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Judge Dismisses Charges on Six Involved in $1M Cannabis Raid

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[dropcap class=”kp-dropcap”]R[/dropcap]ecently 36th District Court Judge Kenneth King dismissed charges against six Michigan-based individuals involved in a cannabis-related raid that occurred in late May.

The raid took place at a medical cannabis facility on May 26 in Detroit, Michigan, where six people were charged with allegedly cultivating and delivering cannabis illegally. A search warrant obtained by the Detroit Police Department’s Gang Intelligence Unit allowed the team to enter the facility where they confiscated approximately 200 plants with an estimated worth of about $1 million.

More recently once the court case began, prosecutors argued that the facility did not have a license to cultivate cannabis, only to dispense it. Michael Komorn, the assigned defense attorney for the case, mentioned that the facility in fact was granted a temporary certificate for cultivation which allowed the facility to grow approximately 1,500 plants, while the facility waited for approval by the city. “That’s absurd,” Komorn said about the charges. “It’s a semantic issue because I would say everyone would understand that if they’ve been given permission to sell it, of course a medical marijuana caregivers center includes growing and cultivating marijuana.”

In addition to the defense attorney’s stance, the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office also released a statement in defense of the charged individuals. “It is my understanding that the court held that the defendants operated in good faith regarding all the provisions of the law that they knew about the class C license (1500 plants) for a grow operation,” the statement reads. “The duty was on the city of Detroit to inform them about what was required, and they failed to do so.”

The six individuals, Cotea Jones, Jeanne Walsh, Curtis William, Travis Davidson, Jabari Currie and James Frazier, are no longer facing charges. Judge King chose to rule in favor of these six individuals and dismissed the case “in the interest of fairness.”

The Detroit City Council wasted no time in discussing how to better avoid situations like this in the future. On July 31, the Detroit City Council Approved an ordinance that would only allow 75 provisioning centers to operate legally, all while regulating the size of the facility and location. The council also approved ordinance changed, once the charges dropped, which aimed towards reducing the growth of provisioning centers. These changes will set rules for facilities that grow, test, transport, process and dispense medical cannabis to state approved patients with a medicinal card.

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