Man arrested in raid on Alfalfa ‘butane honey oil’ lab

A 24-year-old man was arrested in a raid last week on a butane hash/”honey oil” lab at an Alfalfa-area home where drug agents seized more than 18 pounds of BHO extract and hundreds of marijuana plants, officials said Wednesday.

The Central Oregon Drug Enforcement Team released details of their investigation and a search warrant served shortly after 7 a.m. on Wednesday, March 28 at a home in the 25000 block of Deer Lane in the Alfalfa area, east of Bend.

The CODE Team, assisted by the Central Oregon Emergency Response (CERT) Team and members of the OSP HIDTA Interdiction Team, executed the search warrant. HIDTA stands for a High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, a federal program that focuses on drug trafficking corridors such as U.S. Highway 97.

Members of the OSP Clandestine Laboratory Team also helped ensure the location was safe before detectives began searching for evidence, said CODE Team Lt. Nick Parker.

The raid came after a lengthy investigation into the manufacture and sales of butane hash/honey oil (BHO) at the Deer Lane address by three related men, including David Karl Wyrsch, 24, and Jacob Genaro Robe, 29, as well as a third man who has not been arrested at this time.

Parker said they were running a BHO lab and distributing the extract out of state, without any medical or recreational license or legal authority to do so.

“Hash oil,” also known as “honey oil,” is derived from marijuana. The “hash” or “honey” is concentrated Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, Parker said.

“Hash oil” is manufactured by utilizing highly flammable materials, such as butane, to refine and concentrate the THC, making a product which can range upwards to 90 percent THC content. Today’s marijuana sold in recreational and medical dispensaries typically has THC content ranging from 15 to 20 percent, and some as high as 30 percent.

“There has been a dramatic increase in the number of marijuana BHO lab explosions in Oregon in recent years,” Parker said in a news release.

While the investigation was underway, an OSP trooper conducted a routine traffic stop in Klamath Falls on a vehicle driven by Robe, which Parker said was not made based on the CODE Team investigation. The trooper found a small amount of BHO extract and a “substantial amount” of cash in the vehicle.

David Wyrsch, the only person home at the time of last week’s raid, was taken into custody without incident, Parker said.

Detectives seized 179 mature marijuana plants, 280 seedlings (plants less than a foot tall), more than 200 pounds of packaged marijuana, more than 18 pounds of BHO extract, 13 guns and the components of a fully operational BHO lab. Parker said the BH lab was found in an attached garage and the marijuana grow was in an adjacent outbuilding.

People 21 and older can legally possess up to four mature marijuana plants and eight ounces of marijuana leaf or bud, Parker said. Possessing 16 times that amount of plant, leaf or bud is a felony.

He also explained that it’s illegal for someone 21 and older to possess more than one ounce of a cannabinoid extract that was purchased from a licensed marijuana retailer, or more than one-quarter ounce of extract that was not purchased from a licensed marijuana retailer.

Wyrsch was taken to the Deschutes County Jail and held on drug charges but released later that day after posting 10 percent of his $32,500 bail, a jail official said. Robe was cited to appear in court on the OSP traffic stop.

The case has been forwarded to the Deschutes County District Attorney’s Office for prosecution and consideration of charges against all three residents of the home, Parker said.