An Oregon Extraction Entrepreneur Debated With State Regulators Whether He Had to Label His Vape Ingredients

On the weekend of Aug. 8, Tigard cannabis extraction entrepreneur Andrew Jones published that statement on the website of his company, Connoisseur Concentrates.

That company, in Portland's southern suburbs, specializes in selling terpenes, which are aromatic oils extracted from plants. He was a brash pioneer in building machines that extract butane hash oil—among the most lucrative slices of the weed business ("Oil Wars," WW, July 28, 2017).

But Jones' Connoisseur Concentrates had also developed its own line of dilutants, called Clear Cut. They contain vitamin E acetate.

In his statement, Jones writes that his company has pulled Clear Cut from its online store.

Jones writes that he met with the Oregon Liquor Control Commission about how to label the product: Jones tells WW he wanted to list the Vitamin E acetate as "vitamin stabilizer" to "maintain a trade secret and be transparent at the same time." But he and the OLCC never reached an agreement.

Jones says no licensed Oregon manufacturer uses his Clear Cut products. He tells WW when he tried to sell Clear Cut, "every licensed manufacturer that I spoke with wanted to stay within OLCC regulations and had concerns about labeling and said, 'Listen, we need to label this,' and it really didn't go any farther than that."

OLCC spokesman Mark Pettinger says Jones told the OLCC he didn't want to list vitamin E acetate among the ingredients in Clear Cut. The agency told him he had to.

The OLCC says it never heard back from Jones.

"The OLCC has no indication of any licensee legitimately using any product(s) provided by Mr. Jones or his companies, or similar products provided by other suppliers, including: 'Vitamin E oil,' alpha-tocopherol, or tocopheryl acetate," the OLCC says.

Jones told WW he was selling Clear Cut online because manufacturers wouldn't take it without full labeling. He says vitamin E acetate may only be available in cartridges on the black market.

Jones says "almost every terpene company was selling tocopheryl acetate under a different name." He adds: "The numbers that I heard, just rumors, there's massive amounts of vitamin E acetate that was sold on the streets."