75A - PH - MEDICAL MARIJUANA - PROHIBIT

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They are charged with manufacturing a controlled substance, cultivating marijuana, possessing marijuana for sale, conspiracy and poisoning. The trio appeared last week in Contra Costa Superior Court in Walnut Creek where a judge reduced their bail from $1.2 million to $620,000 each. They have pleaded not guilty. Their attorneys did not return calls to the Times. Filkow.ski .said they were malting oil for Ken Estes, owner of a Riclzmand medical rrzariiuanu dispensary, who was arrested last month when police pulled his truck over on a routine traffic stop and found 27 pounds of marijuana inside. Honey oil is produced by extracting THC from marijuana Ieaves..Butane is added to crushed marijuana to separate the chemical from the leaves. Users consume the oil in food or smear it on cigarettes or marijuana joints.....Filkowski said the men were working with dozens of canisters of butane, which could have been ignited by even a small spark. She said the idea behind the manufacturing charge, which carries a sentence of up to seven years in state prison, is that the then used the butane to transform one material into another with different properties. "It turns the marijuana into another substance," she said... A half-dozen doctors who prescribe medicinal cannabis contacted by the Times said they were aware of the oil, but did not know how safe it is. Sausalito- based physician and psychiatrist Eugene Schoenfeld said butane might pose a threat of explosion to the makers, but not to the patient. "I don't tlunk there would be enough butane in the hash oil. to affect people," he said. "I don't think the butane is much of a danger to the consumer." Dydek said people who consume the oil are not at risk. "(The butane) would tend to dissipate. It doesn't tend to hang around very long," Dydek said. "The toxicity of butane is not very great. "I think there would be more problems with. people manufacturing it," he said. Source: CONTRA COSTA TIMES High-tech 'pot factories' popping up in suburban homes in California By DON THOMPSON Associated Press Writer ELK GROVE, California- Leon Nunn stepped out his front door one recent afternoon only to be waved back by a squadron of drug agents using a battering ram on a neighbor's home. The $500,000 home in the quiet subdivision was stuffed with high-grade marijuana, plants covering nearly every square foot. Th.e bust is one example of a phenomenon that has come to light recently in subdivisions around Sacramento, the capital of California. Marijuana growers with suspected. ties to Asian organized crime have been buying suburban homes many in newer developments because of the anonymity the dnig dealers believe the neighborhoods afford. They close the blinds and get to work gutting the inside, converting otherwise nondescript tract homes into the latest battleground in the state's campaign against marijuana cartels.....The Nun.ns installed security lights and. cameras and said some of their neighbors are talking of moving away...... More than three dozen homes have been found to be hiding marijuana groves in just the past seven weeks, most in. Sacramento, Elk Grove and Stockton. Like the others, the home on Elk Grove's Mainline Drive had been converted to what law enforcement officials call a hothouse, with 1,000-watt lights for growing and irrigation networks feeding high-tech hydroponic growing systems. Walls anal ceilings were smashed to allow for complex ventilation and ai.r filtration systems that vented the telltale odor through the attic. 4 75A-78