Manufacturing cannabis shatter involves using dangerously explosive solvents like butane that have hurt many people attempting to make the honey oil outside of a controlled environment. Andrew Jones, the owner of Connoisseur Concentrates also believes that other businesses are going to rip him off of his inventions.
Mr. Jones has invented and patented a device called Mr. Extractor, which allows people to supposedly create the concentrated marijuana extraction safely. These sorts of innovative ideas are a major part of the green rush, but other businesses are eager to capitalize on marijuana as well and may at times take concepts from others. Have you come up with any original ideas for the marijuana industry?
Andrew Jones’ company Connoisseur Concentrates has a marketing video on its website that can only be described as perplexing.
For an hour and six minutes, Jones, clad in a white hoodie with the word “Crooks” silkscreened on the front, tells viewers how he’s poised to dominate his industry with patents, how his product is the best on the market and how he can sue anybody who infringes on his intellectual property.
“People want to come in and make a quick buck off of us,” Jones says of outsiders he fears will soon lay claim to the cannabis industry. “It shouldn’t happen and it won’t happen, and if we’re really smart about it, they’ll work for us.”
Jones, 37, specializes in one of the most lucrative segments of the marijuana industry—extracting butane hash oil, or BHO, a sticky, honeylike substance that is distilled essence of cannabis.
Hash oil, which concentrates THC or CBD, the active ingredients in marijuana, is used in vaporizer pens, baked into edibles, or formed into translucent sheets called “shatter,” which is used to dab. In dabbing, a small drop of highly potent extract is evaporated on a heated surface, and the user inhales the fumes.
Extracts, according to the research firm BDS Analytics, make up almost a quarter of Oregon’s $400 million a year cannabis market.
Extracting the oil from marijuana can be risky, because it involves pressure and highly flammable materials.
Jones claims the device he patented last year—it’s called “Mr. Extractor”—is the best way to reduce such risks and produce a pure product.
Mr. Extractor, manufactured in Tualatin, retails for $10,000. Jones says he has sold about 50 of them, though the real money, he hopes, will come from licensing his patents.
In a video he made about his plan for market dominance, Jones and his attorney, Holly Johnston, explain the legal protections he has secured and warn competitors not to appropriate his technology.
“I’m pleased to announce that Connoisseur Concentrates has secured the federal patent rights for virtually all closed-loop extraction systems in the country,” Jones says.
In an interview with WW, Jones says the legal talk was meant to send a message: “I wanted to scare some people.”
To some, Jones represents the new wave of cannabis entrepreneurs, chasing the riches the industry promises with the zeal of Silicon Valley techbros. To others, however, Jones is a profiteer who’s relied heavily on other people’s inventions.Few are more critical of Jones than JD Ellis, the man many people say actually developed the process Jones patented.
