Georgia grandmother outraged after teen buys THC vape online
LOGANVILLE, Ga. - Sheila Mitchell-Murphy is outraged after she caught her 15-year-old grandson with a THC vape he ordered online.
“I had to be a detective because I knew he wasn’t acting right and I the thing is, these children, they’re just so slick,” Mitchell-Murphy said.
She said she asked her grandson to get the mail and she saw him hide a package. She asked him for it and it was addressed to Jack Pinton.
“I’m like, ‘Who is? There is no Jack Pinton at my house.’ Come to find out, it was my grandson,” she said.
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Her grandson, who is placed in their care, ordered the vape with the fake name, and when she looked in his email , she found it wasn’t the first time.
“The first one that my grandson got was THC, and the second one was a nicotine,” Mitchell-Murphy said.
The most recent receipt she found was from the “delta8resellers” website.
It was for a “trip drip disposable vape” with “8 cannabinoid blend,” including Delta 8 and 9.
Those are psychoactive substances derived from cannabis that the Federal Drug istration says are not regulated and can be especially dangerous for children.
Mitchell-Murphy’s ultimate fear is her grandson getting hold of something from any seller that could kill him.
“It could be laced with fentanyl,” she said. “I am a Gold Star mother, which is a mom who’s lost a child in the military. I know a lot of moms who have lost their children because of fentanyl.”
Last year, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp made it illegal to sell hemp products to anyone younger than 21 and hemp sellers have to apply for a license through the state’s Department of Agriculture.
Atlanta News First Investigates did not find an agriculture license for “delta8resellers” or their parent company, Vando Holdings Corp.
In fact, we found the Georgia Secretary of State’s office revoked Vando Holdings business license in 2022. We were also able to that the company’s business license is either revoked or terminated in at least 23 states.
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The company, based in New Jersey, also owns at least three other websites for vapes and kratom and has received at least two warnings from the FDA for selling tobacco products without premarket authorization.
Delta8resellers and the owners of Vando Holdings did not respond to our emails and phone calls.
When we went onto the website, we found the very first time a visits the site, a box pops up requiring them to click a button saying that they’re 21 or older.
It’s called an “age gate” by agechecker.net. According to their website, the verification company states it is not age verification, but serves to “notify s of the minimum age” requirement.
Agechecker.net further states that if a website pays for age verification, it “coincides with checkout, when you start to enter payment and shipping details. AgeChecker.Net automatically pulls information such as name and address from your billing information, and asks for your date of birth through a pop-up or an email after you pay.”
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To test if we would be verified, Atlanta News First Investigates bought a pack of Delta 9 gummies for less than $5. We put in our new station address, a credit card and the transaction went through. We did not receive a pop-up box asking for our age after paying. We did receive email confirmations that our order was processing and then approved.
“An 8-year-old can get it for, I mean, you know, these kids are so savvy now they’re starting at a young age just to get on the internet,” Mitchell-Murphy said.
The North Dakota Attorney General investigated this same claim against the website’s owners.
He filed a settlement between the state and the company last week. It states the owners denied all allegations, but accepted a fine and will not sell to North Dakota residents for a year.
“They refunded the money back to my grandson because he used his . And I said, ‘That’s not good enough.’ I said, because what if he had died?” Mitchell-Murphy said. “I already lost my son. I don’t want to lose my grandson.”
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The Georgia Attorney General’s office said it received a complaint regarding the website and forwarded it to the Georgia Department of Agriculture.
A spokesperson for that agency said in statement: “The Georgia Department of Agriculture has zero tolerance for the illegal sale of consumable hemp products to underage Georgians, and we will investigate this matter fully. Protecting Georgia consumers is the foundation of our Hemp Program, and we are currently investigating several other online retailers for similar criminal and regulatory violations.”
According to Georgia code, selling hemp to anyone under the age of 21 is a criminal offense.
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