Hokkaido: Man, wife found with 'marijuana wax' in residence

tokyoreporter.com -- Jul 13

Law enforcement has accused a married couple of cultivating marijuana and possessing a special form of the same banned drug at their residence in the town of Tobetsu, reports the Hokkaido Shimbun.

On June 3, officers from the Hokkaido Narcotics Control Department found 22 grams of so-called “marijuana wax,” a concentrated and more potent form of the drug, in the residence of Junji Wada, 35, and his wife, 27-year-old Misaki.

In producing marijuana wax, the buds of the plant are packed into a tube and heated with butane torch, a process that extracts tetrahydrocannabinol, or the hallucinatory element, into a concentrated form. The result is a wax-like substance that is said to be 50 times more potent than regular marijuana.

During that same raid, officers found also 275 grams of dried marijuana — with a street value of around 1.65 million yen — and 19 cannabis plants, valued at 810,000 yen.

The suspects, who have already been sent to prosecutors, admit to the allegations, saying that the contraband was for their own use, police said.