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Police in New York City celebrated the seizure of 106 pounds of what they said was marijuana. But the farmers who shipped the plant said it was all legally grown organic hemp.
NYPD posted a photo of officers with the seizure on Facebook November 3, bragging about the “great job” done by officers in confiscating the apparent drug, as well as arresting the person who was to receive the delivery.
But while police claimed credit for a big bust, the owners of Fox Holler Farms in New Haven, Vermont were crying foul. They said in their own Facebook post that the packages that were seized were “100% hemp” from a crop that was in compliance in Vermont, New York and under federal law. Their post read:
“We are farmers, not criminals.”
Fox Holler said they worked all summer to grow a compliant crop to harvest hemp for CBD products, which advocates say offers a calming effect without THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana.
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When the farm shipped nine boxes of their hemp to a CBD shop in New York, police moved in to seize it. They said they had received a tip, believing the shipment contained marijuana.
Once the photo of the officers smiling with the “marijuana” was posted to Facebook, Fox Holler Farms owner Jahala Dudley was flabbergasted, telling WPTZ-TV:
“I’m looking at it. It’s the stuff you see in movies. Like, these two cops are holding our hemp, like it’s an awesome drug bust! This is hemp!”
The department’s Facebook and Twitter postings have generated over 2,000 comments, many of which were critical of the handling of the case.
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One detective who Dudley said she spoke with by phone seemed unaware of the distinction between marijuana, which is illegal under federal law, and its cannabis cousin, hemp. She added:
“A person looking at packaged hemp “can’t tell the difference. Genetically it’s a very similar plant. I’m not blaming anyone for that. But the paperwork was there. We’ve had it all tested.”
For now, she said, the perishable hemp shipment remains in police custody, adding:
“We have a limited product, a limited crop. 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.”
Agriculture leaders in Vermont have reached out to officials in New York to try to straighten out the issue, but so far, NYPD hasn’t commented on what they call an active investigation. The 2018 U.S. Farm Bill made commercial hemp production and shipment legal in all 50 states.
We hope this gets straightened out very soon.
