I’m Just As Surprised As You Are!
Somewhere in my online journalism career, winging into its third decade, I must have come to think of myself as a member of the counterculture. Certainly, the “geek culture” beat I’ve been pounding on is no longer underground, but part of the mainstream and transformed into a hyperthyroid monster of its own. So much so that we enablers sometimes wish we’d saved the cork to the genie’s bottle in case it gets out of control. Ever since undertaking to branch out into swampier horizons, I’ve sought new catacombs of popular culture. There has to be a skull or spiderweb or two here sufficiently gruesome to hold aloft and fascinate some of you.
And then they legalized weed.
Now, some of you with long memories and sore posteriors from when I took the belt to your backsides might recall that “Penguin” Pete Trbovich has not exactly been a pom-pom shaking cheerleader for the cannabis movement. Yes, I’ve smoked pot, thank you very much. But like with ANY substance, my policy is “it’s fine if you do it; don’t let the drug do you.” Don’t worry, I was glad to see the end of weed prohibition, but it was about the 365th most important thing on my political agenda. Way back in the Wrong Paul days (oh, for that sweet innocent time when that was the greatest threat to our democracy), I yelled in the face of the Millennial generation charging them that this is serious business, goddammit, you have a nation to run, but all you care about is pot, pot, pot!
That went well /s. As pointed out at the time, weed won big on 2016 election night. Funny, I polled every Millennial I could find that election and got back a unanimous shrug of “Why vote? They’re all the same!” in response to any political candidate anywhere, but when it came to Mary Jane, they lined up around the block for that one. I lost the spreadsheet I compiled to prove it, but I recall uncovering the evidence that some people must have shown up to the polling station, checked “yes” on pot, left the rest of the ballot blank – including the presidential primary – and left.
OK fine, you all have your pot. Happy now? Apparently so. More states are legalizing every year. Again, I don’t have a problem with that. I have a problem that a whole generation screwed the world over by showing their political clout in giving themselves dope, but leaving us all to continue suffering under global warming, plastic pollution, human trafficking, mass shootings, a dead healthcare system, a dying education system, a choking economy, and a president who is only a couple layers of constitutional clauses away from Hitler II: Electric Boogaloo. Yes, it can happen here.
You showed us what really matters to you, didn’t you, Millennials?
So I’m A Canna-Blogger Now
ANYWAY, since there’s this shiny new cannabis industry, and what me a hack writer who’s gotta pay the bills, I figured to get my feet wet in this market. Lord knows, I was tired of seeing the job openings for pot bloggers fly by. We are now reaching the actual point of this rant: the new “Dab Connection” link on my humble widdle front page.
Hey, a cannabis company just bought the entire town of Nipton, California. This thing isn’t going away.
Dab Connection is intended as a resource for the recreational and medical cannabis consumer market. We cover extracts, distillates, vapes, oilpens, dab rigs, and other cool stuff. This was the first disruption of my expectations, because in my day when it was time to blaze (you know, after the chores were done, as you will), we took some plant matter and a pipe, bong, or whatever substitute we could carve out of the nearest produce, lit it on fire, and smoked it. Cough cough, put on some Zeppelin. End of story. But now with modern cannabis culture, there’s no sign of the original marijuana leaf left. It’s all decarb this and shatter that, extracts and terpenes and magnetic stirrers, oh my. You’d think Walter White was brewing up a fresh batch of crystal, there’s so much science lab to this stuff.
The political and economic torch has passed, thank FSM, to Generation Z, while Millennials proved themselves the fastest generation to move into obsolescence in history. So it’s really about what they smoke now, or don’t smoke but vape, excuse me. The bongs are put away with the Cheech & Chong videocassettes. Now, I know cannabis enthusiasts are trashing “stoner” stereotype culture as fast as they can, but still I thought that this gig would be a bit more laid back than it turned out…
You all should know by now that when I make a post this long talking about changing times over decades, several generations, things I used to think, etc., that’s a sign that I’ve learned a lot recently in a short time. It’s because I’m an open learner. I discover something new, I share it, that’s why I’m in this line of work. So, going into it, I figured I’d be talking about sativa this vs. indica that, discussing the merits of CBD ointments, whatnot. And then, BAM!
Suddenly I’m Solving Murder Mysteries!
You all heard about the people dropping dead from vaping? Well, guess whose lap that story ended up in? Over time, both at Dab Connection and at other sites which form the cannabis Internet press, we have all had a growing realization that black market cartridges are a thing. Sometimes it’s a counterfeit knock-off of a real brand, always from China. Sometimes the brand being counterfeited even fights back, with QR-code authorization.
But to our growing, unbelieving horror, there can now be no doubt that there are completely fake whole “brands” out there. They’re just invented on the spot by Chinese print plants, who slap whatever related English keywords they can Google onto empty packaging, and then sell it to gullible Americans. For pennies per unit, you can go on AliBaba or DHGate and buy a truckload of empty vape cartridges, which you are then free to fill with vegetable oil, vitamin E acetate, dish soap, whatthehell, and then sell it to people to vape.
And people are dying from that. A buttload more are in the hospital.
Yes, really, these black market brands are turning out to be 100% fake. No company being knocked off, just invented whole cloth out of thin air. It’s pretty obvious with packaging like “Springfield Farms” and “South Carts.” Obviously cartoons owned by multimedia conglomerate corporations wouldn’t sign off their cute characters to appear on THC vapes. It’s deceptively less obvious with packaging like “Runtz” or “Dank.” Those last two threw me for the big loop, and I kept digging and digging, but found no original company behind them.
It’s this fascinating and weird conspiracy culture, tracing the evolution of a fake black market brand. Black market counterfeiters compete with each other, too, so there’s this underground war going on with package re-designs and fake social media accounts being put up, with each one claiming to be the “real” South Carts or Runtz, but none of them able to back it up with a permit or license to dispense cannabis products in any state.
On the one hand, it should not be so shocking. When it comes to drugs, that culture has had its own black markets in the past, from blotter acid to ecstasy pills. But on the other hand, pot’s legal now, so there’s no need for a black market anymore, right? The whole POINT of legalizing is so you can get stoned with FDA protection for the first time. Alcohol prohibition is long over with, and we don’t have cases of bathtub gin and people going blind from moonshine stills.
So kids, the take-away is to verify it and vet it before you vape it. And if you find black market products, don’t just destroy them, but report them and turn the samples over for lab tests.
As for me, as you see at that DabConnection archive, I’ve been tootin’ busy, with much more to come. I’m now part of an investigative reporting operation. It’s not just about the black market brands, it’s about tracking down unlicensed dispensaries now too.
That was my fate. The Sam Spade of Shatter. The Mike Hammer of Mary Jane. The Pot Prosecutor. Every path I set foot to turns into an adventure, what can I say?
To quote the phrasing of an excellent author, Emma Betuel, a peer of mine who also did some investigative digging into black market cartridges, what we have here is a “shadow economy.” How cyberpunk is that?
Standard Disclaimer: The views herein are the expression of one frazzled Internet freelance author, and not the views of any of my clients.
