Thousands of illicit THC vape cartridges seized by police across New York underscored the booming marijuana black market being investigated as a potential cause of mysterious vaping-related lung illnesses.

The THC vape busts have spanned everything from music festivals and routine traffic stops to drugs being mailed into New York from legal weed states like California, according to USA TODAY Network reports and police records.

As public health officials across the country warned of nearly 200 lung illnesses possibly linked to vaping THC, a review of marijuana arrests in New York revealed the scope of safety risks tied to underground cannabis trade.

Health officials last week announced 25 of the lung injury cases are in New York, including many that reported vaping tetrahydrocannabinol, known as THC, the psychoactive element of marijuana.

Authorities have emphasized, however, that many of the vaping injuries in New York and nationally also involved using nicotine products, which remain a potential culprit behind the spate of severe respiratory illness that has hospitalized many patients and killed one in Illinois.

Probe: 14 new cases of vaping-related lung illness New York

Meanwhile, health officials have urged Americans to stop using vaping devices altogether until a cause is determined, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

During the investigation, the vaping devices, commonly called e-cigarettes, shouldn't be used to ingest nicotine, THC or cannabidiol, known as CBD, the non-psychoactive element of cannabis products, CDC officials said.

"If you use #ecigarette products, monitor yourself for symptoms (e.g., cough, shortness of breaths, chest pain) and promptly seek medical attention if you have concerns about your health," CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield wrote on Twitter.

Further, Redfield included warnings against buying vaping products from drug dealers and modifying devices. It came after some public health experts suggested contaminated vaping products from illicit sellers are causing the lung diseases.

Marijuana busts in New York

The vaping health alerts come during a politically charged battle to curb the flow of unregulated marijuana as more states legalize the drug for medical and recreational use.

For example, authorities destroyed about 2.8 million black-market marijuana plants nationally during Drug Enforcement Administration busts in 2018. The raids also netted 5,600 arrests and 2,800 weapons.

In New York, it destroyed about 6,400 marijuana plants in 2018, arresting 146 people and seizing 26 weapons.

And despite the fact New York state lawmakers this year reduced penalties for low-level marijuana possession, trafficking in large amounts of cannabis-based drugs remains illegal.

Further, black-market marijuana operations have historically seen New Yorkers as key customers. Outside New York City, for instance, there were nearly 800 felony marijuana possession arrests statewide last year, as well as about 100 felony marijuana sale arrests, according to state data.

Since 2018, the THC oil busts have included two traffic stops in Westchester County that turned up nearly 250 individually wrapped THC cartridges and 650 grams of concentrated marijuana oil.

Another 1,700 THC vape cartridges were included in a drug bust that targeted a warehouse in the Syracuse area in 2018, state police records show.

One case in nearby Cortland last month involved about 1,000 THC vape cartridges shipped via a delivery service and intercepted by police, according to numerous media reports. It joined similar schemes that shipped more than $22 million worth of marijuana to Westchester and Rochester addresses from the West Coast.

State police couldn't provide statistics on THC oil trafficking, saying it's tracked as part of general marijuana arrests.

Meanwhile, authorities in legal weed states like California and Colorado have launched crackdowns on black-market criminals behind marijuana and THC vape trafficking overall.

They've cited the public safety risks from unregulated and untested products, as well as the threat to licensed cannabis businesses.

“We always have these black-market concerns…Colorado is a big state and it’s got a lot of open land that’s not necessarily easy to surveil, so that’s been a challenge for law enforcement,” state Rep. Edie Hooton, D-Boulder, said in March.

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