Counterfeit Marijuana Vaporizers Leave Users Ill in California

Six weeks ago, an 18-year-old male patient appeared at NYU Winthrop Hospital in Long Island complaining of chest pain, nausea, fever, and shortness of breath. Initially, doctors thought he had pneumonia, due to X-rays showing "haziness" in the lungs.

Within 48 hours, Melodi Pirzada, chief of pediatric pulmonology at the hospital, said the patient's condition worsened and he was sent to the ICU. There, he was diagnosed with ARDS, a condition associated with acute lung injury. He was connected to a breathing tube and placed in an induced coma for a week.

Doctors were puzzled how a healthy teenager could become so ill until the patient's mother showed up at the hospital with something she had unearthed from her son's trash basket. It was a vaporizer with the label TKO Extracts, a licensed company based in California that sells THC products.

It was later confirmed that the cartridge was a counterfeit version of the company's product, Pirzada stated. After questioning, the man's girlfriend told doctors he had used the device three days before being admitted to the hospital. After being treated with steroids, the patient finally recovered and was discharged from the hospital after two weeks.

Only in California, where recreational marijuana is legal, there have been 28 potential cases of acute lung disease among people who had recently consumed marijuana products, according to a spokesperson for the California Department of Public Health (CDPH). On August 12, CDPH issued a health alert regarding a "cluster" of at least seven otherwise healthy adults in Kings County, California, all admitted to hospitals between July and August 2019, all with symptoms of severe acute lung disease, including cough and shortness of breath, and in some cases fever and vomiting.

Seven of these cases (including one additional case reported after the initial press release coverage) were linked to THC vapes that had been purchased on the black market, said Nancy Gerking, assistant director of public health.