I recently gave a talk in Colorado Springs at one of my favorite events in the field, The Winter Symposium on Addictive Disorders. It attracts a national audience but its core is people working in the addiction field in Colorado, from all walks of life and backgrounds. This was the forty-second year the event had been held and, as always, was full of fantastic information for those of us in treatment and healthcare. My talk was focused on the changing legal THC scene, locally and nationally. I was asked to address up-to-the-minute changes in the laws. Before getting to that part I gave a quick overview of the science and trends in use. I hadn’t intended to get too far into trends since these are people on the front line of treatment in Colorado, and they know this stuff as well as anyone anywhere. When I asked for a show of hands of those who were familiar with concentrates, less than ten hands went up in the room of about 300, so I decided to spend some time talking about them. This form of THC consumption is so new that not even the people in that room knew much about it. This was honestly pretty scary.
Before I get started I want you to consider that for the under twenty-five crowd, concentrates are marijuana. This is what they think of when someone says “weed.” Concentrates are everywhere and are not just being used by the fringe; they are mainstream and they are what many people picture when we talk about marijuana. You are going to think some of this must be talking about hardcore users on the edge, but it’s not; concentrates are everywhere and have become synonymous with weed for this generation of users.
It’s tough to know where to start when talking concentrates, so I think I’ll try to give you a visual first. Concentrates come in a few forms ranging from a thick oil or a buttery substance to a hard, rock-like form; think of a flat Jolly Rancher. Things in this form obviously can’t be rolled into a joint and smoked, they aren’t malleable like a plant is, and won’t combust at temperatures as low as organic substances will. Concentrates need about 700 degrees to combust, so they are best consumed on a superheated needle, a hot knife, or in a vaporizer built to get that hot. I’m guessing that many of you are scratching your heads right now wondering what the hell I’m talking about. That’s good! I’m glad that most people don’t know what it means to hot-knife a drug! Typically, I’m not a big fan of all the drug porn that Hollywood and the news media throws at us but it will help you here. Think of images you have seen of people smoking crack, meth, and heroin; concentrates are smoked the same way.
Rather than rolling a joint with buds or other parts of a weed plant, a concentrate is broken off from its rock-like form, put on something that is hot as hell and inhaled. Traditional crack pipes actually work very nicely.
Not exactly what you envision when you think “weed,” right?
Now that you know what they look like, let’s talk about what they do. In a nutshell, they get you stupid wasted, stupid fast. Since concentrates typically contain 80 to 95 percent THC, a little bit goes a long way.
Suggested consumption is “about half the size of a pinhead or less.”
Look at the ad on the following page and see the recommended dosage. Tell me America, when is the last time we did anything “half the size of a pinhead”? In fact, one of the loudest arguments in support of concentrates is that since they are so insanely strong people will consume less of them and it will all be good. We will get into that one later, but let’s be honest, it’s a total nonsense argument that makes sense to some people at face value but doesn’t even begin to pass the giggle test for those of us who know how this stuff works in the real world. When you go to YouTube and watch people using concentrates (search “first dab” for some of my favorites), you will notice that very seldom does somebody take a dab hit alone, at least not until they have built up a tolerance and can. Concentrates hit so hard that those “half the size of a pinhead” puffs very often put experienced weed smokers on their backs within a couple of seconds. You need what’s called a spotter to be right there so that when you pass out, someone can catch you before you hit the floor, or have the trash can ready for when you vomit the contents of your stomach. Seriously, watch a few videos. There are tens of thousands to choose from; it’s wild stuff. If you watch nothing else on YouTube click on this one: “Kill a Friend Day” by StonersRWeed.
What We Know About Concentrates
and the Brain and Body
Now that we know what they look like and how to consume them, it’s time to learn about what they do to your brain and body. After consulting the finest minds in medicine and addiction treatment, and taken it upon myself to gather every single bit of scientific data we have about what an 80-plus percent THC product does, I’ve discovered this, summarized below:
Um, yeah
Soooooo, concentrates, right?
Well, we think . . . maybe they . . . could be . . . never mind
They are scary
There it is, everything that science and medicine knows conclusively about concentrates gathered in one place.
There are, however, a few people doing research on the subject. One is Dr. Christian Hopfer, a brilliant doctor I have the pleasure of working with. Still, because real scientific research is a painstaking process, requiring considerable time for accurate study, peer review, and publication, it will be some time before we know the results. What doesn’t take time is an unregulated industry whipped into a frenzy of innovation, driven by easy money to take advantage of new opportunities to get into your wallet. If any other substance was being sold in our country the way this one is, we would have researched and regulated the crap out of it before letting it out for distribution and consumption. Unfortunately, regulators and the public—even those in my field—still think we are dealing with a Model T when it’s really a Lamborghini. We’re trying to build a regulatory infrastructure to keep the public safe from something that needs a hand crank to start and tops out at 20 miles-per-hour downhill with a tailwind, when in reality these guys are driving 220 miles per hour around town, laughing the whole way. .
Without empirical data, we have to look at anecdotal accounts, so forgive me while I tell you a few stories of what driving 220 miles-per-hour looks like. First, I want to refer back to the aforementioned study published in The Lancet in March 2015. This study shows a significant increase in psychosis for individuals who use “high-potency” weed. In that study, high potency was defined as 16 percent THC.
I’m pretty immersed in the treatment and recovery world. I travel a lot, and because of that I have gotten to know many people who work in this field. One of the groups of people who are most consistently misunderstood are the interventionists. If you ever walk into a room and your whole family is sitting around and there is some stranger in the middle holding a bunch of letters, don’t freak out; it’s a good thing! While sometimes portrayed in films and television shows as jackasses—and some can be bad, as in any profession—very few truly operate like that. They are amazing, compassionate people who love helping addicts and alcoholics and their families enough to jump at the chance of sitting in a situation like that where they are sure to be hated before they even talk.
One of the most amazing interventionists I know is a guy named Keith Bradley. He works for a quarter of what he could charge, and often works for free when people really can’t afford it and need the help. He once told me he is working to repay a debt that is so large he doesn’t have enough life left to settle it up. I don’t know many people who love addicts and alcoholics as much as Keith does. He takes calls around the clock and will jump in the car or on a plane on a moment’s notice to help someone suffering. He is almost always successful. I’ve personally watched him break down walls in minutes that took decades to form. Keith gets people to see the light and want to go to treatment. He says that people are always relieved to be in an intervention because nobody wants to live like that, not really; it just takes them a bit of convincing to realize it, and when they do they are relieved in many ways.
Keith truly is a miracle worker who tears up every time we talk about an intervention, but he won’t intervene on concentrate users anymore. “I would rather do an intervention on a heroin addict who has been shooting dope in the street for years than try to intervene on someone who’s been using concentrates for six months,” Keith told me. After another unsuccessful intervention attempt on a young concentrate user—the only time I’ve seen him fail—Keith was at a loss. The situation he described was beyond frustrating and broke our hearts. There was nothing he could say or do to get through to this young man; he kept ringing the proverbial doorbell but nobody was home.
After this incident, Keith had a change of heart. He drove to my house recently, notebook in hand, and asked me to tell him everything I knew about concentrates. Keith told me that he had done some serious soul-searching and decided that he was wrong to write off so many addicts; he told me that he was going to learn everything he could about the substance so that he could help, not walk away from people who needed his help. Based on the calls he was getting, it was impossible to see concentrates as “anything less than a pending epidemic” and he needed to be ready.
Some of the most frustrating calls I get at work are the people calling for loved ones who are smoking concentrates, often eight or more times a day. They are seeing the total wreckage that living perpetually über-stoned is creating in their lives, but the users just don’t seem to get it. There is a condition often associated with heavy marijuana use called “amotivational syndrome” that likely accounts for some of what we’re seeing with concentrates. While there is no solid evidence, I see it all the time.
If you’re not yet ready to call for a total ban of concentrates, keep reading. I don’t think that concentrates have any place in the world, based alone on what I’ve told you already. I believe they should be banned totally until we have more evidence on what they are doing to users in the short and long term. If all of that didn’t do it for you, maybe this will: concentrates are made by creating little bombs. Those bombs are often made by people often under the influence and in residential areas. What could possibly go wrong?
I suggest taking a few minutes to look into some of those news stories. You’ll undoubtedly find them in a quick Internet search. But first, you should first understand the process for making concentrates or “butane hash oil” (BHO). If you would rather not look at one of the 1.1 million sites that come back after a quick Google search, or watch one of the 367,000 videos on YouTube (or the one on the Denver Post’s site) teaching you how to make it, I will give a quick overview:
It helps to have a bunch of “trim.” Because we have a massive industry here, trim is pretty much given away. It’s the part of the plant that is trimmed off when getting buds ready for sale.
Take the trim and cram a bunch of it into a PVC or metal pipe.
Force compressed butane in one end of the tube and let the liquid drain out the other.
Follow one of any number of routes to “purge” the BHO. Purge is the word they use to describe trying to get as much of the liquefied butane out of the mixture before you start smoking it. Smoking butane is a bad idea in general so one wants to remove as much as possible.
Cool the BHO.
Break off a hit “half the size of a pinhead” and smoke it.
Try to forget that you are inhaling a highly combustible gas, along with more THC than the world has ever seen, before using a blow torch to heat your needle (this part is easier than it sounds once the hit has been taken).
In essence, what has happened is that all of the THC in that trim, typically no less than an ounce, has been stripped out in liquid form.
Now that you understand the basics, check out a few videos online to really get it. One especially revealing video is entitled “Quick and Easy Way to Make BHO Wax” on YouTube by realkalilove, a “medical” cardholder from California. I love the part where he goes outside “for safety” and onto the patio next to the propane grill of his apartment community. Don’t stop at my favorite, look around, there are plenty of videos to choose from, find your own fave!
Don’t shut that browser just yet my friends, we’re going to look at what happens when those less safety conscious than realkalilove make this stuff. Add one word, “explosion,” to the end of your last search. If you are feeling extra hip and want to take this to the TLA (three letter acronym) world just search “BHO explosion.”
Concentrates Are a Recipe for Disaster
I will start with a broad statement: concentrates have no place in the world and we shouldn’t allow them to be sold in stores or manufactured by companies. Until we have a better idea of how this new drug interacts with users’ brains and bodies, we need to hit the brakes and remind The Industry that just because we can do something doesn’t mean we should. Because people, specifically lawmakers and state regulatory agencies, aren’t paying attention to the details, concentrates are becoming prolific and are being pushed on consumers in an effort to expose users to a more potent and, therefore more addictive, high. Because we keep talking about weed like it’s 1970, we are ignoring the rapid advances being made by The Industry, and unless we clamp down on it we will regret our inattention. Decriminalizing marijuana is one thing, creating a new substance, the effects of which we can’t even imagine yet, then marketing and selling it out of stores is just plain stupid. Even if you are all for weed, and all for commercialized THC, we should all be outraged that this stuff is being sold as “weed” because it isn’t. This product is a highly processed, manufactured hard drug that should be treated as such. For those of you who just got pissed that I called it a “hard drug” remember my credentials and compare them to yours when forming an opinion, or to the credentials of those telling you otherwise. I’m a recovering drug addict who knows a thing or two about weed/THC, I worked in a hospital-based treatment program in Colorado, and I pay very close attention to emerging trends because I am on the ground here and in the trenches. I am not an anti-drug warrior. I am also not someone trying to make money off this stuff. When you hear a softer version of what concentrates are, ask some questions about who is talking. Is it The Lobby trying to soften the way you see commercialized THC? Is it someone who manufactures or sells this stuff who has a vested financial interest in making it sound less harmful than it is? Nobody I have ever spoken to who doesn’t consume or stands to gain financially or politically has defended concentrates.
In a recent interview in The Cannabist, (The Denver Post’s specialty publication dedicated to the cannabis culture) Ralph Morgan, the CEO of OpenVape, said that smoking concentrates will soon be more popular than smoking the plant leaves. He also said that more concentrates will be sold in Colorado in 2017 than plant form marijuana. He goes on to say he “sees concentrates being a part of people’s daily regimen . . . you have vitamin A, vitamin B, vitamin C, I think we’re going to see vitamin CBD and vitamin THC as well being part of our daily regimen as part of our health and well-being.” He is advocating the use of concentrates daily, for health. The article is called “Vape CEO: Pot Concentrate Sales Will Soon Outpace Cannabis Flower.” There is even a video.
I hear all the time from people selling this crap that concentrates are to weed what vodka is to wine. That makes my BS meter go off. It is simply not true. Concentrates are to weed what crack is to a coca plant. Put that on your hot knife and smoke it.
Enough is enough, we need to stop the manufacture and commercial sale of this substance right now before more people are hurt as a result.
For those of you who want to follow the research side of this, there is an interesting study taking place: cannabis-induced psychosis associated with high potency “wax dabs” 1 (Pierre/Gandal/Son).
Just for fun here are a few pictures advertising concentrates:
