Do Phytol Cannabis Vapes Cause Severe Lung Damage?
Leafly recently published an in-depth article on phytol cannabis vapes and their connection to severe lung damage. A study commissioned by Canopy Growth in 2020 found the vape additive phytol killed rats in hours. The results were so fast and so stunning that scientists halted that portion of the study.
But not everyone is convinced of the results.
Phytol Cannabis Vapes Pulled from Tokyo Smoke in August 2020 – LPC
Phytol, which is a turpene, is used in cannabis vapes along with propylene glycol to thin and flavour cannabis oil. But as it turns out, phytol cannabis vapes may also be a killer. The study exposed one group of rats to a misted version of phytol. Another group was exposed to propylene glycol and a third control group to regular air. Within hours, the rats exposed to phytol were dead or dying. Necropsies revealed “severely purple” and bleeding lungs.
According to Leafly and other sources, the reaction in Canada was swift. Before the report was even published, Canopy ordered all Tokyo Smoke locations in Canada to stop selling phytol cannabis vapes in August 2020. They reportedly shared their findings with Health Canada as well. In mid-July 2020, Health Canada sent out a letter “requesting” that licensed producers (LPs) producing vape products provide information on the composition of the vapes including the weight or volume of ingredients. Those ingredients included flavouring agents, carrier substances, and stabilizers.
That information presumably will help Health Canada develop amendments to cannabis regulations regarding flavours in cannabis extracts. It’s also unclear whether that request or the amendments were directly related to Canopy’s discoveries. However, given the timelines, it appears that this process was likely underway at Health Canada before the Canopy research into phytol cannabis vapes. In fact, the request is more likely to have been triggered in response to the vaping illness linked to Vitamin E acetate almost a year earlier.
What’s the Truth about Phytol Cannabis Vapes?
What makes the story about phytol cannabis vapes so mysterious is, well, the mystery behind it. According to several sources, Canopy has yet to make the research publicly available. An Access to Information request to Health Canada did manage to secure the research, but it was heavily redacted. This is not particularly surprising, but it does send up a red flag.
Adding fuel to the fire is that some actively question Canopy’s motives. “Is Canopy’s quest to discredit phytol due to competitive threat?” asks Lab Effects, an American terpene producer. It mentions that the results of the study are “frustratingly hidden” behind a paywall as if this were unusual. In fact, the vast majority of new scientific papers published are available only to paid subscribers including physicians, health networks, and research institutes. It also states that the study “dramatically warns against the use of phytol”; the Conclusions section reads no differently than the average abstract of a scientific paper stating simply that phytol use is not recommended.
Finally, the fact that the article compares the human equivalent of phytol ingestion as “200-lb man to smoke 281 vape pens in six hours” seems irrelevant. The study isn’t determining how fast to kill a human with phytol. It’s trying to determine toxicity. Something highly toxic in the short term – especially as dramatic as this – is often hazardous over long exposures, even in smaller doses.
Let’s Avoid Phytol Cannabis Vapes Until the Proof is In – LPC
But then, that goes to the question, should phytol cannabis vapes be assumed safe until proven hazardous? Or is any indication that something might be hazardous enough to say, “let’s not use it until we know what the dangers are…”?
It’s not surprising that a company with a vested interest in terpene production would call out a scientific study that found a terpene to be dangerous. It’s also not surprising that Health Canada would be slow to officially release any results until they have been reproduced in other studies.
Either way, that leaves consumers making their own decisions about phytol cannabis vapes. The smart money is on avoiding them until the proof is in.
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