The Regulatory Gaps in the Cannabis and E-cigarette Industries and the Threats to Public Health and Public Safety

Description:
The legalization/decriminalization of cannabis state-by-state and the passage of the 2018 Farm Bill has led to significant national regulatory gaps that enable the expansion of gray and black markets where no quality assurance standards are required. These unregulated markets have facilitated the rise of products that are labeled improperly and inaccurately and promote the consumption of synthetic analogues. THC isomers and derivatives can be minor natural cannabinoid but are synthesized from CBD to produce high concentration products. Equally troubling is the incidence of microbiological contamination in unregulated products. The cannabis industry entwined with the e-cigarette industry facilitating the discreet public consumption of drugs. The cannabis industry took advantage of the gaps in e-cigarette regulations to make products which precipitated severe lung injuries and deaths with unsafe products. This presentation will address the variety of products sold without regulatory oversight and contain potentially dangerous substances, the state of regulations for the cannabis and e-cigarette industries, and the public health and public safety issues which confuse consumers.

Speaker: Michelle Peace - Virginia Commonwealth University
Dr. Peace is an Associate Professor in the Department of Forensic Science at VCU and is one of the founding faculty for the Department. She served as Associate Chair and Chair for nearly a decade. She has been funded by the National Institute of Justice since 2014 to study the efficacy of electronic cigarettes, particularly as they pertain to substance use and abuse. Her research has highlighted emerging issues of electronic cigarettes as a tool for vaping drugs other than nicotine and has characterized the merging of the cannabis and e-cigarette industries. Her projects include evaluating vaping ethanol on field sobriety tests and ethanol pharmacokinetics and the evaluation of emerging cannabinoid isomers and derivatives and product transparency, quality, and safety. She has been featured in the New York Times, Consumer Reports, and AARP. The American Chemical Society and Discover Magazine recognized her research in 2018 and 2019 as some of the most influential research in the nation.