Minnesota law enforcement officials are on edge over the proliferation of new marijuana concentrate products they say are both potent and dangerous to manufacture.

Marijuana “wax” — also known as honey oil, budder, dabs and 710 — has started showing up in the state, said Brian Marquart, gang and drug coordinator for the Department of Public Safety, at a news conference Wednesday.

It’s made by using butane gas, a common lighter or torch fuel, to break down marijuana and extract the THC in concentrated form that can then be smoked or ingested.

A standard hit of marijuana might contain 14 percent THC. Wax products might contain 30 to 90 percent, Marquart said.

Moreover, the extraction process can be volatile because butane is highly flammable.

On Wednesday, two men, 18 and 19, were charged with third-degree murder in Stearns County on allegations that a fire that started while making wax killed an 85-year-old woman, said St. Cloud police chief Blair Anderson.

Marquart said the state doesn’t yet have specific numbers on cases, but that the majority of the 23 drug task forces he oversees have reported seeing the product.

Gordon Ramsay, Duluth’s police chief, said two teenagers overdosed a few weeks ago in the city. Both survived.

The mother of one of them recorded an interview for the Department of Public Safety in which she described the experience. Her face was obscured and she did not wish to be named.

While on the drug, her son was “seeing the world as a cartoon,” hearing things that weren’t there, and eventually vomiting and having trouble breathing. He went to the emergency room.

“I was scared as hell,” she said.

Ramsay said young people seem to know about the drug while parents largely still don’t.

“I don’t believe my friends who have teenage children or young-adult children are aware of this,” he said.

Marino Eccher can be reached at 651-228-5421. Follow him at twitter.com/marinoeccher.