BHO specifically addresses the multitude of consumer choices and demands better than other methods because of three little words unique to BHO — full spectrum extraction. A post shared by lunatechnologies on Aug 18, at am PDT. Full spectrum extraction means the fullest representation of the plant in concentrated form. BHO extraction, on the other hand, pulls cannabinoids, THC, terpenes, flavonoids, phenolic amides, and sterols to create a full spectrum representation of the original plant in concentrated form, with all the flavors intact.
It is easy to see why this would be desirable. More elements mean more versatility, depth and variety of flavor, and an enhanced experience, which is the name of the concentrate game for consumers. In any extraction process, the ability to accurately measure and control product quality consistently while also being able to scale production is paramount to the success and viability of the business. With no single governing body, there is very little consistency in quality and potency of oil extracted by the thousands of producers out there.
Additionally, CO2 extraction requires an additional step of removing unwanted components through distillation. Unfortunately, this unregulated industry means this is not always guaranteed.
Further, a study by the CDC in May highlighted the practice of some manufacturers using synthetic marijuana instead of CBD in their oil, which resulted in the poisoning of 50 people in Utah. The onus falls on the producers and processors to self-regulate their processes and be accountable to the end product. The cost of a BHO extractor can vary by thousands — even hundreds of thousands — of dollars. The discrepancy depends largely on four factors: ease of use , product quality desired , throughput , and safety.
BHO extraction methods range from the rudimentary and extremely dangerous practice of blasting it in a PVC tube to make single batches, to fully automated light hydrocarbon extraction solutions that can process hundreds of pounds of plant material each day.
Like any industry, the labor costs involved in creating cannabis concentrates are heavily intertwined with the process.
BHO extraction, in particular, can be very labor-intensive due to the sensitivity of the process; poor timing, improper technique, or a missed step can result in thousands of dollars lost in a matter of minutes. Historically, this has made scalability difficult for BHO extractors without significant investment in both labor and equipment. Extensive training is required to operate many of the manual machines, which themselves can be complicated and expensive. Now, there are fully automated extractors — such as our own IO extractor — which significantly reduce labor costs and provide a path to growth and scalability.
Let's look at an example from Claywolf, who recently moved from a manual operation to the automated Luna IO extractor:. Coupled with the aforementioned superiority and versatility of the product, it is easy to see why many companies are making the leap to automated hydrocarbon extraction.
When done correctly, BHO extraction results in consistently higher cannabinoid count, wider terpene profile, lighter color, and better flavor than other extraction methods.
However, there are a multitude of factors that can impact the final outcome, and controlling each of these presents their own unique challenges. Perhaps the most important factor impacting product quality during the extraction process is temperature control.
Extracting at lower temperatures creates a purer product by fully separating the lipids from the waxes. When considering a BHO extractor, cooling power and cooling consistency are two of the most important factors to take into account.
This is especially crucial for live resin, which is extremely sensitive to temperature fluctuations. Home growers and mom-and-pop operations may not recognize the huge advantages of automated BHO extraction, or comprehend why a capital outlay in the hundreds of thousands of dollars would be necessary.
But these are not the good old days. Companies such as Tilray, Canopy, and Aurora boast multi-billion dollar investment rounds and stock valuations. In many states, including Arizona, Colorado, California, and Oregon, cannabis is being cultivated in greenhouses in excess of , square feet, producing more than 50, pounds of flower.
Large-scale Canadian producers are building greenhouses in the millions of square feet. Companies that do not have long-term, sustainable solutions for processing concentrates will quickly find themselves on the outside looking in. Perhaps the most important aspect of hydrocarbon extraction is safety.
Over the years, BHO has had to overcome its share of bad news in the safety department. Butane is relatively inexpensive, which leads to a low barrier to entry for backyard operations. Lack of understanding of its elements and proper precautionary measures have led to some unfortunate events, even costing lives. Not only that, but these. Despite the regulatory advances made, BHO still has a safety stigma attached to it, both in terms of processing safety and consumption.
But the reality is, each extraction method has its own risks. Crumble is drier than budder, much like feta cheese, and tends to fall apart when scooped up. Instead, consumers usually opt for vaping a cartridge pre-packed with oil placed in a vape pen or similar device. Sap has a thicker texture than oil. Cannabis sap is often more potent than oil but poses a bit of a dabbing challenge.
Be very careful when adding this substance to your dab rig, as it is easy to waste. At present, we are unable to outline the precise manufacturing process as it remains an industry secret. Whatever the method, it produces a distinctive liquid consistency that is runnier than sap but not quite the same as oil.
One of the biggest reasons why people love dabbing is because of its exceptional potency. Dabbing involves placing a concentrate on a heated nail hooked up to a dab rig. The heated nail turns the substance into a vapor you can inhale.
High-heat dabbing was once popular and involved a butane torch. Nowadays, low-temp dabs are a bit more common. They still require a torch, but the nail is heated to a significantly cooler temperature. If you want to skip the torch rigs altogether, opt for an e-nail, a flameless alternative.
E-nails are controlled by a temperature adjusting controller and a small heating element that covers the nail. BHOs such as wax or shatter are not good candidates for vaping because of their thicker consistency.
There is also a messy clean up to face. Butane hash oil is an incredibly potent form of cannabis concentrate. BHO is extracted from the cannabis plant by using liquid butane as a solvent. BHO comes in different consistencies, such as shatter, sap, and budder, among others. Please note that cannabis concentrates contain exceptionally high THC levels. They also reported hoarding their supply and only using in isolation, behaviors not normally associated with marijuana.
Meier 27 argued that symptoms of physical dependence were more common in BHO users than among those that only used traditional flower cannabis in the last year within a sample of marijuana users. Analysis of social media data suggest that dabbing is more frequently discussed in medical and legalized recreational states 29 ; whether this is a result of use being more common in those areas or users simply feeling more at ease posting about marijuana than in prohibition states is unknown.
Their work also suggests males and those with lengthier marijuana use histories are more likely to use products like dabs. While Daniulaityte et al 29 demonstrate variation in dabbing discussions via social media, their work fails to fully capture public interest and the rate at which curiosity about dabbing is changing.
Similarly, Krauss et al 28 describe user characteristics through unobtrusive measures, but do not report on the full social context of dabbing.
According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health NSDUH , the percentage of people 12 years or older, who self-identified as current marijuana users, has increased between and — approximately 6.
This increased popularity of marijuana has been attributed to the emergence of recreational marijuana markets, successful therapeutic practices involving medical marijuana products, and changing norms around the acceptance of marijuana use and its potential danger. There are a few types of BHO that are repeatedly described in the available recreational cannabis literature. The two main types of hash-oil are wax and shatter. Wax BHO concentrates usually do not have a full crystalline structure; this is due to purposeful agitation by the user or due to some undesired disruption during the extraction process.
The subcategories of wax concentrates include sugar crumbles, wax crumbles, and butter wax. Sugar crumbles have a crystallized surface. On the other hand, wax crumbles, are similar to sugar crumbles because they crumble apart easily but they maintain a smooth, slick surface.
This is oftentimes dependent on a number of outside factors such as temperature, humidity, and production techniques. Shatter concentrates are typically differentiated by how translucent they are but that does not necessarily reflect their perceived quality among users.
Concentrates appear to be popular among those with access to medical marijuana — medical marijuana patients even seem to use concentrates at a much higher rate than non-patient marijuana users.
Empirical studies in general suggest that vaporizing commercially produced concentrates does lessen the consumption of byproducts and lead to purer dosing 37 ; however, the lag time between administration and the onset of effects in patients is often associated with redosing and thus larger quantities consumed than anticipated.
Regardless, medical marijuana patients are likely less negatively affected by dabs as they have access to products manufactured using a well-regulated closed-loop system. Additionally, products intended for medicinal use may have lower levels of THC and higher levels of other cannabinoids associated with more therapeutic properties.
We maintain that an underappreciated risk is associated with recreational users creating and consuming dabs made via an open system by an amateur without oversight of any regulatory body and in violation of the law. Essentially, BHO products are potent marijuana concentrates that require the butane as part of a careful process of extracting THC from marijuana plant product.
In addition to their location on the more potent portions of the plant, trichomes also appear in areas thought of as too low in THC concentration for traditional marijuana smoking. There are also other, increasingly less popular, amateur methods of extracting THC from the cannabis plant including using solvents such as isopropyl alcohol, CO 2 also used commercially , and other chemical-based solvent extractions, 2 but in the marijuana community, it appears that butane is perceived as the more efficient alternative for amateur production.
Available research on amateur BHO production techniques states that users will place dry marijuana material in a tube that is usually made of steel or glass and sealed on one end with some type of filter coffee filters, a portion of a window screen, etc.
The tube is packed tightly with marijuana product and liquid butane is poured, generally from a small user-grade butane canister, into the open end of the tube. The liquid butane extract passes through the filtered end of the tube, leaving a solid waste-product in the tube that is either discarded or used in edibles and other low-potency products. The second step of the process is referred to as purging. This involves attempting to separate the butane from the resulting material in order to yield a high THC product with minimal butane.
Heating plates, vacuum ovens, shaker plates, spatulas, and other devices may be used to differing degrees of risk to assist butane vapors in leaving the substance. It has a lower explosion limit of 1. These vapor pools are easily ignited by a spark, flame, or static electricity and are the cause of the majority of the harms associated with butane hash oil production. Commercial production of extracts in medicinal and recreational states generally does not carry the same risk of fire as it utilizes a closed-loop system that recycles the solvent whereas the process described above is considered an open system as the butane escapes.
Within a closed-loop system, a machine recovers and recycles the butane; it is not released into an area in which it may be inadvertently ignited.
While the butane that is purged during open system production is worrisome due to fire risk, a portion of butane used likely remains within the product — the amount depending on a number of factors both related to the skill of the producer and environmental conditions such as temperature and humidity. The popularity of at-home BHO labs appears to be rapidly increasing due to an array of reasons including but not limited to curiosity, the perceived ease of production, 6 and increased potential opportunities for financial gain.
For less than dollars, many users are able to purchase the equipment necessary for an at-home BHO lab 2 and utilize both high-THC parts of the plant and trim to produce a powerful product. Despite the attempts of recreational and medicinal marijuana states to regulate the at-home practices of individuals, there appears to be a marked rise in hydrocarbon and flash burns associated with BHO production in these areas. A similar study conducted in California identified eight BHO-related burn incidents that were managed at the burn unit of the University of California, Davis Medical Center between September and September The study indicates that there appeared to be an increase in the BHO production performed by small groups of people, rather than by individuals, thus, increasing the number of burn victims admitted to the hospital and overtaxing the resources of the burn unit.
The study concluded that increased awareness on the dangers of BHO production could potentially prevent future burn incidents. While both these studies indicate amateur BHO extraction can be tied to burns and flash fires, an argument also bolstered by police reports, fire departments, and the media, 40 any summary of extraction-related fires is likely to underestimate their prevalence.
As the blasting involves a federally scheduled substance which is also scheduled in numerous states, victims are unlikely to report the source of their burns unless forced to by circumstance. Put simply, those able to seek care without utilizing emergency services are unlikely to admit that the source of their burn was related to drug extraction.
An increasing number of fires in garages, workshops, and transient housing locations may be the result of BHO production and justifies increased scrutiny on these types of fires so that their prevalence can be adequately assessed and harm reduction approaches efficiently implemented. Recognition of these incidents is likely improving. Although only a few emergency responders have received training on how to recognize and respond to BHO-related incidents, training for law enforcement and fire fighters has become available.
The increasing number of hydrocarbon flash burns associated with at-home BHO production has forced many medical and recreational states alike to utilize the criminal justice system as a deterrent for production of butane-extracts at home. State laws generally allow for the prosecution of individuals who convert, process, or prepare recreationally used drugs through extraction or synthesis — in addition to any penalties associated with possession.
This likely would affect individuals that only assisted with one aspect of the production process using the butane or purging the butane as both alter the substance. Put another way, while laws vary between states, most characterize the in-home butane extracting process to qualify as the operation of a drug lab. In such cases, blasting would carry penalties similar to the production of methamphetamine regardless of the legality of marijuana in that state.
Many of the laws implemented are modeled on the regulations of California, Colorado, and Washington. According to Senate Bill , licensed recreational processors are still allowed to use butane to process BHO at a state-certified facility. Recreational manufacturers must use closed-loops systems. Commercial manufacturers are also concerned with ensuring closed-loop extraction methods properly recover solvents, maintain the necessary ventilation to ensure proper disposal of butane in the case of faulty recovery processes, and control access to potential flammable sources present.
In Colorado, much like Washington, it is emphasized that state-licensed manufacturers must produce BHO concentrates utilizing commercial-grade, closed-loop systems. Colorado also requires that the individuals operating the closed-loop system be certified hygienists and the systems be inspected by an engineer.
The individuals operating the systems must also undergo criminal background checks and extensive safety training. While Colorado and Washington have similar regulations, Colorado is surprisingly much stricter than Washington.
Finally, California allows medical marijuana distributors to possess and sell BHO products but not to produce. Despite the legal strides a number of states have taken to ensure the safety of their communities, the regulation of BHO has done very little to control the rise of BHO-related explosions and fire incidents. As the population draws information from the media and may choose to base their behavior on that information, it becomes important to identify what information reaches potential BHO users in order to direct public health campaigns or other response.
Therefore, we assessed the quantity and content of print media coverage within a sample of 20 high-readership newspapers selected through a stratified sampling technique. The United States was divided into five regions and four papers were randomly selected from each of these regions. Only papers credited by the Audit Bureau of Circulation as having one of the largest readerships in the US were included in the sampling frame.
After this process, another four papers were added to ensure key local locations eg, Colorado were represented as the randomization process excluded the locations. This search generated newspaper articles, each of which was obtained through LexisNexis database. The exclusion of these non-relevant articles yielded a sample of 68 qualified articles, each of which was reviewed and assessed by two researchers according to a predetermined coding scheme.
Agreement on coding was high Roughly one-third By far, the most common primary theme throughout the articles was that of legality Users were not described often Of the articles, nearly two-thirds Cumulatively, the printed press articles portrayed BHO as harmful Alternatively The majority of articles did not address the quality of the dabbing high relative to marijuana.
Of those that did, evaluations were mixed with An analysis of reporting by region of the country revealed two key differences; a larger portion of articles written in the west described dabbing as increasing in popularity It appears that coverage in legalization and decriminalization states generally mirror that of probation and medical states except that coverage in those states frequently implied or directly argued that marijuana and BHO use were increasing Surprisingly absent from the majority of these articles was a candid discussion of fire risks associated with at-home production.
Only For this reason, it is recommended that campaigns responding to the emergence of BHO production focus on the risk associated with allowing butane to pool in an enclosed space.
Since traditional media may be less frequently accessed by potential BHO users and amateur producers, we also examined the quality, accuracy, and content of videos related to blasting posted on YouTube to determine what mis information might be reaching the public. Videos appearing to include minors, of particularly poor video quality, and in languages other than English were excluded.
The lead author viewed each of these videos twice, recording notes using a predetermined scoresheet. Safety last. The overwhelming majority of videos either fail to mention or trivialize the threat of fire.
Considering the potential for disaster if the user commits a misstep during the blasting and purging processes, it is vital to note that the majority of the videos do not contain information about potential fire or explosion hazards.
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