Tracking Deaths from Hash Oil Labs Exposes the Growing Danger

People use marijuana to make butane hash oil , also called honey oil.  Hash oil labs using marijuana have replaced meth labs as the most dangerous drug labs of our time.   They are blowing up people and homes, particularly in California and in the West.

By April, 2015, the California Alliance of Drug-Endangered Children had tracked 41 marijuana lab deaths in that state between 2011 and April, 2015.  Three children had died by that time and several more were injured.   More recent information on the deaths in California  aren’t available at this time.

In California, they call it “honey oil” to disguise its connection to marijuana.  When fires are reported on the news, reporters often don’t mention the connection to marijuana.

To the 41 deaths in California, we can add:

1 two-month-old baby who slept adjacent to a room in Colorado where BHO was made.

2 in Washington, including Nan Campbell who died as a result of the massive Bellevue explosion in November 2013.  An elderly man in Spokane whose respiratory problems resulted after a neighbor made BHO died after two months in the hospital.

1 grandmother in Minnesota whose grandson used her home to make BHO

2 in New York, including Michael Fahy.  Fahy was the fire  captain who perished while putting out the fire in a marijuana grow lab in the Bronx.   The other death in New York was 19-year-old Anthony Gambale from Brooklyn.     He rallied to survive, but eventually died.

1 man in Gresham, Oregon, who died June 14, 2013, six weeks after the explosion

1 college student in Radford, Virginia

1 man in Hawaii, January, 2014

1 man in Rhode Island, explosion, on July 31, 2015.   He died three months later.

2 allegedly died after the Rio Dell fire on November 9, 2016.  The burns covered 90% of their bodies.   At least 22 hash oil explosions have occurred in California since the vote to legalize marijuana on November 8, 2016.

Legal, legitimate Labs also Explode, Resulting Lawsuits

Advocates will say these deaths will stop if it’s regulated and  allowed only in state-licensed dispensaries.  However, fires have occurred in licensed dispensaries in California, Oregon, Washington, Michigan and New Mexico.    The lab that exploded in New Mexico was one the state’s largest marijuana companies.   One of the workers who suffered from extensive burns in the fire sued the dispensary.

A construction worker burned at the Oregon dispensary fire is now suing the medical marijuana owner.

Switching to propane won’t make it safer.   Propane caused the explosion at a legal dispensary/warehouse near Saugatuck, Michigan.

Michigan or Rhode Island could be the next state to legalize marijuana.  However,  Michigan has seen its share of hash oil explosions, most of them caused by medical marijuana patients.   The one in Grand Rapids occurred with a six-year-old child in the home.    Firefighters fighting this type of fire, such as the one in Muskegon, find them more dangerous than regular house fires.    Child abuse is always a concern at these labs, and two children were present during the recent fire in Niles Township, Michigan.

We believe the regulation of butane will be very difficult, just like all other regulation programs that try to regulate these labs:  https://www.facebook.com/lostcoastoutpost/videos.   In short, regulating marijuana dispensaries is a terrible task. It doesn’t work.