Matt Agorist, The Free Thought Project
Waking Times

New York, NY — Despite marijuana being legal in some form in over half the country, police officers across the country still take pride in kidnapping, caging, and even killing people they catch with this plant. Despite a major majority of Americans supporting legal weed, cops still go out of their way to prosecute people for possessing it, even CBD. The ridiculous nature of depriving people of their freedom over a plant came to a head last month in New York after “hero” cops took to bragging about a massive “marijuana” bust. But because these cops were so gung-ho on arresting people for a plant, they became the laughing stock of the internet after they bragged about seizing 106 pounds of entirely LEGAL hemp.

After they made headlines across the country for the NYPD’s ‘heroic’ bust last month, the owners of the legal hemp all faced felony charges. Luckily, however, after testing the plant and realizing it was just hemp, the felony charges were dropped this week, but the cops are keeping the plants.

Prosecutor Kerri Row told Judge Raymond Rodriguez on Tuesday, “The People have been presented with evidence that the substance seized in this case contains less than .06 percent THC, which makes the substance legal hemp under federal and now state law.”

 

“The new law places the development and enforcement of regulations pertaining to hemp squarely in the jurisdiction of the [state] Department of Agriculture, and in light of this, we consider this case to be more appropriately dealt with as a regulatory than a criminal matter,” the ADA said.

 

“Accordingly, pursuant to our prosecutorial discretion, we move to dismiss the charges in this case.”

Open and shut case, right? Wrong. Now this hemp that was to be turned into medicine for cancer patients is still being seized over lacking a permit.

“Because the substance appears to have been imported outside of New York’s regulatory guidelines, the release of the property would be a determination to be made by the NYPD in consultation with the Department of Agriculture,” Row said.

As the NY Post reports, prosecutors and cops say Green Angel did not have a required permit for the product. The assertion infuriated Green Angel’s owner, Oren Levy, and his lawyer, who got into a shouting match with a DA office spokesman outside court.

The DA rep, Oren Yaniv, said that by law, “All processors need to have a license, and your client doesn’t have a license!”

 

Green Angel lawyer Michael Arbeit retorted, “He’s a wholesaler! Processor means a farmer!”

Yaniv said, “We’re not guessing! We know! It’s over, anyway!”

 

The NYPD gave a statement to the Post, insisting that the plants were still “illegal marijuana,” saying, “In New York State, hemp sale and possession/distribution is only permissible when the buyer and seller have the proper permissions from the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets. In this case, neither the seller nor the buyer had those permissions.”

As we reported last month, the hemp was bound for a CBD dealer in New York who resells the highly beneficial product to cancer patients. Now, this medicine will never make it to the cancer sufferers, however.

Despite the shipment having all the legal documentation and paperwork showing that it was legal hemp for CBD, officers with the NYPD’s 75th precinct confiscated it, laid it out, and took their trophy photo to blast out on the internet. It is amazing how many police department still continue to post pictures of pot busts considering they are met with backlash and ridicule every single time they do it. Nevertheless, they still did it.

“Great job by Day Tour Sector E yesterday. Working with FedEx and other local law enforcement, they were able to confiscate 106 Lbs. of marijuana, and arrest the individual associated with the intended delivery,” the NYPD’s tweet read.

However, after the embarrassment likely became too much to handle, they deleted it.

But the tweet from the NYPD News lives on.

Officers Greenidge and Ganshaw from the @NYPD75Pct used precision policing and relentless follow-up, along with a great working relationship with @FedEx and other local law enforcement officials, to confiscate 106 pounds of marijuana that was destined for our city streets. pic.twitter.com/OnRyLsH90D

— NYPD NEWS (@NYPDnews) November 5, 2019

“I’m looking at it. It’s the stuff you see in movies,” Jahala Dudley, one of the owners of the company that grew the hemp told NBC5 last month. “Like, these two cops are holding our hemp, like it’s an awesome drug bust! This is hemp!”

Cops used the notoriously faulty field test kits to test the hemp, and predictably, it showed positive for drugs. As TFTP has reported, these kits are so notoriously faulty that we have seen people put behind bars for possession of things like drywall, glazed donuts, crackers, kitty litter, baking soda, cotton candy, bird sh*t, honey, and even milk. And, apparently, hemp.

“Industry hemp looks like real weed…It’s the same species of plant, it’s just the chemical compound is different,” Oren Levy, who sells hemp wholesale through his company GreenAngels CBD, said, adding his product was below legal federal limits for THC.

While this is certainly hilarious, it is no joke to the company who says cops stealing their legal CBD product — intended for cancer patients — may very well put them out of business.

We cannot believe this will be our first official Facebook post. We’ve been working hard all summer to grow a CBD compliant hemp crop. We succeeded too; Our crop was “Non detectable” on delta 9 thc – compliant in Vermont, New York and federally. We paid for well-known, CBD-compliant genetics, did all we could to test the product through the growing season and once harvested. This shipment was 100% hemp. We shipped 106 lbs to our legitimate buyer and CBD-business owner in NYC and it was intercepted by the NYPD. This picture frustrates us and concerns us. Why are these officers showing off hemp as though it’s marijuana? Why are they not aware of the laws they are entrusted to protect? We are farmers, not criminals. Please share. And to all the hemp farmers out there, please be vigilant and be proactive.

“We have a limited product, a limited crop,” Dudley said. “This shipment will make or break the farm this year. If this sale goes through, we’ll be OK. If it doesn’t, we don’t break even.”

The NYPD has refused to release any information about the “bust” noting only that the “investigation is ongoing.”

Now, Green Angel lawyer, Sanford Rubenstein, says he is planning to sue the NYPD for $10 million because they stole this entirely legal plant.

About the Author

Matt Agorist is an honorably discharged veteran of the USMC and former intelligence operator directly tasked by the NSA. This prior experience gives him unique insight into the world of government corruption and the American police state. Agorist has been an independent journalist for over a decade and has been featured on mainstream networks around the world. Agorist is also the Editor at Large at the Free Thought Project. Follow @MattAgorist on Twitter, Steemit, and now on Minds.

Like Waking Times on Facebook. Follow Waking Times on Twitter.