Ottawa police are starting to seize a highly potent form of cannabis called “shatter,” a drug that resembles candied maple syrup and is amber in colour. The concentrate is purified with butane to extract THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana.
It has recently been seized by police in small quantities in the Ottawa area. There have not been any large busts to date, but shatter is strong and even a small dose can have a significant effect on the user. Symptoms of smoking shatter are similar to smoking marijuana in its plant state, but greatly amplified, says Sgt. Sal Barakat, of the Ottawa Police Drug Unit.
Barakat has been involved in one seizure and has personally seen and handled the drug.
“The extraction process creates a product that is 80 per cent THC,” says Barakat. “Whereas smoking marijuana in its normal vegetative form is somewhere between 30 and 40 per cent.”
The process behind manufacturing the concentrate is troubling to police. Butane is a highly flammable and explosive organic compound, posing a risk to those making shatter in their kitchens or basements.
“The fact of using those products in a closed environment without the proper ventilation or without knowing their volatility makes it a danger to everyone,” says Barakat.
Using solvents, such as butane, or isopropyl alcohol in some instances, can be detrimental to human health if they are not completely removed from the end product. Butane and other acetones used to strip cannabis of its THC are considered poisonous to humans, says Barakat.
Shatter is not a new drug, but it is becoming increasingly popular in Ontario.
Scotties Spot is a head shop located on Bank Street specializing in medicinal marijuana “rigs” used for concentrates, including shatter. The store sells and helps those with legal prescriptions to operate different paraphernalia. Scotties has stocked the apparatuses required to smoke shatter for the past year since store manager Kimberly Estabrooks has worked there.
“Water pipes referred to as rigs usually have a hot nail at the end of them made of titanium, glass, or quartz,” says Estabrooks. “Usually, that will be torched to a point where it’s red hot and then they would put a very small amount of the concentrate on to it which would immediately be converted into smoke.”
Contrary to popular opinion, marijuana can be addictive, especially to those who start to use it at a young age.
“We know that the risk of developing a marijuana addiction is one in nine among adults who start using,” says Amy Porath-Waller, interim director of research and policy at the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse. “The risk increases for those who start using in adolescence – it increases to one and six.
“Twenty-eight per cent of Canadians aged 15 and older who used cannabis in the past three months in 2013 reported they used the drug daily or almost daily,” she added.