Tag Archives: hash oil explosions

4 Die from California BHO Lab Fires, 32 in 2014

One of 5 men injured in the butane honey oil explosion April 13 has died, bringing the total of BHO deaths in California this year to 4.  It happened in Redding.  On Wednesday night, two more people burned in a BHO fire in an RV park in Redding, with one victim burned on 84% of his body.

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 5, 2014.

Called BHO labs for short, the term is used to describe how amateur chemists use fire to extract the potent hash oil from the marijuana plant.  Other nicknames for BHO are “honey oiI,” “dabs,” “wax” Continue reading 4 Die from California BHO Lab Fires, 32 in 2014

Twenty Children, Twenty Deaths Tied to Marijuana

At least 20 small children have died nationwide because of their parents’ or caretaker’s marijuana usage, since Colorado and Washington voted to legalize pot.    It began in November 2012,  just over two years ago, and it continues to happen in 2015.  Four of those deaths occurred in Colorado, three in California.

It’s high time that a parents’ marijuana usage becomes part of the national discussion of child custody and visitation. It’s hard to understand why Doreen Reyes of Palmetto Bay, FL, had to allow her son, 4-year old Javon Dade, Jr., overnight visitation to the father who used marijuana, cocaine, had several drug arrests and kept pit bulls.  The last time Javon spent the night with him was  in August, the time that he died.

Children’s deaths — involving parents whose marijuana use interfered with parenting — have occurred in every corner of the country—from Vermont to Florida, from Michigan to Texas, from Oregon to Arizona, from Pennsylvania to Oklahoma. The more pot promoters say that marijuana is harmless and justify their growing industry, the more neglected and abused children there will be; some will suffer and die — unnecessarily.

Marijuana users—if addicted– have a tendency to lose a sense of time and be neglectful parents, or in some cases, abusive. Unfortunately, in many cases, both parents are drug abusers.   Many medical marijuana “patients” prefer to convert pot into hash oil.  When these “patients” use butane or other flammables, they should not be given custody and should only be allowed supervised visitation.  Too many fires have resulted in children treated for burns.

Children who died in Fires, Hot Cars

Levi Welton, Kyheir and Dyheir Arthur, Andre Sosa-Martinez and Lileigh Kellenears died in fires.  Levi Welton died in a fire while his parents used pot with friends in another room.  Sosa-Martinez’s mother was also home when he died, but she was too stoned to notice sooner, or to react. In the other three deaths by fire, the parents had left the children home alone while the parents toked.

In Phoenix, a father smoked pot and forgot about time, as his three-month old son died in a hot car.   In El Cajon, CA, last summer, a child died because a couple left their 4-month child, while the mother smoked pot with her brother nearby.  In Kansas, it was a 10-month old baby girl who died in a foster father’s care while he bought marijuana, watched Game of Thrones and left her in the car.

Jamison Gray, Tyler and William Jensen, Kadylak Poe Jones and Giovanni Soto died in overheated cars.  With the passage of time and their parents’ marijuana usage, they were forgotten.

Jase Colby, Gabriela Guerrera, Natalye Price and Andrew Prior died because they were victims of physical abuse….and their parents were marijuana users. Kamari Taylor died because of his mom’s violent boyfriend, who left the child alone as he went out to sell pot. Paxton Stokes’ death is a little more mysterious, but it was probably the marijuana-using mom’s boyfriend who abused him.

Last year in California, 16-month old Harley Bradford and 33-month old Jason Bradford died by drowning while their stoned mother slept and ignored them. She was staying at the home of a friend who had a marijuana grow and hash oil lab. Although the boy tried to wake her, she ignored her son for many hours only to find both children had gone outside and drowned in a swimming pool. The saddest part is that relatives were going to take over custody of the children the next day.

In Vermont, the mother of Saunder Coltrane River Gilruth, smothered him to death while he slept. She admitted to smoking pot and drinking the previous night.  The mother smoked pot daily during her pregnancy, and her physician knew it.  The infant was only 27 days old, and was at risk because of his very low birth weight.  When alcohol or other drugs add to a parent’s impairment, it doesn’t minimize the danger of today’s high-strength pot.

These cases do not include the many children who have been put in harm’s way while their parents made butane hash oil, and caused explosions. Since November of 2012, at least two dozen children have been in homes, apartments or hotels where BHO fires occurred, in Colorado, Oregon, Washington, California and Montana.  A tremendous amount of luck, and quick emergency services, have allowed these children to survive.

While the Press reports on the glamor of those in the marijuana business, young people and young parents have the wrong impression of marijuana’s risks. While everyone acknowledges that heavy drinking or 2nd-hand tobacco smoke are a risks for children, pot users are treated as celebrities. Thanks to Maureen Dowd’s expose in the NY Times, people have been warned to keep marijuana edibles from children.

However, where is the justice for these 20 children who died?

The Children Who Survive

Not all child abuse cases involving marijuana end in death.   One  recent case of child brutality involved a marijuana-addicted mom in Arizona.  The mom has been arrested, and the little girl survives.  In Florida, a man threw a crying 11-month old baby who suffered terrible injuries but is still alive.   Another mother and her boyfriend in Florida smoked pot all morning and ignored the pleas of her 3-year old who was locked outside until a neighbor found him.  The arrested mother claimed, “Marijuana should be legal anyways.”

In family courts, judges need to consider the extreme impairment that many marijuana users have – no matter how much they love their children. There should be requirements for drug testing, addiction treatment and follow-up which figure into custody orders.  Child Protective Services (CHS) and Departments of Children and Family Services (DCFS) are in difficult situations.

The simplest way to cut down child abuse/neglect is not to legalize marijuana, legitimize its use and call it harmless.  Our young people need better education about the harms of marijuana before they become parents.   We also need to provide plenty of ways to get addiction treatment for the parents who need it.

As a nation, we are turning a blind eye to the damage marijuana users may present to their children. We need to recognize the poor judgment and the warped sense of time that marijuana users have.  When marijuana use has been combined with fires and hot cars, children die.  See Child Abuse, Part 1 (neglect) and Part 2 (violence).

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.

Bellevue’s Massive Fire One Year Later

Exactly one year ago today a hash oil explosion in Bellevue destroyed 10  apartment units just outside of Seattle.  Three men  started the fire at 6:20 a.m. while using butane to extract the hash oil from marijuana.  One hundred police and fire fighters were called to battle the fire which lasted several hours and injured seven.

Nan Campbell, former mayor of Bellevue died in the fire after suffering from a broken pelvis. Other residents ended up with broken bones, after jumping out of 2nd and 3rd story windows.  Originally it was thought that the injuries were not life-threatening.

Residents who were interviewed lost all their belongings.  There were $1,500,000 in damages to the building and about 1/3 of that in personal possessions.  The one shining light at the end was that a woman who thought her cat was gone later found the pet under the rubble.  After investigation and with the aid of federal agents, three men were charged on July 22, 2014.

It has been said that marijuana legalization privatizes profits while the public pays all the costs.

Home processing of BHO from marijuana is not legal.  However, when police had come to investigate the two men living in the apartment on October 17, they showed their medical marijuana cards and denied making butane hash oil.  One of those charged was visiting the complex.   At least 5 other explosions occurred in the Seattle area this year.

A hash oil explosion at a Bellevue apartment complex in November 2013 ultimately led to the death of the city's former mayor and injured several others. Photo: Courtesy U.S. District Court Of Western Washington
A hash oil explosion at a Bellevue apartment complex in November 2013 ultimately led to the death of the city’s former mayor and injured several others.
Photo:  U.S. District Court Of Western Washington

This year 31 home explosions triggered by making the marijuana concentrate, BHO, occurred in Colorado by the beginning of May. Butane is a highly volatile solvent and a flammable gas at room temperature. Without proper ventilation it can easily go off like a bomb with ball of fire, blowing out windows, and doing damage to a house, condo or apartment and putting innocent neighbors at risk. This is particularly of concern to multilevel housing units like motels, condos and apartment buildings.  Twice children in Colorado were trapped on the 2nd level and had to be rescued.

The first hash oil explosion in Colorado happened in 2012.  There  were 11 explosions in 2013.   With legalization these incidence increase.

Legalization increases desire to get high, and get the faster high, but at what expense to the rest of us?

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.