Worrying: more and more teenagers are vaping wax, a powerful cannabis concentrate

Odorless, visually appealing, easy to hide, gentle on the throat, great taste: waxpens have it all for teenagers. But behind their harmless look hides a derivative of “wax”, a very powerful cannabis concentrate with potentially dangerous effects. Experts are sounding the alarm.

“I wanted to talk about waxpens, because I get more and more teenagers who tell me they smoke them or have tried them,” says Marie-Ève ​​Morin, a family doctor specializing in addiction.

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These waxpens, virtually identical to the most common nicotine vapers, are pre-filled with a product from the distillation of cannabis wax, commonly known as “wax”.

Illegal in Quebec, wax is a powerful concentrate of THC extracted from the cannabis plant using a solvent, often butane or carbon dioxide (CO₂). ‘Budder’, ‘badder’, ‘shatter’, ‘wax’: its name and shape vary depending on whether it was exposed to heat during the manufacturing process.

But regardless of its final form, the THC concentration of the wax can reach 80 to 95%. The distilled substance contained in a waxpen can reach 99% THC. For comparison, dried flower products sold at the SQDC cannot exceed a concentration of 30%.

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High risk of bad trip

Marie-Ève ​​Morin fears that the harmless appearance of waxpens could induce a false sense of security among young consumers.

“It comes in nice little silver or full-color pencils. It’s beautiful, well packaged, it tastes good, it’s gentle on the throat, it doesn’t smell and it’s sold ready-to-smoke. So they don’t need any other hardware. In addition, it hides well, ”she laments.

“To me, wax is to cannabis what fentanyl is to opioids: it’s the hyper-potent version. Except that we cannot make a fatal overdose of it, ”continues the doctor.

A substance as powerful as wax can also turn the first uses into a nightmare, testifies Julien *, a young consumer that the D^D Morin has been following for several years.

“Me, the first times I smoked wax, as a teenager, it often turned into bad trip, even though I was already used to smoking a lot. I started to worry very stiff, ”he says.

“It’s like comparing hard liquor to beer. The fact that it is more concentrated and stronger, even if I smoke the same amount of THC as with a joint, the fact that I take it all at once, it buttocks harder”, illustrates the young man today in their twenties.

Widespread in schools

Julien is not the only one to have experimented with waxpens as a teenager. School workers told us that they are seeing more and more of them in the province’s secondary schools.

“Students who consume wax, there are a lot of them. But not only that, it is also the vaping of cannabis oil which is very widespread”, explains a worker from the community organization Pact de rue. She asked to remain anonymous so as not to reveal which schools she works at.

According to the 2021 Quebec Cannabis Survey, 44% of young people aged 15 to 17 who use cannabis do so using vaping products. While all cannabis products for vaping are illegal in Quebec, they are readily available online or on the black market.

Moreover, if so many young people start vaping cannabis products, it is largely due to the popularity of vaping in general.

“Between one-third and one-half of teen vapers have tried vaping cannabis. And in the proportion of young people who use cannabis, there are more and more who are going to use vaping products”, indicates the D^r Nicholas Chadi, pediatrician and clinician-researcher specializing in adolescent medicine and drug addiction at CHU Sainte-Justine.

And bad news: there are a lot of young people who vape in Quebec schools.

According to the latest Quebec survey on tobacco, alcohol, drugs and gambling among high school students, the use of vapers has indeed quintupled in six years in Quebec, rising from 4% in 2013 to 21% in 2019. Even more worrying: One-third of secondary 4 and 5 students vape.

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Dangers for mental health

But beyond the possible bad tripsconsumption of wax and cannabis oil with high concentration of THC can have serious consequences on the health of young people, warns the D^r Didier Jutras-Aswad, researcher and head of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Montreal Hospital Center (CHUM) and specialist in the effects of cannabis on the human body.

“People who consume products over 60% are going to be exposing themselves to more THC at a time. It increases the chances of developing mental health problems, whether anxiety disorders, depression or, of course, the risk of developing a psychotic illness. There are also studies that show that it has an impact on academic success and suicidal thoughts, ”he warns.

And while most people who use cannabis do not develop such problems, the psychiatrist adds that there is some evidence that in general, the earlier someone starts using, the greater the risks associated with use, such as tolerance. or dependence, increase.

This is what worries the most the D^D Marie-Eve Morin.

“What are they going to do, the young teenagers who start using such powerful products, when they turn 20? What are they going to turn to for a buzz?” she wonders.

* We have changed this person’s name to protect their identity.

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