APRIL 13, 2015
REDDING, CALIFORNIA
What happens when you discharge flammable gas into a room
while trying to concentrate marijuana indoors? There’s an easy answer to that
question:
eventually you blow your house up, get severe burns, and go to the
hospital, before going to jail and getting charged with running a drug lab.
Five suspects in Redding, CA. are learning this the hard way
this week after firefighters responded to a midnight call of an explosion in a
residential Redding neighborhood Monday.
Reports indicate the suspects were venting cannisters of
butane indoors in an effort to extract and concentrate the active ingredients
in cannabis plants.
“The garage’s roof blew off and landed across the street,
and the garage collapsed,” according to reports.
Police and fire out at a house where there was a reported
explosion in Redding this morning. pic.twitter.com/rb2R0di7K9
— Damon Arthur (@damonarthur_RS) April 13, 2015
Redding Fire Department Battalion Chief Steve Reilly said
the hash lab explosion was the third in six months.
Such explosions are on the rise as the prices for marijuana
plummet amid legalization, leading amateur chemists to chase profits to be had
from extractions of plant waste. While plant waste is considered garbage,
extracts derived from waste can retail for about $40 per gram. Medical cannabis
extracts in California are a surging, multi-million dollar industry with zero
regulation. Butane hash oil is illegal to make in California, but legal for
medical patients and collectives to possess. Other states, like Colorado are
regulating commercial extraction like they would hard alcohol-makers.
Pending legislation in the California Assembly would
increase prison sentences for hash oil manufacturers who injure others,
especially children, in residential explosions.
Experts say cannabis extraction using flammable solvents
like butane must never be performed indoors. Extractions can be safely
performed by trained, certified technicians working with open systems in an
outside area, or with closed-loop systems in certified industrial facilities.
For perspective, every year Americans who try and deep-fry
turkeys cause an average of five deaths, 60 injuries, the destruction of 900
homes, and more than $15 million in property damage, according to the National
Fire Protection Association.
Source: http://blog.sfgate.com
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SUSPECTED HONEY OIL
LAB EXPLOSION IN REDDING BURNS 5 MEN, BLOWS OFF ROOF
APRIL 13, 2015
Five men were seriously burned and a Redding neighborhood was
jarred awake early Monday when a suspected honey oil lab exploded inside a
garage, sending its roof flying through the air, authorities said.
The explosion occurred about 1 a.m. in a detached garage in
the 1600 block of Green Street, a quiet residential neighborhood packed with
single-family homes. When firefighters arrived, they found five men wandering
around out front with third-degree burns, said Deputy Chief Gerry Gray of the
Redding Fire Department.
Though the men refused to cooperate, investigators found
evidence of a honey oil lab inside the garage, including several butane cans,
Gray said. A honey oil lab produces highly concentrated THC, the chemical that
gives marijuana its “high” effect. The gooey substance is also called hash oil.
Butane is used in the concentrating process and explosions
involving suspected honey oil labs are becoming more frequent in Redding, Gray
said.
“We’ve seen our share in the last couple of years,” Gray
said. “Ironically, in about half the incidents, the explosion blows the fire
out.”
That was the result in Monday morning’s blast, he said. The
force of the explosion was so great it blew out the flames after the initial
fireball and shot the garage roof 40 feet down the road.
Gray lamented the rash of incidents on Twitter on Monday, saying
“5 burn victims transported to hospitals this AM from possible honey oil
explosion in #Redding on Green Street. Becoming too frequent.”
Gray said one of the worst incidents happened late last
year, when a lab inside a multi-family apartment complex exploded and destroyed
three units. Four more apartments were burned by the subsequent fire, he said.
“The butane is not just flammable, it’s explosive. When you
do this in a house that’s confined, all it needs is an ignition source and then
we have a problem,” Gray said.