17 July 6th–July 12th, 2023 phoenixnewtimes.com phoenix new Times | cONTeNTs | feeDBacK | OPiNiON | NeWs | feaTuRe | NighT+Day | culTuRe | film | cafe | music | court overturned Jones’ conviction. “We hold that [Arizona Medical Marijuana Act’s] definition of marijuana includes both its dried-leaf/flower form and extracted resin, including hashish,” the court stated in its unanimous ruling. With the legality of concentrates settled, Drip pulled up its bootstraps and went to work. ‘Soil to oil’ Because concentrates were still relatively new to the Arizona market, Priset spent much of his time experimenting with the best way to distill TruMed’s flower. “There was a lot of [research and devel- opment] — like we spent a lot of time reading forums, playing with different forms of extraction and testing. Even with the testing and the stan- dards that there were, everyone was still trying to figure out how to calibrate the machinery to make the cleanest product possible,” Priset recalled. TruMed, and now Drip, had always been patient-focused, so Pilkington, Anton and Dugum weren’t content to merely meet the industry standard for clean concentrates. The oil extrac- tion process includes harsh chemicals, such as N-butane, isobutane, propane or heptane. Once the oil is been removed from the plant, solvents used in the process are purged from the resulting concentrate to ensure product safety. Often, residual solvents are left in the final product — the industry allows as much as 5,000 parts per million to be present. “That number wasn’t going to work for us,” Pilkington said. “We wanted it to be zero parts per million because we were working with really ill people. The last thing we wanted to do was provide a product that had something that could potentially harm them.” It was an arduous process that included creating proprietary equipment and tech- niques to achieve the kind of product purity Drip was aiming for. But Pilkington said that Drip achieved its goal. “You know, I think that is the Drip difference. We don’t just want to create good prod- ucts; we want to create the best. We already knew we had amazing flower. Now we can say we have world-class products from soil to oil,” he said. reading forums, playing with different forms of extraction and testing. Even with the testing and the stan- dards that there were, everyone was still trying to figure out how to calibrate the machinery to make the cleanest product possible,” Priset recalled. TruMed, and now Drip, had always been patient-focused, so Pilkington, Anton and Dugum weren’t content to OHara Shipe OHara Shipe OHara Shipe Jared Priest pours freshly extracted live resin. Jon Pilkington surveys the growth of TruMed’s plants inside the company’s Phoenix facility. One of Drip’s most popular products, Caviar, is made from cannabis nugs dipped into melted shatter and rolled in kief. Soil to Oil from p 15
