“Additive” is a word that implies that it performs some function in the product. (The technical jargon equivalent word being “excipient.”)

The proper term for vitamin E acetate is “cutting agent.” Like talc in cocaine. Neither the original manufacturer nor the consumer wants it in there; it was effectively MITMed into the product.

A very precise analogy: you wouldn’t call cyanide a “Tylenol additive”, right?

As others in the thread have pointed out, manufacturers of THC products who add it do so as a thickening agent. I would term that performing a function.

Bakers who put alum in their bread as a whitening agent were "performing a function" with that alum, but it's still considered adulteration. The addition of Vitamin E Acetate to THC oil seems to be unambiguous adulteration.

Just because people are saying it doesn’t make it true. It doesn’t even make sense as a thickening agent. It’s not more valuable if it’s thicker and it becomes more difficult to handle and to fill cartridges.

It’s used to water down the product and sell more cartridges with the same amount of THC oil. The exact same thing cocaine dealers do with talc powder or some shady bars do watering down their bottles.

I have no idea why you've been downvoted since you're plainly right. Do people think it a coincidence that the products found to be doing this seem to all be black market? Adulteration is common practice in the criminal drug industry. That's one of the major reasons so many people supported legalization in the first place, how could people have forgotten this?

It performs the function to make the dealer more money, as others have pointed out, it is a cutting-agent not an additive.