Police warn teenagers have started using e-cigarettes to smoke pot without leaving a tell-tale scent, and there are still no regulations in place preventing kids from buying the devices.

Marijuana users have figured out how to open the e-cigarettes’ flavour cartridges, which produce their smoke-like vapour, and replace the fluid inside with drug oil.

The result is effectively a joint that doesn’t emit as strong an odour, according to police.

Students from several high schools in Edmonton have already been caught using e-cigarettes to get high, prompting a public warning on Thursday.

“It’s prevalent. It’s everywhere. Kids are jumping on this pretty quickly,” said Sgt. Kelly Rosnau of the Edmonton Police Service.

Doctor Milan Khara of Vancouver General Hospital’s smoking cessation clinic said he’s heard anecdotes about using e-cigarettes to smoke drugs.

“The device is really ideal for introducing other mood-altering substances. There’s a cartridge in the device that can be filled with whatever you want to deliver to your brain,” Khara said.

“We don’t know how big these problems are going to be.”

Vancouver police and the city’s school board said they haven’t had any reports of drug-loaded e-cigarettes yet, but B.C. health officials are still pushing for tougher regulations.

In Canada, e-cigarettes don’t contain nicotine, and there are currently no rules about who can purchase them. In December, an 11-year-old boy was able to buy one of the vapourizers at a Tsawwassen store.

Since the cigarettes have kid-friendly flavours like “cherry bomb,” doctors warn they have a potential to hook kids, and even lead them to real cigarette addictions.

B.C. Health Minister Terry Lake said stricter rules are under consideration.

“We are reviewing our tobacco control strategy and part of that might be to regulate e-cigarettes in the same way we regulate tobacco,” he said.

The province has to work with Ottawa on the issue because of overlapping jurisdictions, Lake added.

With a report from CTV Vancouver’s Penny Daflos

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