Features Jul 23, 2014 at 4:00 am

The Feds’ Surprising Response to Exploding Hash-Oil Labs

Is the Federal Government Starting to Acknowledge That Legalization and Regulation Are Safer Than Busting People?

Dominic Holden
Authorities say a hash-oil lab in one of the apartments exploded, killing a neighbor. DEA
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Comments

1
Interesting shift of tone by Durkan.

Not to change subject too much, your mention of need for State Legislature action is one more reason to have a stable hand at the tiller as Speaker of the House i.e. keeping Chopp.

(The only way that Spear can surmount the Chopp experience issue would be to show that the next in line after Chopp would Rep X who is as good or better than Chopp. Does Spear even know the names of other State Reps?)
caution&daring on July 29, 2014 at 12:12 PM Report this
2
If your illegal operation kills someone, not to mention causing significant property damage, regardless of what you were trying to manufacture, then, yes, you should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. This is a not a difficult concept.
keshmeshi on July 29, 2014 at 12:24 PM Report this
3
@2 - I don't think anyone is really arguing against that. The question is more about whether those prosecutions are the best way to prevent future incidents like this one--or whether legalization and regulation might be more effective.
brent.b on July 29, 2014 at 12:31 PM Report this
4
Morons, the lot of them. If you want to extract hash oils you should look into supercritical CO2 extraction. CO2 gas is far less flammable.
ChefJoe on July 29, 2014 at 12:43 PM Report this
5
If you replace the word 'hash-oil lab' with the word 'still' and 'marijuana' with 'alcohol' and this article could have been written about Prohibition. History doth repeath its self.
The Best Evil on July 29, 2014 at 12:47 PM Report this
6
@3 Can't it be both?

If you blow up an apartment complex you should probably spend a little time in jail. Just because we don't have regulations doesn't mean you have to be a complete dumbass and endanger people's lives.

Nothing is stopping people from producing their extracts safely and in more appropriate locations.
giffy on July 29, 2014 at 1:36 PM Report this
7
@6) Drug manufacturing that is unregulated (and most of the hash-oil market is totally unregulated in Washington) is pushed into dangerous locations because the manufacturers are trying to hide. They can't rent a hash-oil lab in an industrial area, get their machine inspected, or get the correct fire permits when what they're doing is illegal. If we regulate the medical-marijuana hash oil industry, we can change that. So when you say, "Nothing is stopping people from producing their extracts safely and in more appropriate locations," I think that's flat wrong. It's illegal, which is what's stopping people from doing it safely.
Dominic Holden on July 29, 2014 at 1:42 PM Report this
8
Extracting compounds from plants with flammable solvents is a perfectly mainstream industrial process that is done on a large commercial scale all over the world.

But it is done in regulated labs that aren't in residential neighborhoods, with trained personnel, safety and monitoring equipment, and inspections. That's what we need for butane (or CO2 for that matter) hash oil.

chrisgreen on July 29, 2014 at 2:02 PM Report this
9
All those dispensaries will be gone in a few years precisely because of incidents like this. A parallel system with different laws (or lack thereof) just isn't sustainable.
SPG on July 29, 2014 at 2:40 PM Report this
10
I think it is a little ironic that the main reason medical marijuana is unregulated is because of Jenny Durkin's 2011 letter to Gov. Chris Gregoire in response to SB 5073. In that letter, Durkan claimed that State employees could be federally prosecuted if Washington implemented a licensing scheme for medical marijuana. As a result, Gov. Gregoire vetoed all portions of the bill that would have created a regulated medical marijuana industry. In my humble opinion, some responsibility for the current state of medical marijuana falls on Durkan and former Gov. Gregoire.
420Attorney on July 29, 2014 at 4:20 PM Report this
11
I think it is a little ironic that the main reason medical marijuana is unregulated is because of Jenny Durkan's 2011 letter to Gov. Chris Gregoire in response to SB 5073. In that letter, Durkan claimed that State employees could be federally prosecuted if Washington implemented a licensing scheme for medical marijuana. As a result, Gov. Gregoire vetoed all portions of the bill that would have created a regulated medical marijuana industry. In my humble opinion, some responsibility for the current state of medical marijuana falls on Durkan and former Gov. Gregoire.
420Attorney on July 29, 2014 at 4:22 PM Report this
12
Legalize and regulate it! Just like alcohol still explosions these all went away when alcohol was legalized. The Federal government during prohibition poisoned a bunch of alcohol in the hopes that people would not drink it. Of course hundreds of people died and the government had blood on their hands. Laws cannot prevent people from doing things that they have their mind set on doing. Laws only give a feel good attitude to people who think they have the right to tell others what to do. A good book about all this is "Ain't nobodys business if you do" by Peter McWilliams. The government killed him to by preventing him from using medical marijuana when he was very sick. I believe he choked on his own vomit while taking a bath.
on July 29, 2014 at 5:20 PM Report this
13
@6 - I think you are missing the point. Regulating has production would necessarily mean prosecuting people who continue to do it illegally. The regulations would be meaningless and ineffectual if you didn't prosecute the people who failed to comply with them.
brent.b on July 30, 2014 at 10:12 AM Report this
14
@11 - I think the responsibility falls on Congress, not on Durkan. Durkan was simply stating the law as it stood (and stands). The reason Gregiore vetoed those parts of the law was not because Durkan pointed out what the laws said--it was because of what the laws said. The tide seems to have shifted on this issue since then, but nothing prevents a future president who has different views on marijuana from coming in and trying to prosecute everyone.
brent.b on July 30, 2014 at 11:24 AM Report this
15
@9 "All those dispensaries will be gone in a few years precisely because of incidents like this. A parallel system with different laws (or lack thereof) just isn't sustainable."

From transportation systems, to individual retirement accounts, to ways to incorporate, and so on and so forth, it seems more like our multiple layers of government exist precisely to sustain a multitude of parallel systems with different laws. Could you please provide a counter-example in support of your base assertion?

Now, I do think that having legal recreational marijuana will remove a lot of demand for dispensaries perhaps down to those who would be most properly served by the same medicines but in traditional pharmacies, but it is reckless and inhumane to consign legitimate medical marijuana patients here and throughout the country to sources and products intended for recreational users.
on July 30, 2014 at 5:09 PM Report this
16
Pretty interesting. My injuries are not listed correctly. I had way more than that and I didn't just drop out of the building. I was forced to jump due to all the flames around me and lost everything I owned.
on July 31, 2014 at 8:46 PM Report this
17
As I know the substances, not to be confused with hash oil, are made using highly flammable butane gas. Cold butane is pushed into a sterile glass tube containing crushed marijuana to extract a wax resin from the plants. The wax is purged — or heated in a glass dish set over boiling water — to create an amber-colored oil called honey oil.
reanim888 on January 4, 2015 at 11:32 AM Report this

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