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Video shows Frenchman’s crazy e-cigarette explosion

A nightclub manager in southern France has been left with second degree burns after his e-cigarette exploded in his pocket.

Published: 2 November 2016 09:26 CET

Video shows Frenchman's crazy e-cigarette explosion

Photo: La Dépêche du Midi/Screengrab.

CCTV footage has caught the shocking moment that a man's e-cigarette exploded in his pocket.

The incident occurred outside a nightclub in Toulouse on Friday night.

Security camera footage from the scene shows the manager, Amine Britel, walking around smoking his electronic cigarette.

Then sparks start to fly from his right pocket.

Images spectaculaires de l'explosion d'une… par ladepeche

“I heard what sounded like a firecracker but ten times louder,” he told the regional La Dépêche du Midi newspaper.

“After the shock of the explosion, I realized I had caught on fire.”

The sparks lasted only several seconds, but they were strong enough to leave Britel in hospital with second degree burns to his side and fingers.

In trying to put out the flames, he said that his jacket melted to his finger.

The nightclub manager told the paper that he assumed the spark ignited after the battery of his e-cigarette was in contact with loose change in his pocket.

He said that he had launched a complaint with the Chinese manufacturer of the e-cigarette, but has few expectations that anything will come of it.

Exploding e-cigarettes have caused problems in France before, including just last month when another Toulouse man was injured in a similar incident.

In south western France in February, four cars ended up torched after a woman's e-cigarette caught fire inside her car.

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Swiss boffins create cannabis e-cigarette

File photo: Marcel van Hoorn/AFP

“Therapeutic cannavaping”, they argued, should be examined as an alternative to existing medical treatments which can come in the form of a syrup, pill, mouth spray, skin patch, suppository, or a plain-old spliff.

The team copied an improvised method popular among marijuana afficionados using butane gas to extract and concentrate cannabinoids — the active, high-causing compounds of cannabis.

“We were inspired by what is done illegally, underground, on the web fora,” study co-author Vincent Varlet, a biochemist and toxicologist from the University Centre of Legal Medicine in Lausanne, told AFP.

“Normally, they use this form of cannabinoids to get high. Based on what is done illegally, we found that it could be interesting” for the medical field.

The method yields super-concentrated “dabs” of butane hash oil (BHO) comprising about 70-80 percent THCa, the precursor of THC or tetrahydrocannabinol, which is the psychoactive ingredient. THCa is transformed into THC at high heat.

Usually the dabs are burnt and the fumes inhaled. But for the study, the team mixed their activated BHO paste into commercially-available e-cigarette liquid at different concentrations — three, five or ten percent.

They then put “vaping machines” to work: sucking at the e-cigarettes and blowing out vapour, which was measured for its THC content, according to results published in the nature journal Scientific Reports.

“Cannavaping appears to be a gentle, efficient, user-friendly and safe alternative method for cannabis smoking for medical cannabis delivery,” the team concluded with a nod to “the creativity of cannabis users”.

It was also more reliable than consuming cannabinoid pills or foods which are poorly and erratically absorbed, said Varlet.

Safer pain relief?

Battery-powered e-cigarettes heat up liquids containing artificial flavourings, with or without nicotine, to release a vapour which is inhaled and exhaled much like smoke.

They are touted as safer than the real thing, and an aide for giving up cancer-causing tobacco — which is also an ingredient of the traditional cannabis joint.

Cannabis-infused e-liquids are advertised online, along with a rash of recipes for making your own.

Medical marijuana can be legally prescribed in some countries for pain relief, appetite stimulation, nausea reduction or the relief of muscle spasms.

A challenge, said Varlet, was to keep cannabis intended for therapeutic use out of the hands of recreational high-seekers.

One way to do that was to have legal drugs with microdoses of cannabinoids.

“We have calculated that to have the same dose of what is present in a real cigarette joint… with tobacco, we have to vape between 80-90 puffs” of the 10-percent BHO liquid, said Varlet.

“Eighty puffs constitutes a rebuttal to getting high,” he added, when a few drags from a joint will do.

“The take-home message of our article is that vaping is less harmful than smoking, so you can be sure that cannavaping is less harmful than cannabis smoking for medical purposes,” said Varlet, adding there was no plan to patent or sell the product.

“Today, we have set the cat among the pigeons. This is just the first step, and we need to see how the scientific community is going to welcome this kind of possibility.”

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