THE FIGHT TO BAN BUTANE.

I have decided to dedicate this page to informing the public of the ongoing misconceptions of butane and their malicious attacks against the use of butane as a solvent when extracting oil chemicals in the food industry or any industry for that matter.

I have typed a reply to several malicious articles recently published by unsuspecting editors such as the one below.

http://blogs.westword.com/latestword/2011/02/butane_hash_dangers_edibles.php

PLEASE COPY THE REPLY BELOW AND FORWARD IT TO ANYONE YOU THINK SHOULD READ IT.

Please join us to fight for your right to produce the highest quality product using a system we should all have the right to use.

My reply.

I am reading your article and felt compelled to send you this email.

I am not sure if you are interested in learning about why butane

is most preferred and a safe choice of the preferred solvents used in oil

production or not.

But if you are, I would like to offer my professional insight into

the key points you are very admirably concerned with.

However, I would like to add that if a solvent is dangerous or flammable

is not avoidable. What is avoidable is if the danger, if any, is passed on to

the end consumer and can it be avoided in the process of getting it there.

For example, toxic solvents are used in the food industry.

Butane is considered non toxic and a safe alternative in those choices.

The dangers are addressed and avoided every day.

Ammonia is used to disinfect meat and on and on.

I would like to point out that your current extraction method may be lacking

some key components in the plant you have dedicated a large amount

of time and effort to obtain. Water extractions.

First off, Oil and Water don’t mix. Neither does wax and food.

They are not the same polarity and never will unless you add a surfactant of some sort

or reach a SC state and polarize your solvents by some process that is usually limited to a

few select people.

Usually surfactants are not added until you get the refined end product.

There are many varieties of components in that plant that all have varying

degrees of polarity. This is key and should not be overlooked.

To do so would inhibit and even destroy the ongoing learning process

we are all undertaking now as we all discover what is important in the plants.

LETS TALK ABOUT SOLVENT CHOICE

Of the solvents preferred for extracting oil.. CO2 is a great choice but not the best.

Other than the potential use of high pressure for CO2, just like any unsafe

practice, the danger can be avoided if done in a lab by professionals, you can learn to make

it work and it will work very well.

Labs are synonymous with dangerous practices and that is the reason we have

them as well as the lab permits that govern their existence.

These permits and labs allow the trained professionals to deal with that

fact. Facing the dangers safely. That is another story and one that needs to be

addressed in more than just the state of Colorado.

In Texas we have this permitting structure already and Butane is not one of

the concerned chemicals on the long list of concerns.

The chemicals used to produce illegal drugs and the dangerous chemicals to

produce drugs are not outlawed here but the use of them is controlled to

allow us to continue to use them safely.

With CO2 you will not have a high yield unless you are very educated in the field of

polarization and chemistry in general. And to some degree, hydraulics.

And even then you will find that you need to add another solvent to the CO2 to

increase your yields. Heptane, Hexane and even Butane or anes specifically for oils.

In the end you will find that you have to use a closer matching non polar solvent

to get the highest yields combined with polar and mid polar solvents

and again, they then have to be removed. The easiest to remove least toxic solvents

are preferred.

All this talk about yields is unimportant if safe ingestion is compromised.

So lets go over the solvent options and the risk involved.

Dimethyl Ether or naphtha or pet ether. Ethers

Heptane,

Hexane,

and so on.

All these solvents are not the most friendly (toxic) and can have boiling points above

250F. Which would convert/alter some components used medicinally, so we are

discovering. As you may be aware of.

Adding heat to a flammable solvent, again can be done safely but as always

presents another danger if done incorrectly. not to mention the alteration of

the end product which may change if done after analysis which again brings up

more control techniques that we would all have to learn.

This added heat is required when using these solvents, to ensure they are completely

evaporated away and do not remain in the end product.

This is STANDARD PROCEDURE in the food industry.

It is not a new thing but a required practice.

Due to the flammability of these solvents, most compressors for vacuum distilling

them off are not an option. Requiring a special device for that purpose. Which in itself

presents another set of dangers and controls. Most people that are not lab savvy would

learn this the hard way which again brings up the more important point of permitting

labs.

An electrical, mechanical free system would be most advantageous but

the high evaporation temps of these other solvent choices render a system free of

these devices impossible.

In addition, due to their known minor toxicity levels and not so easy evaporation some

concern has been raised about their use in the food industry. However, that concern

is of no concern if done correctly and so they continue to be used today.

Ammonia is used to disinfect beef and is approved for production of consumed

food that we consume now. It can be done safely and ammonia is far far more toxic

and costly to remove than a solvent that is non toxic and boils away at the temperature

that freezes water.

All that being said, in comes butane as the first non toxic hydrocarbon solvent

that can be recovered and reused without the aid of mechanical or electrical apparatus.

It has such a low evaporation temperature ( 33F ), for the first time you can

use a system free of electrical and mechanical systems to not only extract with but

also recover the solvent for reuse, versus letting it go into the atmosphere which

is what most of the other solvent choices would be removed by.

The fact that butane is non toxic could include it in an organic process due to the fact

that it is non toxic and evaporates so cleanly. This is the reason it is the primary choice of

solvent when a non/polar solvent is required for oil production.

If Butane sprayed into your eyes, you would not be harmed even if you  fail

to wash it out. It would evaporate instantly and leave no trace and will not

cause a reaction to your moist eyes other than drying them out.

You could not say that about acetone, or alcohol for that matter.

Butane should not be considered a choice, It should be a requirement in my

opinion. As long as the proper controls are in place.

CO2 is another safe choice and should be included in that preferred solvent

choice with Butane above the others available which are also currently being used

in the production and delivery of food grade products today and

for decades. You have consumed food created by all these

chemicals at some point in your life.

You cannot outlaw or ban a solvent is the point.

You must control how solvents are used and food products are created.

Banning the use of butane has a negative impact on many things.

You can use butane to obtain oil from shale rock especially in Colorado and

for the first time it is cost effective. Not to mention the implications that the use

of butane solvent used for oil extraction has on environmentally friendly bio fuel

for cars. Oil from plants to fuel cars. Imagine that.

You can damn near create that fuel for free now. I don’t know of another process

that can do that. 500 continuous watts is all that is required to extract and recover

an unlimited amount of butane solvent at the rate of 1 gallon per hour per 500 watts.

A basic solar panel.

FEASABLE

In regards to CO2 the expense of obtaining the equipment suited to the high pressures

required to compress that sublimating solvent into a dense enough fog to make

it usable puts this choice out of the reach of most people. So much for free market

and increasing much needed research which is done by guys like you and me

and the many other hundreds of people out there and not just the few that have

the cash to conquer that industry. Which is now exclusively controlled and currently

out of the reach of you and I unless you are involved in the Exclusive Rights Deal

recently in play by one of the major SCCO2 extractor manufacturers.

FLAMMABILITY/TOXICITY

Flammability is not an indication of if a solvent is toxic or not.

I can extract oil from oranges or even animal fat and it will ignite and burn.

Flammability is an issue in any lab and is addressed daily.

Almost all solvents are flammable and must be safely used.

Although, unlike other solvents which fill the total air space, butane is heavy

and sinks to the floor and would require a single low ignition point versus

an ignition point that could come from any level when working with other solvents.

What determines toxicity is what happens to it if it is consumed and broken

down by the body or left intact in whole form and ingested or inhaled.

In those two states, butane is generally considered non toxic.

In a closed system that is required to recover the solvent, that is not an issue anyway.

Even so, it is far less toxic than optional solvents already in use today to produce food

grade products.

So much so that butane is used as the propellant in cooking oil spray canisters

which are used directly above an open flame in our kitchens.

Why don’t they use CO2? hmm

So is propane used to cook with and on and on. Maybe we take it for granted

just how much we already use propane and butane to produce food products

that you most likely consumed today and the day before.

Not just to cook them. But to extract them and deliver them in all forms.

EVEN With all the safe facts,

In my opinion, you should use the butane to get the product out and then

properly evaporate the solvent away by recovering the solvent for reuse

so that you can obtain a known purity weight for a prescription.

Standardize the dose and prescribe it properly.

Way before you get to the standardization process, all solvents have been

evaporated away that boil at 33 degrees F.

Well, only butane and CO2 boils at that low of a temperature and evaporates

completely. That I know of.

QUALITY

One last thing to consider is the quality and total complete extraction that

can be obtained in any extraction process.

The low recovery temperature of butane allows you to harness the low temperature

evaporating highly volatile chemicals in a plant extraction that would otherwise be lost

if BUTANE were not used and heat were required to evaporate the other solvent

choices. Which is why HPLC spikes have increased and new spikes have been

discovered using butane as the extracting solvent.

If butane solvent is singled out and banned in a state, and then the Federal

govt overcomes their fear of MMJ, you will have to move to another state if

you want to compete with as high a quality product outputted in a butane extraction.

You would have to move to a state that had the insight to think ahead and beyond

what a rightfully concerned but quick to react few has induced onto the whole

for what I believe is really about control of an industry.

Be it financial motivation or real concern for safety.

By banning/outlawing the use of butane, you will encourage or force labs to create

extractions using far more toxic chemicals that are already allowed everywhere

else if done safely and are just as flammable.

These other toxic chemicals may be safe enough and currently in use

but none are as safe as butane.

I am not really political per say but some logic must come into play at

some point. Or at least an educated perspective.

I wish you the best

David McGhee