"Their business plan was to risk the health and lungs of unsuspecting consumers in order to maximize their black market profits"

Defendants Grant James Anderson, age 31, and Adam Robert Bushaw, age 35, both of Los Angeles, were remanded into custody Tuesday morning in the Mendocino County Superior Court to begin serving their local prison sentences.

Both defendants were convicted by plea back in November of unlawfully manufacturing "honey oil" by means of an illegal chemical (butane) extraction process, a felony.

Tuesday morning Mendocino County Superior Court Judge Keith Faulder denied each defendant's application for probation and, instead, sentenced each to 60 months in local prison (aka the Low Gap jail).

As authorized by law, Judge Faulder also "split" each defendant's 60 month "prison" sentence so that each must now serve six actual months of incarceration before being released  on 48 months of mandatory supervision, a New Age form of formal supervision.

As background, defendant Bushaw explained in his court statement that he did not think it would be a big deal that they did not have a permit [to chemically process marijuana with solvents] "due to the culture in Mendocino County since everyone is involved in the marijuana industry."

Defendant Anderson's explanation was they began extracting without a permit because they needed to make money to invest back into their business. They decided to move ahead even when they could not obtain necessary permits even with the help of an attorney for their manufacturing operation. Anderson lamented that, "Sonoma County was giving out permits for marijuana extraction; but to purchase property in that area was going to cost roughly a million dollars."

District Attorney David Eyster had argued that these defendants were deserving of the aggravated sentence of 84 months. He sought a split of 24 months incarceration with 60 months on mandatory supervision.

In explaining why he thought the case was aggravated, DA Eyster made the point that not only were these men intentionally circumventing the local and state marijuana permitting processes, they were also putting their black market BHO into vape pen cartridges and marketing them under the name "Cali Piffs." Unfortunately, none of these marketed cartridges had undergone quality assurance testing by a reputable lab -- as required by law.

"Their business plan was to risk the health and lungs of unsuspecting consumers in order to maximize their black market profits," argued Eyster.

Laboratory testing of cannabis products is required to make sure, for example, that microbiological contaminants, like yeast, mold, and e coli, are not presented in the product before it gets marketed. These types of contamination can happen because of unsafe or unsanitary handling. Also, traces of pesticides and fertilizers are often found in California cannabis products, and is one of the most common reasons tested products fail laboratory inspection.

The five workers hired by these defendants to operate the manufacturing process were convicted in an separate proceeding last December. The five were convicted by plea of unlawfully maintaining a location for the manufacture and storage of controlled substances, a felony. Each is currently on supervised probation and each has completed the jail component of their probation.

The law enforcement agencies that investigated and developed the evidence to support the convictions discussed above were the Mendocino Major Crimes Task Force, the Sheriff's County of Mendocino Marijuana Eradication Team (COMMET), and the Department of Justice forensic crime laboratory.