Massachusetts cannabis company to dump $2.6 million worth of vape pens

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Massachusetts-based marijuana business Temescal Wellness plans to destroy more than 40,000 vape cartridges, worth $2.6 million, that have sat unused after the state temporarily banned marijuana vaping during the 2019 health crisis linked to the hardware.

“People are just not comfortable with these products, and they’re not comfortable with any company that would sell these products,” Temescal chief executive Ted Rebholz told The Boston Globe.

Other cannabis companies in the state might also be destroying product, but the trend is not clear yet.

According to the Globe, more than 600,000 cannabis vape pens were taken off retail shelves and held by regulators last September, when Gov. Charlie Baker banned them in response to the health crisis.

Newly made vapes were allowed to be sold in December, under stricter regulations, but the previously held vapes were finally released in August by the state after cannabis companies expressed financial concerns.

State regulators then allowed cannabis companies to either dispose of the products, retest and resell them or dump the oil out of the cartridges and reprocess it.

One of the main concerns pertains to levels of lead, even though lead wasn’t connected to the vape health crisis.

A bigger concern is keeping oil in the hardware too long, which could cause the oil to leach lead from the devices. Tests on that have proved inconclusive.