E<\/span>ddy Lepp just spent eight-and-a-half years in federal prison for growing colossal amounts of marijuana \u2014 more than 40,000 plants, to be exact, believed to be the largest medical cannabis planting in history, planted within plain sight of anyone driving down Highway 20 in Lake County.<\/p>\n His defense \u2014 he was an ordained Rastafarian minister, and the plants were for spiritual and medical reasons \u2014 was no use against federal mandatory minimums. Sprung from prison in December, a month after California voters legalized marijuana, and married in June to Heidi, a former film actress and founder of the Sugarleaf Rastafarian Church, Lepp is 65 now and on five-year probation. Smoking pot \u2014 no! Bad. Winning a High Times lifetime achievement award<\/a> and associating with pot growers<\/a> \u2014 sure, why not?<\/p>\n Because, you see, the church is different. The church can grow as much cannabis as it likes. (Or so its interpretation of religious freedom laws leads it to believe.) So this spring, at least one Lepp put in a few more modest plantings \u2014 a few hundred plants here, a few thousand plants there \u2014 up and down California\u2019s Central Valley.<\/p>\n It hasn\u2019t been smooth summer. On Aug. 1, a new worker at one of the church\u2019s property in Yuba County died after engaging sheriff\u2019s deputies in a gun battle<\/a>. Two deputies were shot \u2014 they both survived \u2014 and a SWAT team had to be dispatched to roust out the man, who was killed by police. (Heidi and Eddy were the ones who called police<\/a>, after the man started acting erratically on their property.)<\/p>\n A few days later, five people were arrested and an unknown amount of marijuana seized at a Sugarleaf farm in Calaveras County<\/a> that didn\u2019t have county registration. And now, as ABC-30 is reporting,<\/a> Merced County sheriff\u2019s deputies paid a visit to a property associated with Sugarleaf Church last week.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not immediately clear how many plants were seized \u2014 though it\u2019s clear that there were more than 12, which is the limit in the county, according to the local sheriff \u2014 but Heidi Lepp says she\u2019s suing Sheriff Vern Warnke for violating her civil rights, committing a hate crime, and ignoring her religious persuasion.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re not respecting my church,\u201d she told the television station. \u201cIt\u2019s not fake and I\u2019m not hiding behind anything.\u201d<\/p>\n Religious organizations whose sacraments center around cannabis have had mixed success using religious freedom laws to trump federal drug laws.<\/p>\n The founders of The Hawaii Cannabis (THC) served prison time after using marijuana grown on their property during weddings and baptisms<\/a>. In Indiana, the founder of the First Church of Cannabis<\/a> filed a lawsuit<\/a> against local police who took a dislike to the church\u2019s use of cannabis during ceremonies. Organizations associated with tribal religions have had to sue<\/a> federal drug agents to recover stashes of cannabis and peyote.<\/p>\n So Lepp turning to the courts is the next logical step. For now, though, Sheriff Warnke appears to be holding fast.<\/p>\n \u201cThe individual filing the lawsuit is a drug dealer and doesn\u2019t like the idea that I don\u2019t care that they\u2019re hiding behind a religious claim,\u201d he told the television station. \u201cIf it\u2019s illegal, it\u2019s illegal. There\u2019s no getting around legality by calling it a religion.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re dealing, they\u2019re playing the sympathy card and saying, \u2018Oh nuns can do it, the church can do it,\u2019 it\u2019s lipstick on a pig,\u201d he added. \u201cCall it what you want \u2014 it\u2019s still drug dealers.\u201d<\/p>\n Meanwhile, other law-enforcement agents have paid visits to the Lepps\u2019 church property in Yolo County. They appeared to take no plants, though in a Facebook post, Heidi Lepp accused them of swiping her church\u2019s genetics.<\/p>\n If the Merced lawsuit travels to the state Supreme Court, it could set precedent other churches may follow. It could also throw a wrench in the state\u2019s plan to license and regulate commercial cannabis activity \u2014 that is, if you consider a church\u2019s cannabis planting a for-profit grow. This won\u2019t be the last you\u2019ve heard of the Lepps and their holy appreciation for the magic plant, guaranteed.<\/p>\n TELL US, <\/strong>do you ever use cannabis for spiritual purposes?<\/p>\n The post Police Sued After Raids on Rastafarian Cannabis Farm<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Is using cannabis a religious right? Eddy Lepp just spent eight-and-a-half years in federal prison for growing colossal amounts of marijuana \u2014 more than 40,000 plants, to be exact, believed to be the largest medical cannabis planting in history, planted within plain sight of anyone driving down Highway 20 inContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[50,80,617,1439,90,1440,1441],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19059"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19059"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19059\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19060,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19059\/revisions\/19060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nRead More: Police Sued After Raids on Rastafarian Cannabis Farm<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"