We’ve seen these going around for awhile. At first glance, the cartoon art style might lead to thinking that they’re an offshoot of Bart Carts or South Carts. But they’re actually a new fake “brand” on the black market, meant to be a riff on the popular video game Fortnite.

Cartnite carts are a widely spread fake brand

This time it’s targeting a video game popular with a teen and young adult audience, so then we’ve seen a little activism among the fan base. YouTubers such as Auxlan and OutofOrder posted expository videos over the summer, which confirms sightings on the street as far back as May of 2019.

They’re on WeedMaps, which is really becoming a slum for suspect products and unlicensed dispensaries. We were told they would clean up their act a month ago.

Varieties depicted include “Cookies,” “Gelato,” “Sour Diesel,” “Purple Punch,” “Gorilla Glue,” “Mimosa,” “Banana OG,” and “Lemon Cello.” Of course, since these are all sold empty on the black market and filled by whim of whatever the dealer has on hand, they could be any liquid at all.

Personally, the Present Author would be embarrassed to smoke anything out of such sad packaging, even if they made the oil right in front of me. They’ve become a tired old joke on Reddit already.

This is going a bit too far – it depends on what the cart is filled with. Still, we can’t disagree with the overall intentions.

“Cartnite” obviously violates trademark

Epic games, the company which makes Fortnite, is a software and gaming company rounding its third decade in business, employing a head count of 1K+ worldwide. Among their other claims to fame is the Unreal game engine. Obviously, they wouldn’t allow a THC cartridge company to use this franchise tie-in.

Come to that, to this date, not one, single legitimate cannabis product has used any promotional tie-in with any character, cartoon, TV show, movie, book, or any other media. The closest we’ve seen is real-life celebrities promoting their own brands, such as Snoop Dogg, Willie Nelson, and Tommy Chong, as we mentioned before.

Black market cartridge brands are a gamble with your life

As always, we point out that these cartridges are bought empty online from offshore distributors and filled by home re-sellers using “whatever and who knows.” And while it’s possible that they were filled by somebody who was conscientious in preparing the oil and ensuring quality, you have no way of knowing without a lab test.

Given that making your own cartridges is a labor-intensive, painstaking process and even legitimate distributors get it wrong sometimes, the more likely scenario is the bootleg cartridges being filled by somebody cutting corners. Which can have deadly consequences, due to potential contaminants including vitamin E acetate, MCT oil, propylene glycol, vegetable glycerin, heavy metals including lead, lipids, or pesticides.

At the least, it could just be bunk oil for the classic rip-off.

Anybody have stories about Cartnite to share?

Or any Fortnite players want to share their epic castle builds in Creative mode? We’ll take those too. In the comments or in the forums.