Fort Collins to pot-growing couple: We won’t pay up for dead marijuana plants
Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008 at 12:21 pm | By: Radical Russ
Fort Collins to pot-growing couple: We won’t pay up for dead marijuana plants | coloradoan.com | The Coloradoan,
The city of Fort Collins has rejected a local couple’s request for more than $200,000 in compensation for their destroyed marijuana plants.Under the state’s medical marijuana law, Amendment 20, the government is supposed to maintain someone’s marijuana plants if they are seized as part of a criminal investigation. If the investigation reveals the plants were properly kept as the law permits, the agency is supposed to return them.
But when James and Lisa Masters got their 39 plants last December, they were all dead. Fort Collins police seized the plants as part of a criminal investigation into the Masters’ pot-growing operation.
The couple operates a medical marijuana dispensary in Fort Collins, and claimed they were legitimate caregivers for people who need pot to control their pain and other ailments.
Judge James Hiatt threw out the case against the Masters in 2006 after ruling police illegally searched their home.
The sheriff in Larimer County thinks the medical marijuana law is absurd, specifically the portion that tells cops they can’t just seize legitimate medicine – plants – and let them die. In his latest online newsletter, he jokes that following the law by maintaining medical marijuana plants (in unused jail cell space) could be a new source of county revenue (emphasis mine):
Another possibility is to use the space to grow and sell marijuana, only for medicinal purposes of course. Some would argue that the ill conceived state law requires us to cultivate marijuana seized from grow houses once a person alleges that the marijuana is for medicinal purposes for either themselves or other undisclosed individuals, regardless of whether they have a medical marijuana license. None of the law enforcement agencies on the front-range have a greenhouse, but we have the grow lights we’ve seized from illegal grow operations so we could convert the vacated cell block to an indoor grow operation. We could charge other agencies to grow their dope, and if the case doesn’t require us to return to weed to the charged person, we could get a medical marijuana license from the state and sell to for a profit. A win-win.
The ironic thing is that the sheriff is on the right track as far as providing a new source of county and state revenue. Studies show that America could reap $10-$14 billion in law enforcement savings and “sin-tax” revenue if marijuana were taxed and regulated similar to hard liquor. Colorado spends $64 million per year enforcing marijuana laws and could reap $12.2-$17.6 million per year through taxation of cannabis sales.
Topics: Colorado, Fort Collins, James Masters, Larimer County, Lisa Masters
