Last week, the sheriff’s office in Ventura County, California—a mostly rural stretch of rugged mountains and coastal plains directly north of Los Angeles bisected by two major freeways—delivered 25 pounds of what was once cannabis to Chelsea Sutula.
The cannabis belonged to Sutula, who’d last seen it in 2016, when Ventura County sheriff’s deputies seized the cannabis—worth as much as $350,000—and another $34,000 in cash from the Sespe Creek Collective, of which Sutula is chief executive officer.
She was arrested. In the ensuing five years, criminal charges against Sutula were dropped. The money was returned. But as civil actions Sutula filed to have the cannabis returned wound its way through the courts, the cannabis simply sat around in an evidence locker—attracting bugs, mold, and slowly but surely becoming totally worthless.
That was the condition the weed was in when police handed the pot back to Sutula in brown paper bags, as the Ventura County Star reported.
The episode illustrates a lingering and still unresolved area of criminal procedure that, as cannabis is legalized in more and more states, is still unresolved by most state law.
Marijuana legalization means adults 21 and over in much of America can legally possess cannabis, and commercial legalization means businesses and individuals may often possess much more. [Read More @ Forbes]
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