MMJ: Not the Same, But Still the Same

Hey what’s all this about a company in Santa Rosa getting raided? I thought raids were a thing of the past. -Lou Kout

Sigh. You heard right. CBD Guild (the company behind the brands Absolute Extracts and Care By Design pills and tinctures) in Santa Rosa was raided last week. According to reports, a disgruntled former employee went to the police and accused CBD Guild of making butane hash oil and concentrates. Using butane or other volatile solvent to make hash is illegal in California, although possessing or selling butane-extracted marijuana concentrates is not illegal. The police, the sheriff, and a few DEA agents (I am not sure why the DEA was there at all; federal law is supposed to keep the DEA from interfering with law-abiding cannabis collectives) raided six locations, seized equipment and money, and arrested CBD Guild director Dennis Hunter. Hunter was arrested on charges with illegal manufacture of drugs, among other things, and his bail was set at $5 million.

Lo and behold, one day later, Hunter was released from jail and all charges dropped. Turns out the cops had bad info. Surprise. CBD Guild wasn’t making butane hash, they had been using carbon dioxide to make their concentrates. Not only that, CBD Guild had been working with Santa Rosa officials to set up guidelines and regulations about hash production. This whole thing really makes the cops look bad.

City officials should have treated their concerns as a civil matter and not a criminal one. How much taxpayer money was wasted on this raid? How many hours did law enforcement spend setting up these raids? All that work, all those man hours, just to have all of the charges dropped. Now that CBD Guild has been shut down (for now), what are their employees supposed to do? File for unemployment? Great. More tax dollars.

The police really need to get it together and embrace the fact that cannabis isn’t illegal like it used to be. Sure, there are still some gray areas, but there is no need to be raiding anyone over weed. Ever. I am sure that if they looked hard enough, the cops could find some real criminals (maybe start with bicycles thieves and work your way up from here) to arrest – and maybe this time they can make the charges stick.