Vaping THC-O acetate: potential for another EVALI epidemic

Abstract

This brief report is to alert the public health community to the confirmed presence of Δ8-THC-O acetate in commercially available vaping products and the potential risk of pulmonary toxicity from vaping THC-O. The impetus for this study was the presence of the aryl acetate moiety in THC-O. Mass spectrometry (MS) evidence and activation energy (AE) calculations indicating that vaping of THC-O is likely to generate ketene, a suspected cause of lung injury, are provided. </p