On May 9, Alkiviades \u201cAlki\u201d David was arrested on the island of St. Kitts after authorities searched his private jet and found roughly 5,000 plants cannabis cuttings, seeds and other products. David was charged with \u201cPossession with Intent to Supply,\u201d \u201cPossession of Controlled Drugs\u201d and \u201cImportation of a Controlled Drug into the Federation\u201d after the search.<\/p>\n
David is not only the founder of the SwissX hemp CBD line of products \u2014 which meant that David\u2019s partner Chase Ergen was also arrested over the cargo \u2014 but also a member of the Leventis family. The family runs Europe\u2019s biggest commercial bottling facility. The\u00a0Calgary Herald reported<\/a> that a recent deal with Coca-Cola raised the family net worth to about $6 billion USD. Davis was himself reported to be worth over $3.3 billion.<\/p>\n Since the arrest, David has put up a cash bail of $30,000. In addition, he has to stop by the police station every day so authorities know he hasn\u2019t skipped town.<\/p>\n David claims the entire cargo of the plane is\u00a0cannabis high in CBD<\/a>\u00a0and not THC. St. Kitts & Nevis is a sovereign nation within the U.K. Commonwealth. The country has been moving towards reforming its cannabis laws for a few months, but the laws might not be as liberal as David anticipated \u2014\u00a0though he did acknowledge in an interview with The Observer before his arrest that he knew that the country didn\u2019t have laws allowing for a legal cannabis industry.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re here to build the regulatory framework. The fact is that this plant is 100 percent legal everywhere else in the world. Here there is no legal framework,\u201d David\u00a0told the publication<\/a>.<\/p>\n On May 3, a High Court judge\u00a0ruled<\/a>\u00a0that the St. Kitts government will need to allow adults to legally use cannabis in the privacy of their own homes, and he gave the legislature a three-month window to amend the law. The case that the judge was considering involved a Rastafarian man who was arrested in 2012 for possessing cannabis with intent to sell and for cannabis cultivation. The judge agreed with the man that the country\u2019s drug laws were obstructing the man\u2019s right to \u201cfreedom of conscience, including freedom of thought and religion.\u201d<\/p>\n In their case, David and Ergen are claiming that they were arrested after business negotiations broke down with the St. Kitts Prime Minister Timothy Harris. <\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve have met with Prime Minister Harris to talk about coordinating support efforts before we leave next week for meetings in Dominica and other Caribbean island nations that have shown great interest in our cooperative partnership,\u201d read a\u00a0statement from SwissX\u00a0<\/a>on the arrest. \u201cThose talks have broken down and led to the arrests of David and Ergen. David and Ergen\u2019s legal team has arrived from the U.K. and will be filing lawsuits against PM Harris and the government this week.\u201d<\/p>\n Prior to the claim that negotiations fell out, SwissX had laid out David and Ergen\u2019s plans to make the island a force in the commercial CBD market backboned by their distribution to shelves at stores like 7-Eleven.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is with great respect for the people of St. Kitts-Nevis and the country\u2019s sovereignty that Alki David, SwissX and their partners are working to make sure the island takes its rightful place as a leader in the world\u2019s fastest growing industry \u2014 legal CBD hemp,\u201d read the statement.<\/p>\n SwissX went on to note it already started talks with local farmers and businessmen \u201cto build a fair and robust cooperative system.\u201d SwissX also noted they \u201chave been moved\u201d by local knowledge of the crop and enthusiasm for its pending legalization.<\/p>\n On the same day as the SwissX arrests, Harris presented his cannabis plan<\/a>\u00a0to the National Assembly, along with a riveting warning about outside forces attempting to corrupt the islands\u2019 forthcoming industry.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have been reliably informed that certain international business predators and pirates aided by unsavory local elements are positioning themselves to venture into plant cultivation to the detriment of locals, particularly our Rastafarians bredrin,\u201d he said, according to Caribbean News Now. \u201cAnd some of the actors are seen in photo ops recently with unpatriotic persons with a checkered past who see the freeing up of the herb in St. Kitts & Nevis as an opportunity for them to profit at the expense of our local people. Misguided local operatives are promising land giveaways of up to 300 acres to their friends and associates.\u201d<\/p>\n Harris told the assembly that he had a plan to make sure that local farmers were given a place in the local cannabis industry before international investors. \u201cNon-nationals would not be permitted to secure advantages over our nationals as we set about to build out a marijuana industry and urged citizens to be \u2018watchful and wary of any person(s) seeking to consort with international operatives to rob us of our patrimony.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n David and Ergen are due in court Tuesday.<\/p>\n TELL US,<\/strong>\u00a0do you think international investors should control new cannabis markets?<\/p>\n The post Billionaire Arrested Over 5,000 Cannabis Plants in St. Kitts Spurs Fight Over Local Control<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
On May 9, Alkiviades \u201cAlki\u201d David was arrested on the island of St. Kitts after authorities searched his private jet and found roughly 5,000 plants cannabis cuttings, seeds and other products. David was charged with \u201cPossession with Intent to Supply,\u201d \u201cPossession of Controlled Drugs\u201d and \u201cImportation of a Controlled DrugContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9963,50,7461,3572,136,687,81,9964,9965],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35281"}],"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\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35281"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35281\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35282,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35281\/revisions\/35282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Limited Cannabis Legalization in St. Kitts<\/h4>\n
Who Should Benefit From Cannabis Legalization in St. Kitts?<\/h4>\n
\n
\nRead More: Billionaire Arrested Over 5,000 Cannabis Plants in St. Kitts Spurs Fight Over Local Control<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"