Are you at risk to be raided by a SWAT team?
Editor’s note: I have followed this story since the start. It simply blows my mind. Amazing the TAX dollars used on this and the money the Harte family had to spend to defend themselves for doing nothing! Must read and SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO
The following story may seem like farce, but sadly it is not. Our government’s obsession with marijuana has hit an all time high and this type of thing is happening. Today. Now. Read on…
In April of 2012, two CIA analysts, Robert and Addie Harte awoke to pounding on their door from a Kansas SWAT team. They were there to raid their home on suspicion of growing marijuana. Even though the team found no evidence of a growing operation, they searched for “personal use” evidence anyway, while the family sat and waited for two hours. Adding insult to injury, the family would later find out that the SWAT team knew within 20 minutes that they were innocent. But, they searched anyway. How did this happen? Apparently Mr. Harte and his son had visited a gardening store months earlier.
Needing supplies for a hydroponic tomatoes school project, Robert Harte took his son to a gardening store, the very same day that a state trooper was positioned in the parking lot in order to collect the license plate numbers of everyone who shopped there; the state decided they would compile the plate numbers into a spreadsheet and send them to local sheriff’s departments for further investigation. Nothing happened beyond driving to, parking in, and shopping at this particular garden center but that was enough to make the Harte’s the target of a CRIMINAL drug investigation.
Fast forward more than half a year later, and the Harte’s were investigated as part of, “Operation Constant Gardener” by the Johnson County Sheriff’s Department. It would be funny if it wasn’t real. You simply cannot make this stuff up. The raids were made, to further drive the point home, on April 20, or “4/20.” Apparently, on multiple occasions, the Sheriff’s Department even sent deputies to go through the family’s garbage. Repeatedly finding what seemed like wet plant material (which they naturally assumed could be marijuana) they did field tests which somehow indicated the presence of THC, the active drug in marijuana. Because of those tests and their visit to the garden store, the police were able to obtain a warrant to raid the home.
They would find nothing and lab tests would reveal that the plant material was loose-leaf tea (which Addie Harte drank on a regular basis) but the damage was done and the family harassed needlessly. So, the important question then becomes, why did the field tests come up positive for marijuana? Well, it seems it happens a lot. Like whenever the police it to.
From the article by The Washington Post:
“As a lab-coated and rubber glove wearing researcher from the South Carolina Center for Biotechnology dumped a sample of oregano into a field test kit, Mintwood Media’s Adam Eidinger produced a positive test result for cocaine with another kit simply by exposing it to the atmosphere. “This is just air,” Eidinger said, opening up a test and waving it as the reagent turned orange, indicating a positive result.”
It seems that these field tests, used by police, prosecutors and judges have helped to prosecute and convict millions of people- wrongfully. But at least now we know and this unlawful behavior has been uncovered. For now though, while these issues work their way through the courts, maybe don’t go to gardening stores and don’t drink tea. Let’s hope that cooler heads begin to prevail and that we start to see this plant and all its amazing therapeutic benefits, in a less scary and more positive light.
These are crazy times we are living in. Stay safe. Grow your gardens. Drink tea anyway. 🙂
Source: The Washington Post and The Kansas City Star
