Where Are Your Black Market Cannabis Vape Cartridges Coming From?

Dab connection reports..

There’s three provinces in China where basically all of the manufacturing and export occur: ZhejiangFujian, and Guangdong. They proceed from north to south along China’s coastline on the Atlantic Ocean, and are the richest areas as far as good old Capitalist commerce goes. The saying in Wenzhou, Zhejiang, goes “The mountains are high and the emperor is far away,” meaning that the city functions largely on its own with little government oversight.

Reason magazine has an eye-opening read on the black market in Zhejiang, where everything from banking to roads have been privatized. Despite American misconceptions about China, one of the best realizations of Libertarian Anarcho-Capitalism is right there on the China shore.

Fujian and Guangdong

While the black market in Zhejiang mainly seems to be focused on producing goods for local consumption, the provinces of Fujian and Guangdong are both the export manufacturing heart of China and where a lot of the counterfeits and fakes come from.

As you see in our banner image, we’ve traced a lot of Chinese vape cart packaging manufacturers down to just these two provinces. But there’s far more to these areas than just vape carts. Here’s a video on the counterfeit shoe market:

And how about fake condomsFake iPhonesFake sports gearFake cosmeticsFake COVID-19 masksFake whiskey, which also makes people sick? And for the ultimate slap in the face: Fake money? No wait, we have a better one: $2 billion in loans based on fake gold?

There is no end to the Chinese black market and what they will counterfeit. They will counterfeit anything with impunity, and the Chinese government condones it unless pressured by international intellectual property laws. Somebody should take an air sample in China to test it and find out if the air’s fake too.

The United States loses up to $600 billion per year to counterfeit goods, with 87% of those coming from China. It’s a problem in the rest of the world, too. As far as international trade goes, China appears to be aimed at undermining every corporation from every other country. As the NY Times points out, fake goods infiltrate even Amazon without their knowledge, to the point that consumers won’t buy certain brands on Amazon.

Alibaba_Group

Alibaba Group and other sales channels into the US

We wrote up a post on intellectual property laws vs. vape companies and how they need to be enforced more. We mention the chief culprit is Alibaba Group, which also runs Wish.com, DHGate, and several other online retail sites. They have indeed been sued by countries from around the world over their tolerance for counterfeit goods.

While there’s always stories about how China, under pressure from other countries, is cracking down on the counterfeit market, there’s one good reason to think that they won’t do much about it: Alibaba Group is a huge corporation, basically the Amazon of China. They have had $72 billion (CN¥509.711 billion) in revenue in 2020 so far. Compare that with the United States’ Walt Disney Company, which made $69.5 billion in 2019.

Alibaba Group is as big as Disney. Let that sink in.

As we constantly point out, DHGate.com is where we find the majority of fake THC vape cartridge packaging, all of it sold for pennies on the unit. DHGate is owned by Alibaba Group. But there’s far more to the online vape cart packaging market:

  • Vapes Wholesale – Basically an Alibaba just for vape packaging. The biggest supplier of fake vape gear after DHGate itself.
  • Carts Packaging – Exactly what the name suggests, plus knock-off edibles and flower bags.
  • Cheapest Vape Supplies – Really small site, barely anything.
  • Made in China – Another vape package wholesaler, rubbing it in with the name.
  • 420 Vape Bulk – Mid-sized site, becomign a bigger player in the fake cart game.
  • 420 CBD Pen – They seem really confused at what CBD is, because they have mainly THC vape fakes.

That’s not even all the sites, just the major ones we find. When we’re searching the web for a vape cartridge brand being knocked off or a fake brand altogether, that’s when we stumble upon a new empty vape package distributor we never heard of before. And then sometimes on one of these sites, we’ll encounter a new fake brand we didn’t know about before, which completes the cycle.

As we demonstrated in our recent write-up on fake Moxies, it’s quite easy to find out the Chinese province of origin for any vape counterfeiter hosted on one of these sites. Find the cart, click “seller,” go to the seller’s home page, click “about us,” and the province and country will be listed there.

VapeWarehouse_Guangdong_China

Conclusions

We hope this has been an eye-opening view of the big picture, behind the illicit vape market. This isn’t just about your health or about your local plug. This is an international issue, affecting the world. China, whether by intention of official policy or not, is on a path to counterfeit everything in the world until either all of our economies collapse or we’re all dependent on China. With so much more commerce moving online in the wake of COVID-19, that path is accelerating.

The bottom line: When you buy fake vapes from an untrusted source, odds are good you’re helping China get even more power over the rest of the world. And not just in vapes, but with literally everything that you can buy with money, you should be careful to scrutinize the merchandise so you’re not getting a rip-off.

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