Tag Archives: butane hash oil

Butane Hash Oil Fires Don’t End with Legalized Marijuana

Butane Hash Oil  Labs are a Byproduct of Marijuana Commercialization

On the first day pot was 100% legal in California, three men in Humboldt County celebrated their marijuana freedom by extracting butane hash oil (BHO) from marijuana.  Their actions sparked a fire.  Helicopters airlifted the injured men to UC Davis Hospital because their burns were so extensive.   It is rumored that two of the men died.

Car fire in Arcata, on November 2, 2016. There have been 5 BHO fires in the same county, Humboldt, since the vote to legalize on November 8

Wasn’t legalization going to solve these problems?  No, because “wax,” “shatter,” “budder” — the products made from BHO and sold in dispensaries — are more expensive than homemade stuff.

On November 2, seven days before pot became legal, a BHO fire exploded a car in Arcata, CA.  A similar fire on January 14, 2017, totaled a home near Arcata in Humboldt County, injuring two people. It was the fourth BHO lab discovered in Humboldt County  since legalization.   (The photo above is from a car fire in Arcata on November 2, 2016.)   

Overhead Video of Last Night’s Fire Before Fire Crews Arrive on Scene

BHO or butane hash oil, which Californians call “honey oil” is a highly potent extract of the marijuana plant. Continue reading Butane Hash Oil Fires Don’t End with Legalized Marijuana

Parents’ Pot Use Leads to Neglect, Death in Fires, Part 2

(Part 1 shows child justice failures in Court. Part 2 of this series is about neglected children who died in fires. Part 3 covers children who die in hot cars and in drownings. Part 4 explains parents who are addicted or psychotic from marijuana. Part 5 shows how children die through violence related to pot. Part 6 presents a solution. Download our updated fact sheet on 80 deaths from marijuana. Read a previous article,Three Children Die in Colorado.)

43 Unnecessary Deaths, the Innocent Victims of Parents’ Pot Habits

On January 13, 2014, two-year old Levi Welton tragically died in a fire in Colorado while his parents smoked pot. Also in January, 2014, Heather Jensen was convicted of involuntary manslaughter for the deaths of her sons, ages 2 and 4. The Jensen boys died in a hot car while their mom left them and smoked pot — a few weeks after Colorado’s historic vote to legalize marijuana.

The stories were in the Denver news the same month that recreational marijuana stores opened in Colorado, January 2014.  The national press ignored these two horror stories with a marijuana connection, but made a huge issue of marijuana commercialization, the story promoted by the marijuana industry. Continue reading Parents’ Pot Use Leads to Neglect, Death in Fires, Part 2

Marijuana Industry Aims for West Coast of Weed

How can a babysitter in California who allowed a 17-month old baby to die in her charge while she smoked pot be acquitted?

Why did a marijuana-intoxicated driver who killed Rosemary Tempel and injured others in Seattle receive a lesser charge of vehicular homicide which can get him out of jail in 3 years?

Rosemary Tempel, a nurse, was killed by a marijuana-intoxicated driver on July 17, 2012, less than 4 months before I-502.
Rosemary Tempel, a nurse, was killed by a marijuana-intoxicated driver on July 17, 2012, less than 4 months before I-502 passed in Washington state.

(The driver was driving without insurance, on probation, had previous marijuana DUI, domestic violence charges, and the judge refused to allow the marijuana in his blood as evidence.)

How can a man in Oregon who made butane hash oil out of marijuana while his children were in harm’s way never be charged with a felony or misdemeanor?    (He suffered burns and the friend who was with him later died. Insurance covered his $1.3 million in burn treatment, but he is  filing suit against the butane suppliers, despite the well-known dangers of making BHO. )

With much of the expensive real estate in the west owned by foreign business interests, both in Vancouver and in California, it seems as if the prevailing powers are just hoping to have a “doped up” population on the west coast to control.  The illegal marijuana grows have had a devastating impact on California’s water supply.    Yet, the marijuana industry/lobby has made clear its intention to make the western coast of North America a solid block of territory where marijuana is legal.

The Oregonian featured a series of articles on hash oil explosions, May 5, 2014.
The Oregonian featured a series of articles on hash oil explosions, May, 2014.

If these accidents were caused by alcohol instead of marijuana, there would probably be less sympathy in the justice system.  It’s a sad state for the west coast of North America, if the rights of marijuana users continue to go unchecked.

Alaska voted to legalize in November, despite the wild, marijuana-related murders of two state troopers last year.  Just last week, Vancouver City Council, in British Columbia, approved rules for the city’s 100 or so medical marijuana  dispensaries.   The weed community is upset that 2/3 of Oregon, the eastern part, will not open marijuana dispensaries.  Yet,  there will still be a solid weed coast from southern California to Alaska.    Some readers may be thinking it’s not legal in California.  It is, however, legal for anyone 18 or over to get a medical marijuana card, for the least of medical conditions.   Nonetheless many cities and counties in California and Washington have banned dispensaries.

68 Treated in Northern California for BHO Burns

Since 2011, at least 68 people were treated for burns caused by butane hash oil fires and explosions, at northern California burn centers, including Shriners Hospital for Children, Sacramento, and at the UC Davis Regional Burn Center.

Usually those making BHO suffer the most, but several times it has happened at homes with children. The most recent baby who was badly burned in a hash oil (BHO) explosion was a 19-month old boy at a student housing complex in Montana.  The law has not kept up with the problem, as parents who engage in this deadly practice still have custody and visitation rights.  Children are threatened by neighbors who do it, too.

Butane hash oil (BHO) production is a marijuana extraction process which has exploded in popularity over the past three years. The victim had burns covering 28% of the body, according to Dr. David Greenhalgh, reporting to the Sacramento Bee in August.  A past president of the American Burn Association, he called hash oil burns an “epidemic.”  Greenhalgh’s research in wound care, skin grafts and reconstruction make him a leading national figure in the burn field.

Thanks to quick emergency response and to the quality of emergency medical treatment available in the United States,  it appears that all of the children have survived.  However, we have raised a group of young adults who are so accustomed to hearing “marijuana is safe” that they have no notion of the need to protect children from the dangers pot involves.

armhashoilburn
Photo, originally published in Oregonian, provided by Legacy Emanuel Burn Center. Top photo, Sacramento County Attorney’s office, fire in Arden-Arcade, CA, 2013

Those who make BHO and cause the explosions–31 in Colorado, this year, 20 in San Diego County within a year, 6 in Riverside County, 6 in San Bernardino County, 6 near Portland, OR and 7 in the Puget Sound—have been extraordinarily lucky.  Of those who died from hash oil explosions, at least one was in California, one in Oregon and one in Hawaii.  Two of the deaths were neighbors who were affected by the fires.  In Spokane, WA, a neighbor with respiratory problems died two months after the fire in January, while in Bellevue, WA, it was a former mayor of the city who died from a broken pelvis(see previous articles on this topic)

Downloadable Fact Sheet

Get the Parents Opposed to Pot Hash Oil Facts! Download our new flyer, which describes the hash oil explosions in states which have permissive marijuana laws: POPPOT-Hash Oil Statistics.

Hash oil explosions increase with legal marijuana, as has happened up and down the west coast, including four explosions in late November, one each in California, Colorado, Oregon and Washington.  There is a question as to how much lax enforcement of marijuana laws in parts of Washington, Oregon and California have allowed the practices to continue.

Fires while in the Care of Neglectful Parents

At least 2 children died by fire this year when neglectful parents smoked marijuana.  BHO is not the only way marijuana users threaten children by fire, because pot-smoking parents can be “out of it” and consumed by addiction.   Two-year-old Levi Welton of Sterling, Colorado, was left alone with his four-year-old brother with matches while his parents smoked marijuana with friends in another room.  (The parents and his brother survived.) In Oregon, during the last week of October, a mother was high on marijuana as a fire consumed her four-year old son.   Neighbors reported her too stoned to be aware and to show any emotion when her son died.

It also happened last year in a state without a legal marijuana program. In Pennsylvania woman pled guilty to leaving her 3-year-old twins to die in a fire while she left the house to see whether her marijuana had been stolen by her 15-year-old daughter.  Police say the boys turned on a burner on a grease-covered stove, sparking flames that soon engulfed the house.

The cost of an addiction is putting the substance ahead of the loved ones.   About 1 in 6 who begin using marijuana under age 18 become addicted, although marijuana promoters claim it is not addictive.

Oregon recently enacted a law forbidding daycare employees and operators from using medical marijuana.  Let’s hope other states follow suit, and that, in family courts, states do not give custody and visitation rights to marijuana-using parents, especially those making BHO.

As California Gov Jerry Brown has said, the world is too dangerous a place for Americans not be alert by using pot.  This concept applies to parenthood.  Parenthood is too large a responsibility for us not to protect our children. We need not expose small children to the manufacture of BHO or put them in the care of parents who prioritize marijuana over their children.  However, when neighbors make hash oil, parents may have no warnings.

Our tolerance for marijuana has  taught a new generation of young adults that marijuana is safe.  Making BHO is mainly done in western states, but the explosions have happened in Florida, Ohio, Massachusetts, Florida, Chicago, Michigan, Virginia, Houston.  It will spread east if we don’t watch out.  No longer should anyone say, “safer than alcohol” or “it’s just pot.” We have sent the wrong message, and need to replace it with a message that parenting and pot use do not mix.