This morning we became aware of the newest way to conceal vaping…the hoodie vaping sweatshirt!  As you can see from the above picture the vaping device is concealed with the shirt and one uses it by engaging with the drawstrings. 

The vaping industry has tried to hide their devices like thumb drives, highlighter pens, and in the forms of various candy dispensers.  This makes parent’s job of protecting our teens that much harder. 

With over 1100 cases of lungs problems as the result of vaping and with the vast majority (80%) of these from vaping marijuana, we urge you to have a talk with your teen about this incredibly dangerous form of using marijuana.  Not even considering that the potency of some vapes are 70% - 90% THC.

A year ago, families contacted us because their teen was smoking pot.  Today most families write that their teen is vaping pot.  In the old days the potency of marijuana was between 3% - 5% THC (the active ingredient that gets you high. Today the potency that one can buy in a commercial store is 18 to 20% THC but vapes and edibles can be in the 70 to 90% THC.  There is 50 years of research on marijuana, but all of our research is at the 3 to 5% potency, and we have no research to show what 70% THC will do to an adolescent brain.

We at Gobi will continue to support families whose adolescence are experimenting with substance use. We are very concerned about the potential of legalizing commercial marijuana. How are parents and schools supposed to monitor teen’s behaviour if you can smoke marijuana through your sweatshirt?