Woman Fights Cannabis Possession Charges and Wins
[dropcap class=”kp-dropcap”]A[/dropcap] woman in Lewisburg, Tennessee was arrested and charged for possession of cannabis, but after taking it to court, the case was thrown out by the judge. Despite facing up to a year in jail—the woman decided to not take the plea deal and fight the charges.
Officers in the area pulled over Melody Cashion and said that they smelled cannabis in the vehicle. “It was supposedly a rolling stop,” Cashion told local reporters. So Cashion complied and handed over a small amount of cannabis to police, “enough for two or three joints maybe.” Cannabis is illegal to possess in Tennessee, with the exception of CBD for a narrow list of qualifying conditions.
Cashion was charged with drug possession, and faced a sentence for nearly a year, unless she agreed to a plea deal. The police didn’t care that Cashion suffered from a rare genetic nerve disorder and relied on cannabis to wean herself off of opioids including Lyrica, Gabapentin, methadone, oxycodone and valium.. “They basically told me I had no defense,” Cashion added.
Charges were also dropped from a sting called “Operation Candy Crush.” The charges were dropped against the owners of almost two dozen stores in Rutherford County, Tennessee that were selling CBD oil. Also in that case, police were unable to prove the THC content was higher than in hemp-derived CBD. Any cannabis with 0.3 percent THC or lower is legally defined as hemp.
The defense team was able to prove that police could not have known whether the cannabis had a THC content high enough to warrant the possession charges. The story of Cashion is one of the first and could present implications for cannabis possession charges in Tennessee and beyond in the near future.
