Pubdate: Sun, 24 Nov 2013
Source: Fort Collins Coloradoan (CO)
Copyright: 2013 The Fort Collins Coloradoan
Contact: http://www.coloradoan.com/customerservice/contactus.html
Website: http://www.coloradoan.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1580
Author: Christopher George Hughes
Note: Christopher George Hughes is a Fort Collins resident.

REFINING HASHISH WILL BECOME SAFER WITH RIGHT RULES, OVERSIGHT

When done properly, the refining of hashish can be accomplished with 
very little or no risk to the hash maker and the public.

The problems and publicity arrive when people blow themselves up 
because they are neither professional chemists nor very prudent about 
safety as a skill set for workplace survival.

Medical marijuana retail stores have just recently come back to the 
city. While they were gone, a power vacuum allowed home chemists to 
step in and start making hash for the city and surrounding area: 
supply and demand.

Just because you outlaw the supply, retail stores, the demand, hash 
smokers, does not dissipate.

The city of Denver has a robust medical marijuana system, including 
highly trained, full-time hash chemists and fire inspectors who care 
about safety.

Marijuana-infused products' license holders are held to a high 
standard by the MMED and other businesses in the industry. These 
chemists take cannabis plant material to sell as medicine in its 
current state and safely convert it into a wide range of concentrate products.

All of this is done in a laboratory setting, with safety measures in 
place above and beyond any anticipated problems.

For the most dangerous step in the butane hash process, these 
licensed facilities use a very expensive lab-grade drying machine to 
purge the last drops of butane from the hash under a high vacuum. 
This is the part of the process when many people perish or experience 
explosions. Most home chemists do not have $10,000 for a fancy 
flame-less vacuum chamber.

Instead they attempt to purge the last of flammable gasses' alcohol 
the old-fashioned way, by heating it directly with a hot plate or 
even an open flame.

Under no circumstances should applying direct heat to butane be 
considered safe.

Thankfully, Fort Collins voters agreed to allow medical marijuana 
stores back into the city. This will begin to choke the market of 
homemade butane hash and instead reroute that commerce through 
businesses that make the same product safer and cleaner.

The solution to people blowing themselves up making hash is not to 
get rid of the hash but to regulate its production, like other cities 
in the state already do. Distilling alcohol involves dangerous 
flammable vapors capable of explosive accidents.

Despite that risk, Fort Collins is home to many professional, 
accident-free distilleries that pump out highly flammable ethanol on 
a constant basis.

The fact that a prominent dispensary owner is on the home page of the 
Coloradoan website making butane hash indoors ("Hashish: An 
explosive, sometimes deadly, means to higher highs," Nov. 3) shows we 
have a long way to go before we make the industry as safe as it needs 
to be: Never indoors without a laboratory-grade HVAC system to 
exhaust the air, never purge flammable gas with direct heat, and 
never ever make butane hash oil unless you are licensed and approved 
to do so by the Medical Marijuana Enforcement Division and your local 
fire authority.

Any risk of fire is too big a risk!
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom