Vancouver marijuana activist Dana Larsen, on the other hand, sees a more repressive reason. People are always looking for new products, derivatives, edibles and those kinds of things," he says, noting also a "change in the culture" because of all the talk about the possible medical uses of marijuana and legalization. "I think the culture around marijuana is changing. Serr sees several reasons for the increasing attention being paid to shatter. Six of those discoveries were the result of an explosion, says Serr, In most cases, there was at least one person injured. Going back to 2013, police have come across seven marijuana oil extraction labs in the Lower Mainland. While shatter has been turning up in police reports across the country, it has emerged in particular in B.C. Shatter is sometimes produced using the solvent butane to extract the THC from the 'shake' or leftovers of the marijuana plant. "Typically shatter won't be found by itself," says Mike Serr, deputy chief constable of the Abbotsford Police Department and chair of the drug abuse committee for the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police. Police reports don't necessarily break out shatter separately from other forms of marijuana, although news releases sometimes mention its seizure. Tracking shatter - which can have a consistency like hard caramel or peanut brittle - across Canada is not that easy. Often it's being done in residences and in enclosed areas, and then you're increasing the risk for explosion." "The risks and the hazards related to the production of shatter are as high if not higher than a methamphetamine lab because of the amount of solvents that's being used," says Luc Chicoine, the RCMP's national drug program co-ordinator. But shatter has been drawing more public and police attention in recent months because of the potential for explosion as it is made, using the volatile solvent butane to extract the THC from the marijuana "shake" or plant leftovers. Strong marijuana derivatives like shatter are nothing new. Without knowing how much they're taking, they don't necessarily know the effects it's going to have on their mind and body." "They don't really know how much they're taking. "It's the highly variable concentration that you see where a lot of people get into dangers," says Matthew Young, a senior research and policy analyst at the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse. Shatter discovered in Delta home invasion.With that potency, along with the dangers from its production, shatter is offering police and policy makers a new set of challenges, perhaps particularly as the federal government moves toward legalizing marijuana. It's been called "marijuana on steroids."Īnd it comes with a THC concentration far beyond anything a run-of-the-mill joint would offer.
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