FELONIOUS CHUNK

Possession of Hashish Is Legal for State's Medical-Marijuana
Patients, Not That Law Enforcement Seems to Know

American puffers have always had to deal with the fact that
law-enforcement officials traditionally make a distinction between
marijuana in plant form and concentrated derivatives such as hash and
kief. Now that California has legalized marijuana for medicinal use,
that distinction continues to send innocent patients to jail for
possession of hash and other concentrates, despite the fact that they
are clearly authorized by Proposition 215, according to former state
Attorney General Bill Lockyer.

"Concentrated cannabis or hashish is included within the meaning of
'marijuana' as that term is used in the Compassionate Use Act of
1996," Lockyer determined in a 2003 ruling

Nevertheless, hardly a week goes by that I don't hear about a valid
medical-marijuana patient getting arrested for possessing
concentrates. Local authorities seem to be unaware of the law.
Sacramento Police Department spokesman Sgt. Norm Leong, when asked if
hashish and other concentrates are permitted under the state's
medical-marijuana law, told SN&R that "If it's the same substance as
hash, then my narcotics sergeant told me it's illegal."

Leong called several days later to say he had since learned that it is legal.

Why the confusion? Part of the blame goes to hashish's exotic past.
Decades ago, state and federal governments made possession of hashish
a felony because it was an imported substance that was erroneously
equated with opium. Hashish is nowhere near as potent as opium, but
today many states and the federal government still classify it as a
felony, with sentences as high as 10 years for possession of more than 1 gram.

The origins of hashish can be traced to its use by ancient Persian
and Hindu cultures as a sacrament and as an indulgence for the mind,
body and spirit. Sultans, sheiks, priests and most Eastern royalty
considered raw marijuana to be a crude product, not fit for
consumption. It was hard to store and keep fresh a large bundle of
plant matter.

Hash is pure resin, an oil, which stores longer and isn't a bulky,
leafy pain in the ass. Most Middle Eastern hash-producing countries
grow cannabis for extraction purposes only. For instance, in Morocco,
cannabis cultivation is on the rise, but almost all of it is
harvested to produce hashish, the country's No. 1 export.

One method these farmers use to extract the "kif" (female pollen)
includes having naked women run through the fields. In doing so they
become covered in resin. Then comes the erotic and tedious job of
wiping the women down and saving the ball of goo that has been
collected. Most of the other methods use some variation on dry
extraction using silk screen to collect the pollen crystals and then
pressing the crystals into blond hash.

To extract more potent concentrates, the female pollen most be
further processed. In the past, the "blow yourself and your neighbors
up" method employed alcohol in a double boiler and highly flammable
petroleum-based solvent. Public safety is always a valid defense for
authorities to clamp down, but fortunately, Proposition 215 has
really opened up the avenue for experimentation into new safe and
sane ways to obtain hash and hash oil.

The most popular way nowadays is cold-water extraction. The process
uses extraction bags, which can be purchased at most local head shops
and some hydroponic stores. These bags have a silk-screen bottom sewn
into them; every bag has a different micron count. The bags range in
price from $160 to $600 and come in 5 gallon and 32 gallon sizes.

The bags are inserted into the appropriately sized container,
according to the number of microns, from smallest to largest. The top
bag holds the material--shake, buds, leaves--and a fair amount of
ice. Add water and stir with a broomstick or a drill with a
paint-mixing attachment for at least 15 to 20 minutes, and scrape the
residue in the bottom bag. To obtain the maximum yield, repeat two to
three more times. Remove the residue one last time, dry the material
out, and voila! Homemade hashish.

Many medical-marijuana patients find that concentrates are far more
effective for treating their particular symptoms. However, it's worth
repeating that some of the state's law-enforcement officials haven't
been brought up to speed on the law, which is why patients should
keep their doctor's recommendation on them at all times. And if you
don't have a recommendation, you just might be looking at a serious felony.