LEGALIZED POT: COLORADO EXPERIENCES EXPLODING HOUSES

Now that pot is legal in Colorado, marijuana aficionados are blowing up their homes cooking up batches of hash oil

While houses all over the country are exploding during the extraction of potent pot drops with flammable chemicals, usually butane, to produce hash oil, the problem seems to be most notable in Colorado since that state legalized pot two years ago. Those marijuana aficionados aren’t satisfied with just smoking a joint, they’ve got to have their more potent hash oil. And one mistake during the cooking process – poof – thee goes the house.

The cooking process involves butane fuel pumped through a tube packed with raw pot plants. That draws out the tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), thereby producing a gold-colored highly potent concentrate of hash oil. Because the process often fills a room with butane vapors, an accidental spark can set off an explosion. There were 32 such explosions in Colorado last year, up from 12 the year before.

Colorado authorities want a law passed prohibiting the manufacture of hash oil, but lawyers say not so fast. Because the new law made it legal to grow, process, sell, and smoke pot, lawyers insist that the manufacture of homemade hash oil cannot be considered a crime.

Welcome to the legalization of pot. The taxes collected by the state have not met expectations and are a mere drop in the bucket of Colorado’s multibillion dollar annual budgets. The black market in pot has flourished because the pot heads do not want to pay those taxes. There has been a significant increase in the use of marijuana by adults. But there has also been a marked increase in its use by kids. And - oh the joy of it all - now houses are exploding too.