In late May, Detroit police, accompanied by federal law enforcement, raided what media described as a \u201cmassive marijuana grow operation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Six people were arrested and charged with felonies that could carry prison terms of up to 15 years each. The crop \u2014 more than 1,000 plants valued at multiple millions of dollars and 100 pounds of cannabis about to \u201cgo out onto the streets for distribution,\u201d according to a police sergeant \u2014 was seized.<\/p>\n
At the time, Detroit police credited U.S. Border Patrol with an assist. A Border Patrol agent who works in \u201cgang intel\u201d and was \u201cembedded\u201d with the Detroit Police Department conducted a \u201cthorough investigation,\u201d and obtained a search warrant,\u00a0Detroit police Sgt. Gerry Johnson told a local television station.<\/a><\/p>\n In addition to the plants, police seized lights, fans, and a timed irrigation system. They even found a testing laboratory!<\/p>\n \u201cThis is one of the most sophisticated operations I\u2019ve seen in a long time,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n There was a reason for that. The \u201cbust\u201d\u00a0was a raid of a licensed medical marijuana cultivation facility<\/a>\u00a0run by Viola Brands,\u00a0a cannabis company founded by former NBA star Al Harrington<\/a>.\u00a0Viola Brands<\/a>\u00a0had a state permit as well as local building permits.<\/p>\n On July 31, a judge dismissed all charges filed against the six people arrested at the grow \u201cin the interest of fairness,\u201d\u00a0according to the Detroit News.<\/a><\/p>\n Thomas Lavigne, an attorney for the six former defendants, says that the company will try to recover the seized cannabis, but cannot be certain that Detroit police stored it in a way that hasn\u2019t already rendered it useless.<\/p>\n To add insult to injury, DPD apparently forgot \u2014 or did not bother \u2014 to secure the door to the facility after the raid, allowing burglars to enter and make off with expensive equipment the police did not seize, Lavigne said.<\/p>\n That\u2019s all bad, but how did this happen in the first place? How did Detroit police manage to \u201cinvestigate\u201d and \u201craid\u201d a licensed medical-marijuana operation without figuring out \u2014or bothering to notice \u2014 that it was legitimate?<\/p>\n According to Lavigne, Detroit\u2019s building inspection department is owed at least some of the blame. When police called to see if the operation was legitimate \u2014 the \u201cinvestigation\u201d referred to above \u2014 Detroit building inspectors gave the wrong answer and said that there shouldn\u2019t have been a grow there. Hence the bust \u2014 though in any other building-code violation circumstance not involving marijuana, it\u2019s hard to imagine enforcement taking the form of a raid.<\/p>\n In court, prosecutors tried to argue that Viola Brands was licensed only to \u201csell\u201d at the facility, and not to grow. And \u201cthat\u2019s absurd,\u201d said defense attorney Michael Komorn in an interview with the Detroit News. \u201cIt\u2019s a semantic issue because I would say everyone would understand that if they\u2019ve been given permission to sell it, of course a medical marijuana caregivers center includes growing and cultivating marijuana.\u201d<\/p>\n For their part, Detroit building inspectors are digging in their heels, insisting that the grow at Viola Brands was illegal.<\/p>\n That question \u2014 as well as the question of who might be liable to damages done to Viola Brands during the \u201craid\u201d \u2014 now also appears headed to a courtroom.<\/p>\n By then, Michigan may have legalized recreational marijuana. Voters will decide on a ballot measure that would allow adults 21 and over to possess cannabis this fall.<\/p>\n If it passes, whether police will choose to acknowledge it apparently remains to be seen.<\/p>\n TELL US<\/strong>,\u00a0do you think this case demonstrates an abuse of police power?<\/p>\n The post How & Why Detroit Police Raided a Legal Marijuana Operation<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
In late May, Detroit police, accompanied by federal law enforcement, raided what media described as a \u201cmassive marijuana grow operation.\u201d Six people were arrested and charged with felonies that could carry prison terms of up to 15 years each. The crop \u2014 more than 1,000 plants valued at multiple millionsContinue 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":[2199,5280,50,5281,671,5282,90,5283,415,139,1593,4432,5284],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28373"}],"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=28373"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28373\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28374,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28373\/revisions\/28374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nRead More: How & Why Detroit Police Raided a Legal Marijuana Operation<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"