A Paradise man is behind bars after law enforcement discovered what they described as a large-scale butane honey oil lab on a quiet residential street shortly after 2:30 Friday morning. Officers responding to a disturbance found evidence suggesting illicit activity.
Paradise police, backed by sheriff’s deputies and the narcotics team, seized over 300 pounds of marijuana leaves awaiting processing, over a pound of marijuana bud, nearly three pounds of refined butane honey oil, just over an ounce of kief and two and a half ounces of MDMA.
Kief is resin shaken from marijuana flowers. Butane honey oil is a smokeable substance refined from marijuana leaves. The potentially dangerous production process concentrates the small amounts of THC in cannabis leaves.
Detective Doug Patterson is with the Butte County Sheriff’s Office Special Enforcement Unit.
“It’s stuff that used to be thrown away and it’s now being used to manufacture hash oil, and specifically one of the most popular solvents is butane, so that’s how we get the name butane honey oil,” Patterson says.
Arrested was 33-year-old Paradise resident Donald Heuer.
Authorities said three of the rooms of the house, located on the 1200 block of Bennett Road, had been converted into grow rooms.