Inside The Barely Legal World Of Pennsylvania Vape Shops

Cannabis is legal in Pennsylvania, except when it’s not. Buying cannabis openly, from a storefront dispensary or in the lobby of an apartment building, feels weird, like you expect undercover cops to show up and flash their badges, even though you could just as easily flash your medical cannabis card, or else take out your phone and show the police that your GPS location indicates that you are in Pittsburgh, where possession of small quantities of cannabis has been decriminalized since 2015. A creepier feeling is walking into a vape shop. You feel like you are walking into somewhere shady, a drug den like you used to see in police procedural TV shows from the 70s, except that you are only buying tobacco. Somehow, it isn’t the same vibe that you would get when walking past the smoke shop in the mall in the 1980s. Most of the products in smoke shops are legal, and some of them are legally ambiguous, but vape shops are a more likely scene for shady business than random chance would dictate. If you are facing criminal charges because of a product you bought at a vape shop in Pennsylvania, contact a Pittsburgh drug crime lawyer.

In the Constantly Changing Landscape of Drug Laws, Vape Shops Never Fail to Bend the Rules

The ostensible purpose of vape shops is to sell e-cigarettes and other vaporizing devices for smoking flavored tobacco. Despite this, you also often find other substances at vape shops that may or may not qualify as drugs, depending on who you ask. How many vape shops have you seen with neon signs in the windows that advertise kratom or CBD? Any pill that is legally ambiguous enough that you can find it in locked cases at gas stations is probably also present at vape shops. These euphemistically named “dietary supplements” can become illegal once lawmakers become convinced of their dangers, but vape shops might keep selling them in defiance of the new rules.

In the News

Flavored tobacco is a resounding yes, and kratom is a maybe, but methamphetamine is unambiguously an illegal drug. Methamphetamine is a Schedule II controlled substance, as dangerous as oxycodone, fentanyl, and cocaine; it has legally recognized medical uses, but it is illegal to buy or possess except when prescribed to you by a doctor. William Smith works at a vape shop in Greene County, and someone notified police that he was selling meth from the shop. They sent a confidential informant to buy meth from him, and when the informant came back with the drugs, the police requested an arrest warrant. As of March 2025, the police were still looking for Smith and requesting information about his whereabouts, and he had not yet been arrested.

Contact Gary E. Gerson About Criminal Defense Cases

A criminal defense lawyer can help you if you are facing criminal charges for buying or selling illegal drugs at a vape shop.  Contact the law offices of Gary E. Gerson in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania about your case.

Source:

cbsnews.com/pittsburgh/news/greene-county-waynsburg-vape-shop-methamphetamine-wanted/