Colorado Recalls Cannabis Vapes Sold at 405 Dispensaries Over a Carcinogenic Solvent

If you've bought a cannabis vape in Colorado this year, listen up. State officials have ordered a recall of certain vape products found to be contaminated with methylene chloride, a carcinogenic industrial solvent, and they were on shelves at 405 dispensaries across the state.

What happened

Colorado health officials and the state Department of Revenue issued a health and safety advisory last week recalling 49 vape products made by Staycon LLC, which does business as Craft. Officials say the products were manufactured using ingredients contaminated with methylene chloride. They were sold over roughly a six-month stretch, between March 27 and September 25, 2026, before the problem was caught.

What to do if you have one

The state's guidance is simple. If you bought one of these products and still have it, either destroy it or take it back to the dispensary where you bought it for safe disposal. Do not use it.

To check whether a product is affected, look for the manufacturer license number and the production batch identifier that Colorado requires on every legal cannabis product. The recall covers items tied to license numbers 404R-00170 and 404-00489. The affected products were sold under these strain names:

• Green Skunk / Hawaiian Sour
• Grand Daddy Purps / Purple Skunk
• Mango Kush / Tropical Punch
• Super Lemon Haze / Hazy Citrus
• Fresh Squeeze / Orange Sorbet
• Maui Wowie / Jungle Punch
• Sour Diesel / Diesel Dawg
• Purple Punch / Grape Gorilla
• Banana Kush / Ghost Haze
• Blueberry Bubble / Sweet Peach
• Pineapple Cake Express

Because dozens of specific batch numbers are involved, the safest move is to match your product's batch identifier against the full list in Colorado's official advisory before using anything from the brand.

This article is based on reporting by Graham Abbott for Ganjapreneur, covering a health and safety advisory from Colorado officials. Read the original coverage at ganjapreneur.com.

Our take

A Real Failure, Plainly

Let's not soften the reality of this. A cancer-causing industrial solvent sat inside legal vape products for six months, sold at more than 400 licensed stores, before anyone caught it. That’s a serious breakdown. It hits the one promise the legal market makes that the illicit market can't: buy it here and it's tested, tracked, and safe. Every time a story like this runs, that promise takes a hit. Vapes are especially fragile ground given the EVALI vaping-illness scare that put cannabis cartridges in the headlines a few years back. Nobody in this industry should shrug this off.

But Notice What Also Happened

Here's the other half of the story that also matters. This got caught, traced to a specific manufacturer, tied to specific batches, and pulled from every shelf, because Colorado's seed-to-sale tracking and mandatory batch labeling made that possible. You cannot recall a cartridge you bought from a guy in a parking lot. There is no advisory, no batch number, no return counter in the illicit market, which is exactly where a contaminated vape does its damage in silence. The recall working is the argument for regulation, even on a bad day.

The Lesson Worth Taking

The uncomfortable question is how methylene chloride slipped through for half a year. The likely answer is that testing panels have blind spots, and "lab-tested" does not mean "tested for everything." That's the real takeaway for operators and regulators alike. Close the gaps in required testing before the next contaminant does, because consumer trust is the whole business, and it's a lot easier to lose than to rebuild. Follow FSOTD for new exclusive podcast episodes and more updates directly from the culture.