With a credit card and a computer, anything is possible. As the consumer market continues to boom online, people are realizing that they can get anything on the internet – Even weed.
A study conducted by the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, called “Online Sales of Marijuana: An Unrecognizable Public Health Dilemma”, reports that there were over 2.4 million searches to buy weed online in June 2017. And, in the vast majority of the states examined in the study, the number of searches were increasing every month.
Purchasing weed online is illegal everywhere in the US. Even in the nine states that have legalized recreational use of the drug, customers are required to pick up their orders in store. Licensed retailers can have delivery services drop off parcels for their customers if they are unable to come to the store, but these delivery services must be preapproved. This regulation is likely in place to prevent underage consumers from faking their age online and to prevent marijuana from crossing over state lines into places where it is not yet legal. This federal offense has an entire law enforcement team forging social media profiles dedicated to it. They are posing as potential buyers on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram to convict sellers.
The online weed market leaves consumers susceptible to scammers looking to steal their money. People are reportedly being duped on Craigslist, Facebook and Instagram alike. These Bogus online “dealers” are deceptive and cunning. They answer customer questions and provide photos they have taken off the internet to create the illusion of legitimacy. Once customers wire money to them, they disappear into the wind and are never heard from again. Leaving customers without their weed, their money, and with nowhere to report the con because the transaction is illegal, to begin with.
This illegality presents other issues as well. Because marijuana has yet to be legalized in the states, the FDA (Food & Drug Administration) does not regulate the production or labeling of products at the state level. This means that companies can put any number on their labels with consumers being none the wiser. They could be getting accurate amounts of THC (Tetrahydrocannabinol) and CBD (Cannabidiol), or they could be getting something completely different. This is increasingly worrying for people who do not have a prescription but still use weed to alleviate symptoms of their conditions, or for those in the few states that have yet to approve medicinal marijuana. They could be getting massive amounts of THC and CBD, or minuscule ones. This misrepresentation could be rectified by the FDA’s intervention, but with the present state of legalization, they can’t do much about this issue.
As if that weren’t enough, people are purchasing synthetic marijuana online. Synthetic marijuana is most notoriously known by the name K2 and was originally used to allow researchers to examine the nervous system. Now, however, people are making and selling this harmful designer drug. It is generated in a lab via spraying dried leaves and grass with industrial chemical solutions. It has been known to cause agitation and vomiting coupled with hallucinations and a rapid heart rate. In July 2016, 33 people in New York City were described as behaving like zombies due to consuming synthetic marijuana. It has been linked to numerous deaths and cases of internal bleeding. There have been four deaths in Illinois just in the past few months directly linked to K2. More than 150 people in Illinois have reported getting sick after using this product. When not buying from a licensed and legitimate seller, there’s no telling what is actually in the “weed” you are buying. In this case, the synthetic weed people were purchasing was laced with rat poison. While some online dispensaries may boast about their products, it is safer to purchase from a legitimate and reliable source for safety purposes.
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