Pubdate: Mon, 15 Jul 2013
Source: Herald, The (Everett, WA)
Copyright: 2013 Associated Press
Contact:  http://www.heraldnet.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/190
Author: Gene Johnson, Associated Press

MARIJUANA'S LEGAL, BUT WHAT ABOUT HASH?

SEATTLE (AP) - Jim Andersen has a 40-year history with hashish, the 
concentrated cannabis sometimes referred to as the cognac of the 
marijuana world.

When he served in the Air Force in Southeast Asia, he said he 
smuggled it home in his boots. When he was in grad school in 
California, he made it with a centrifuge in a lab after hours.

So when Washington was on the verge of legalizing the sale of taxed 
pot last fall, Andersen decided to move back to his home state and 
turn his hobby into a fulltime, legitimate paycheck - a business that 
would supply state-licensed, recreational marijuana stores with 
high-quality hash oil.

"Every major culture that has marijuana associated with it has hash 
associated with it as well," said Andersen, whose company, XTracted, 
already has two Seattle locations serving medical marijuana 
dispensaries. He said his business would help prevent such pot 
extracts from ending up on the black market.

Substance abuse experts are concerned that such increasingly popular, 
extremely potent and potentially dangerous pot extracts will be sold 
and that state regulators' interpretation of the recreational 
marijuana law will allow people to buy vastly more hash than they 
need for personal use.

That, they fear, will increase the chances that some of it will end 
up in the black market out of state.

"It's a concern not just for our kids, but for kids in neighboring 
states as well," said Derek Franklin, president of Washington 
Association for Substance Abuse and Violence Prevention.

The legal-weed

law, passed by voters last fall, allows adults over 21 to possess up 
to an ounce of dried pot, 16 ounces of pot-infused solids such as 
brownies, or 72 ounces of infused liquids such as soda. When the 
state-licensed stores open sometime early next year, that's how much 
people will be allowed to buy.

The law precluded the sale of pure hash and hash oil, but didn't 
specifically address concentrated pot sales. That's led to a 
conversation about hash's place in the new legal-pot world.

The regulators at Washington's Liquor Control Board, who are charged 
with overseeing the creation of the new legal pot industry, issued 
draft rules this month saying hash and hash oil can be used in 
"marijuana-infused products" - even if the product that's being 
infused is just a drop of olive oil or glycerin, for example.

In effect, the stores can get around the ban on hash or hash-oil 
sales by simply adding a minuscule amount of some other substance to 
what is otherwise nearly pure THC, the primary high-inducing compound 
in cannabis.

Hash oils can sell for $40, $60 or more per gram, depending on 
quality - meaning more tax revenue for the state. If such extracts 
are considered a "marijuana-infused product," people would be allowed 
to buy up to 16 ounces of oils in solid form, or 72 ounces in liquid 
form. Such transactions could run tens of thousands of dollars.

"When we set the 72-ounce limit, we were thinking about marijuana 
juice or tea, not a high potency extract like that," said Alison 
Holcomb, the Seattle lawyer who primarily drafted Washington's law."

Holcomb said it will be up to state lawmakers to adopt new ceilings 
on marijuana concentrate sales early next year - before the state 
licensed stores open for business. The Legislature could also tweak 
the law to allow for sales of pure hash and hash oil - something hash 
makers would like to see.

They say if they have to adulterate their product with even a drop of 
olive oil or glycerin, customers might instead turn to medical 
dispensaries or the black market.

In Colorado, which also legalized recreational pot last fall, stores 
will be allowed to sell hash and hash oils.

"Our goal is to replace marijuana prohibition with a system in which 
marijuana is regulated and taxed similarly to alcohol," said Mason 
Tvert, who led Colorado's legalization campaign. "Some marijuana 
consumers choose to use more potent forms of marijuana, just as some 
alcohol consumers prefer a martini or glass of scotch over a beer."

The term "hash" covers a variety of marijuana preparations, but is 
generally the compression or concentration of cannabis resin rich in THC.

The preparations can involve anything from the simple shaking of the 
resin off the plant and pressing it into bricks to the use of 
stainless steel, closed-loop extraction systems that cost tens of 
thousands of dollars, use butane or carbon dioxide as a solvent and 
turn out oil that is more than 90 percent THC.

Drug-abuse prevention advocates argue the proliferation of extracts 
has also coincided with a dramatic rise in marijuana-related 
emergency room visits, often for severe panic attacks. According 
federal figures, there was a 62 percent jump in marijuana-related 
emergency room visits nationally from 2004 to 2011 - from 281,000 to 455,000.

There have also been explosions as home chemists try to make hash 
with sometimes dangerous solvents.

Hash oils, which are already sold at medical marijuana dispensaries 
around the country, can be taken by medicine droppers in liquid form, 
or by vaporization in the solid forms known as shatter, glass, budder 
or wax. By means of a metal wand, users place a "dab" about the size 
of a grain of rice on a glowing-hot metal stem of a pipe and inhale 
the resulting cloud, which delivers a powerful, nearly instantaneous high.

Andersen said many users prefer it because it gives a "cleaner" high: 
No plant material is burned, and people know right away what the 
effect is - rather than waiting an hour or more for a pot-laced 
brownie or other edible to kick in.

"Dabbing" has become ever more popular over the past decade; a 
festival in Denver over the weekend was devoted to it. Ralph Morgan, 
owner of OrganaLabs in Denver, with two medical marijuana 
dispensaries, said hash and other concentrates now make up nearly 
one-third of his business.

"This is the way the industry is going," he said.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom