California Apartment Association

Meth-lab type explosions occur while making pot-based product

The rental housing industry is seeing an explosion in marijuana use — literally.

Property damage and personal injury reports have been rising as more drug manufacturers use butane to extract and concentrate compounds from marijuana.

The end product is a clear, golden brown cannabis derivative known by different names, such as hash oil, dabs, shatter, wax, milk, ear wax, honey, snake tails, or butane hash oil.

In the central San Joaquin Valley it is often called “honey oil.”

In 2014, there already have been several reported cases of explosions in the Fresno area related to honey oil production mishaps.

This past Wednesday, March 12, Merced authorities arrested a man suspected of causing an explosion while making the pot-based product, Fresno’s KFSN-TV reported.

The manufacture of honey oil via butane extraction is illegal in California and can lead to the types of explosions seen in meth labs. Moreover, a FEMA bulletin reported that fires and explosions have blown out windows and walls, and have caused numerous burn injuries.

As the drug’s popularity grows, so does the number of honey oil enthusiasts willing to attempt their own processing.

Now is the time to learn about this drug and ways to detect it.

Next week, Fresno police and firefighters will reveal some of the clues that tenants are manufacturing honey oil in rental housing. The program, Street Drugs 101, starts at 12:15 p.m. Wednesday, March 19, at Tornino’s Banquets in Fresno.

During manufacturing, landlords have reported seeing a mist or vapor being ventilated out of windows. Some also have reported finding clumps of the discarded marijuana dumped outside the windows of rental units.

After the manufacturing process, the remaining marijuana looks somewhat like overcooked spinach, while the finished honey oil often resembles tree sap. It is regularly stored in small glass containers.

Honey oil, a form of cannabis, is a resinous product obtained from marijuana plants by solvent extraction, and then formed into a hardened or viscous mass.

Honey oil is the most potent of cannabis products because of its high THC content. Advocates believe it has advantages over traditional marijuana because it has very little smell, and the user achieves very intense effects with very small quantities. This is because the honey oil is so highly concentrated. Some extracts have supposedly been tested to achieve more than 99 percent THC, after a multiple-stage chemical process.

Processing of marijuana into honey oil has been done for some time, but only recently has been gaining popularity, particularly in states that allow the use of medical marijuana, such as California.

To manufacture honey oil, it is necessary to separate the resin containing THC from the cannabis by solvent extraction. This is typically done by filling a glass or stainless steel canister with marijuana (turkey basters are a popular choice) and flooding the canister with a solvent that strips the plant material of its cannabinoid-containing oils.

Butane is the most common solvent, but other solvents commonly used include hexane, isopropyl alcohol and ethanol. One common method of butane removal includes boiling it off in a hot water bath, while another involves the use of a vacuum pump.

The process is generally considered dangerous because of improper butane ventilation. Butane is highly flammable and it tends to sink, meaning if it is done indoors, or improperly ventilated, BOOM!

Don’t let this happen in your apartment community.

Steven R. Hrdlicka, Esq. is an attorney specializing in representing owners and managers of rental properties, homeowners’ associations and collections in Central California. He is an active member of the California Apartment Association and owns rental properties. This article is informational only and should not be used as legal advice.