We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert in a driving rain, when my passenger, James “Skywalker” Johnson, began to fidget with the well-traveled, antiballistic, Pelican-brand polypropylene case resting on the floor mat between his feet. Hazard yellow and covered with stickers, equipped with double-throw latches and a heavy-duty handle, it resembled something the modern army might carry into battle, a safe box for a delicate gun sight or high-end piece of electronics.

Skywalker is a chunky man of 32 with a burner cell phone, an exceptionally well-developed palate, and a bit of an asthmatic wheeze. A former intern for a Republican U.S. senator — his season in Washington politics left him sprinting for the exit — he has worked as a bartender, a chef, a computer programmer, and a marijuana grower. Now, he says, he’s “an ambassador for a California-based lifestyle brand inspired by the culture of hash oil.” As such, he buys and sells marijuana buds and trim, hash oil and edibles, T-shirts and hats. He’d tell you more, but many of his activities are illegal, even though his products are not. His and the names of many other individuals and companies in this story have been changed.

On a stormy December afternoon, we were headed to Las Vegas for the fourth annual Secret Cup Finals, the culmination of a yearlong series of regional judged events that bring together the best artisanal hash-oil makers in the country. The festivities were to be held in a rented mansion off the Strip. Skywalker had paid dearly for a room in a guesthouse by the pool. His fledgling concern, Jedi Extracts, was one of the sponsors. Besides looking forward to representing his brand, making new contacts, and sampling all the entries — some of which for sure would be “fire,” meaning the best of the best — Skywalker was stoked to meet up again with his friends in the elite community that has grown up over the past half-decade around the business and craft of making hash oil, called extraction.

Cool but nerdy, deliberately unkempt, more comfortable alone or in small groups, these self-taught Heisenbergs of hash oil call themselves Wooks, after the fierce but cuddly Star Wars creatures many of them resemble. Mostly men in their 20s and 30s, they favor beards and tats, blown-glass pendants, food-stained hoodies, and flat-brimmed ball caps with collectible pins decorating the crowns. Known by their colorful handles — Big D, Brutal Bee, Task Rok, Witsofire, the Medi Brothers, Hector from SmellslikeOG — the Wooks devote their lives to producing and smoking the very finest hash oil, a form of concentrated marijuana that can be extracted from the leaves and flowers of the pot plant by a variety of chemical processes, the most common of which employs ordinary cans of highly volatile butane lighter fluid as a chemical solvent.

Hash oil (the formal name is butane hash oil, known as bho ) is a modern version of hashish. The butane gas and lab equipment replace the intensive labor of patting, sifting, and compressing marijuana flowers that go into the traditional method of creating hash. Since the 1960s, devotees have been making a sludgy form of hash oil, usually on the stove in a pot using a variety of toxic solvents including naphtha, hexane, or isopropyl alcohol. A precursor to bho began to appear around 2000 in Los Angeles’s San Fernando Valley. The first recognized iteration was called Juice. It was smoked primarily on top of a green screen — a pipe bowl full of pot or pot ash. Some preferred to chase the dragon, using a straw and a hot knife or a piece of foil and a flame.

Almost from the beginning, enthusiasts started making their own pipes. Soon the glass blowers became involved; today you can buy elaborate blown-glass pipes that cost tens of thousands. When smoked, hash oil produces a more substantial rush than marijuana flowers, but the overall high doesn’t last as long. A heavy smoke session often leads to a spontaneous nap. The Wooks call this condition dtfo , Dabbed The Fuck Out. They take great sport in posting dtfo photos of one another on social media.

bho was first widely publicized in 2009, when it won “best product” at the High Times Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam. The founders of the Secret Cup, Jeremy Norrie and Daniel de Sailles, were part of the team that first brought hash oil to the Amsterdam competition. According to many but not all, they helped popularize the term dab, which was coined to describe the approximate dosage. (“Dabbing” means smoking hash oil.)

Depending on the skill and method of an extractor, a pound of marijuana can yield between 30 and 120 grams of hash oil.

Like pot, hash oil can be purchased legally in a dispensary or illegally from an extractor or a dealer. The categories of hash oil vividly denote the different textures of the stuff, which originates as a liquid but eventually hardens into a solid state unless otherwise prepared. There is wax, shatter (as in broken glass), budda (butter), honeycomb, live resin (sticky), crumble (like crack), and honey oil. Hash oil of a lesser grade and potency is also used for edibles, tinctures, lotions, drinks, and e-vape cartridges.

The colors range from vivid greens to golden yellows to burnt-sugar browns. A translucent golden amber is considered the connoisseur’s choice. As a rule, Skywalker will not smoke anything that’s not clear, even some of the Secret Cup entries. “I’m not putting that shit in my lungs,” he often says, implying that he doesn’t know who’d extracted it or how.

Because of the stigma against smoking, the medical marijuana statutes recently passed in New York allow only the use of hash oils, edible or vaporized. Smoking pot remains illegal. If New York is a predictor, hash oil may well be the future of the marijuana industry — a national market expected to reach $47 billion in total revenue by 2016.

Twenty-three states and the District of Columbia allow some form of legal marijuana use, medical or recreational. Twelve states explicitly allow for the use of marijuana extracts, which lack the telltale skunky smell of marijuana — the buzzword in the industry is discreet. However, only two states permit extraction, Colorado and Washington, where rigorous laboratory specifications must be met. “In the other ten states,” says Paul Armentano of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, “arguably the extracts are legal when they fall from the sky.”

Today, as large companies and venture capitalists rush into the rapidly expanding hash-oil arena, Skywalker and his fellow Wooks are fighting for their piece of the future. Echoing the sentiments of artisanal craftsmen in other fields, they are hoping that quality and discriminating palates win the day — or at least keep them in business as the giants grab bigger shares of the market.

Collectible pins are Wook insignias.

For the Wooks, attending the Secret Cup is like attending a high-level trade show. (For legal reasons, the finals are considered a private party.) It’s sort of a March Madness for extractors — not the only such contest in the world, but maybe the most exclusive. The regional winners were going to be present at the finals as well as some of the winners from the previous year. In all there would be 20 entrants. Bragging rights and future contracts were at stake. If Skywalker and the others want to compete in their rapidly growing field, they need to be known, to be intimate with the doings and players in their industry, to cultivate an aura of insider success.

But it won’t be just work. It is, after all, Las Vegas. These Secret Cup gatherings have become somewhat dear to Skywalker. Wooks are loners. Their lives are furtive and solitary. Most reside in rural areas in states where they could easily be busted. If they are busted — as was a friend of Skywalker’s who blew up a house when the butane exploded — none of the other Wooks will dare to call, fearing their friend’s communications are being monitored by police. As it is, their community exists mostly on social media. Attending the Secret Cup would be some of Skywalker’s best friends, the people with whom he Facebooks and Instagrams regularly. Hanging out for five days in Vegas with his fellow Wooks, eating, smoking, wreaking a little havoc on the Strip — “What’s not to like?” Skywalker said in his gruff East Coast manner.

By three in the afternoon the storm was still raging, and we had two hours left to drive. The desert sky was black. Gusting winds buffeted the car. As we made our way toward Las Vegas, the red lights in front of me were a watery mirage. Skywalker was biting his pinkie fingernail, a nervous tell I’d begun to notice during our time together. At some point, I heard a deep sigh emanating from his vicinity, followed by a rattling cough. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed him reach down between his feet, throw the double latches of his Pelican case.

From the custom foam padding arranged inside, he withdrew his Mini Sundae Cup rig. Five inches tall, made of clear glass by a company called Hitman, the pipe retails for $500 and uses a small amount of water as a filter. The bowl on top, called a nail, is an after-market add-on, fabricated of the finest quartz. (Some enthusiasts prefer nails made of Grade 2 titanium, a type used in missiles.) Placing the rig in the cup holder, Skywalker reached into his backpack and removed a bottle of water, a small paper bindle of hash oil, and a butane torch.

The torch was bigger than a cigar lighter but smaller than a Bunsen burner. He pulled the trigger, a loud click like a gun dry-firing. A 4-inch cone of orange-blue flame burned briefly, illuminating the inside of my car.

“Mind if I do a dab?”