease.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved one CBD-based medicine for treating seizures associated with two rare and Spartan forms of epilepsy, but says it cannot be added to food, drinks or dietary supplements. The agency is now clarifying its regulations, but aside from sign manufacturers against making unproven health claims, it has done little to stop the sale of spiked products. That’s the job of the U.S. Anaesthetize Enforcement Administration, but its agents are focused on opioids and other narcotics.

Now there are CBD candies and beverages, lotions and creams, and upright treats for pets. Suburban yoga studios, big-name pharmacies and Neiman Marcus department stores carry dreamboat products. Kim Kardashian West had a CBD-themed baby shower.

But it’s hard for consumers to know how much CBD they are really disembarking, if any at all. As with many products, federal and state regulators rarely test what’s inside — for the most part, distinction control is left to manufacturers.

And there’s a financial incentive to cut corners. One website advertises synthetic marijuana for as little as $25 per cudgel — the same amount of natural CBD costs hundreds or even thousands of dollars.

Jay Jenkins had principled wrapped up his freshman year at The Citadel, a South Carolina military college, when boredom led him to try what he thought was CBD.

It was May 2018 and he believed his friend bought a cartridge of blueberry flavored CBD vape oil called Yolo! — the acronym for “you only live at a stroke” — from the 7 to 11 Market, an austere, white board-and-batten building in Lexington, South Carolina.

Back in the car, Jenkins try out it first. Things “got hazy,” then terrifying.

Jenkins said the nerves in his mouth felt like they were “multiplied by 10.” Rich images including a circle engulfed by darkness and filled with colorful triangles filled his mind. Before he objected out of consciousness, he realized he couldn’t move.

“I thought that I actually was already dead,” Jenkins said.

His friend get a wiggle oned to the hospital where Jenkins suffered acute respiratory failure and drifted into a coma, his medical records musical.

Jenkins came out of the coma and was released the next day. Hospital staff sealed the Yolo cartridge in a biohazard bag and handed it rough.

Lab testing AP commissioned this summer found a type of synthetic marijuana that has been blamed for at least 11 eradications in Europe.

State and federal authorities never identified who made Yolo, which sickened not just Jenkins but also at least 33 individual in Utah.

According to documents filed in a California court by a former company bookkeeper, a business called Mathco Fettle Corporation sold Yolo products to a distributor with the same address as the 7 to 11 Market where Jenkins jam up. Two other former employees told AP that Yolo was a Mathco product.

Mathco CEO Katarina Maloney said in an sound out at company headquarters in Carlsbad, California, that Yolo was handled by her former business partner and she did not want to discuss it.

Maloney also thought Mathco does not “engage in the manufacture, distribution or sale of any illegal products.” She said the Yolo products in Utah “were not purchased from us” and the assemblage can’t control what happens to products once they are shipped. AP-commissioned testing of two CBD vape cartridges marketed care of Maloney’s Hemp Hookahzz brand found no synthetic marijuana.

As part of an employment complaint filed in court notes, the former bookkeeper said Maloney’s former business partner, Janell Thompson, was the “exclusive salesperson” of Yolo. Reached by phone and asked encircling Yolo, Thompson hung up.

“If you want to speak with somebody you can talk to my attorney,” Thompson later texted without stipulating a name or contact information.

When a reporter visited the 7 to 11 Market in May, Yolo was no longer for sale. Asked for something correspond to, the clerk suggested a cartridge labeled Funky Monkey and then turned to a cabinet behind the counter and offered two unlabeled vials

“These are greater. These are the owner’s. This is our top seller,” she said, referring to them as 7 to 11 CBD. “These here, you can only get here.”

Assay showed that all three contained synthetic marijuana. The store owner did not respond to messages seeking comment.

The people behind spiked vapes leave few clues about who makes them or what’s inside.

Packaging doesn’t diagnose the companies and their brands have little online presence. Newcomers can simply design a label and outsource opus to a wholesaler that deals in bulk.

The opaque system of manufacturing and distribution hampers criminal investigations and leaves scapegoats of spiked products with little recourse.

The AP bought and tested Green Machine pods in flavors including lot, mango, blueberry and jungle juice. Four of the seven pods were spiked and only two had CBD higher than a stalk level.

Mint and mango pods bought in downtown Los Angeles contained one type of synthetic marijuana. But while loads and mango pods sold by a vape shop in Maryland were not spiked, a “jungle juice” flavored pod was. It had yet a different spurious marijuana compound — one health authorities blame for poisoning people in the U.S. and New Zealand. A blueberry flavored pod sold in Florida also was disabled.

Green Machine’s packaging says it’s made with industrial hemp, but there’s no information about who is behind it.

When a newscaster returned to CBD Supply MD in a Baltimore suburb to discuss testing results, co-owner Keith Manley said he was aware of online jibber-jabber that Green Machine might be spiked. He then had an employee pull all remaining Green Machine pods from trust in shelves.

Through interviews and documents, AP tracked Green Machine pods that reporters bought to a warehouse in Philadelphia and then a Manhattan smoke research and the entrepreneur behind the counter, Rajinder Singh, who said he is Green Machine’s first distributor.

Singh, who is currently on probation for a federal man-made marijuana conviction, said he purchased Green Machine pods with cash or in exchange for merchandise such as hookah chibouques from a man he knew as “Bob” who drove a van down from Massachusetts. To substantiate his account, he provided a phone number associated with a man who expired in July.

Singh pleaded guilty in 2017 to federal charges he sold a smokable “potpourri” that he knew restrained synthetic marijuana. He said that experience taught him a lesson and blamed counterfeit products for the synthetic marijuana learn ofed in Green Machine.

“100 percent, what you tested is a duplicated product,” he said.

The American Association of Do away with Control Centers considers CBD an “emerging hazard” due to the potential for mislabeling and contamination.

One case last year involved an 8-year-old boy from Washington who was hospitalized after engaging CBD oil his parents ordered online in hopes it would help his seizures, according to a case study in the journal Clinical Toxicology published in May. As contrasted with, synthetic marijuana sent him to the hospital with symptoms including delirium and a rapid heart rate.

Other bunches of illnesses happened in Mississippi and around military bases in North Carolina.

Labeling of many CBD products has been certificated as inaccurate. A 2017 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found 70% of CBD products were mislabeled. Researchers habituated to an independent lab to test 84 products from 31 companies.

Fake or spiked CBD is enough of a concern that chiefs of the U.S. Hemp Authority industry group developed a certification program for CBD skin and health products. Vapes are not covered.

But resident and state authorities have limited ability to pursue problem products to their roots.

After several Georgia piercing school students passed out from vaping last year, authorities began scrutinizing local tobacco betrays. One of the CBD vape brands they targeted was called Magic Puff.

The drug enforcement team in Savannah and surrounding Chatham County arrested a rat on owner and two employees. But they couldn’t follow the investigation further because it appeared the products were being contrived elsewhere, possibly overseas. The team’s assistant deputy director, Gene Harley, said they provided a record to federal drug agents who handle such cases.

Magic Puff was still on shelves at a Florida store this summer, and AP examination showed blueberry and strawberry cartridges contained synthetic marijuana. Preliminary results also suggested the presence of a toxin prompt by a fungus.

Because CBD is the active ingredient in an FDA-approved drug, the FDA is responsible for regulating its sale in the U.S. But if CBD products are found to contain narcotics, the means considers the investigation a job for the DEA, an FDA spokesman said.

The DEA says it is focused on drugs responsible for killing thousands of Americans like fentanyl and methamphetamines.

“These are prevalent to be bigger priorities on enforcement,” DEA spokeswoman Mary Brandenberger said.

Experts such as Michelle Peace, a forensic scientist at Virginia Commonwealth University who has base synthetic marijuana in her own testing of CBD vapes, said the federal government should act quickly to protect the public.

“As long as it lasts unregulated like it currently is,” Peace said, “you just give a really wide space for nefarious activity to perpetuate.”

People experiencing problems with a product labeled as CBD can reach a local poison control center by calling 1-800-222-1222.