PenEx : Fake Cart With Trademark and Copyright Violations

We’ve had a few readers request that we alert the public to PenEx, a fake black market brand of THC vape. We have run across the brand occasionally, but it seemed rare and quirky enough that we figured it wouldn’t stick around. But the reports keep coming in, so we know this one must be live.

PenEx is a rip-off of the delivery shipping company

The Penex logo even imitates the logo for FedEx, a company known worldwide for its delivery services and certainly on everyone’s minds during the holiday season. PenEx copies the logo right down to the negative-space arrow (🡆) between the “E” and “x,” typically regarded in graphic design circles as an example of outstanding logo design.

This should be the first clue to anyone in the vape cart market that this product isn’t kosher. FedEx, making tens of billions of dollars in revenue annually, would obviously sue any legit company through the ground for infringing its logo. There is also no reason why FedEx would diversify into the THC vape cart business.

There are also a couple other unrelated companies which make use of the name “Penex” out there. Notably, there’s a catalytic process used in the refining of crude oil, named Penex. It is owned by Honeywell UOP, which also would not take kindly to being associated with a boof cart brand.

There’s no reason to even question whether this brand is legit, since its name and logo are pure trademark infringement.

Boof vendors push Penex

Of all things, WeedMaps should know better! This screenshot shows a “Nature’s Meds” delivery service in Michigan. We checked Michigan’s license listing and find no “Nature’s Meds” specifically, but several near misses. They seem to have been taken down now, but still, as much as WeedMaps has had trouble with fake brands, this is an obvious fumble.

We see several plug listings on LeafedOut as well, but they’re ghetto anyway, they don’t care.

“Premium rosin distillate” in Virginia? Hardly.

If you can still trust anyone with Exotic Carts as their profile photo, I don’t know what I can tell you. We also have a rare Pinterest plug:

The classic rubber-banded package together with a name we haven’t seen in awhile, Monopoly carts. In common with that brand is the rampant ghetto graphics designs that freely rip off other intellectual property as well.

We also find PenEx on some online scam sites, likely with the reasoning that anyone gullible enough to believe that this is a real brand is a good mark for fraud too. BEWARE of online scam sites that claim they can ship THC vape carts anywhere – they are all scams that just take your money without sending anything!

User are finding PenEx carts everywhere

We turn to our watchdogs over at Reddit’s various cartridge enthusiast forums.

• 7 months ago – Everybody remarks how obvious the silly packaging is
• 1 year ago
• 10 months ago – “I tried the cart before and it made me feel dying.”
• 7 months ago
• 11 months ago
• 7 months ago
• 5 months ago

So we see they’re still straggling through in recent months. Our guess is that some fake cart packaging sits around for a long time before it gets filled and sold. Since individual empties are sold so cheap, at pennies per unit, one can easily stock up on cases of them and then fill and sell them as time goes on. PenEx might not be very present in mainstream channels, but it’s just present enough to cross our radar occasionally.

Worth noting for this brand is the extremely amateur graphic design:

This ghetto art masterpiece has what is supposed to be Donald Duck, in a “PenEx” hat mocked-up after the FedEx delivery uniform, violently coughing up either strawberries or chunks of lung, it’s hard to tell. We’re guessing the medium is a photo of a chalk drawing on felt? I’m wondering if little Chinese kids in sweatshops are drawing these.

Unlicensed, unregulated brands like PenEx may contain anything

There is a deadly epidemic of lung illness tied to black market cart usage. Vaping-associated pulmonary injury has so far claimed 64 lives and hospitalized more than 2700 users, up until February 2020 when the CDC stopped counting. This was the main health story in the news before Coronavirus COVID-19 cases pushed it off the front page, but people are still getting sick off boof street carts. Unregulated vape carts could contain heavy metals like lead, pesticides, cut such as Honey Cut, or simply bunk. Or they could be fire if you’re lucky. But a lot of people in the hospital right now weren’t lucky.

If anybody has more information on where PenEx are circulating, please feel free to help us protect public safety by sharing it with the community here in the comments or in our forum.