Police target licensed marijuana growers with civil forfeiture
December 05, 2014
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Back in August, the City of Philadelphia made headlines after their police department was busted using asset forfeiture procedures to pad city coffers. Now, officers in Michigan are under fire for targeting private citizens for forfeiture---without ever accusing those people of a crime.
Southwest Michigan residents and medical marijuana license holders Wally Kowalski and Thomas Williams both had their property ransacked and assets seized by officers over a year ago; neither men have been charged with a crime, but the police departments refuse to return their cash or belongings.
Kowalski has a license to grow and distribute medical pot to several low-income people who depend on the drug. He grows the plants in a garden area enclosed by a barbed wire fence. But whether or not Kowalski had a legal right to grow mattered little to the state police, who seized his power generator—even though it had nothing to do with his marijuana plants—and some expensive equipment. They also destroyed the plants. ... The police froze his accounts, rendering him unable to make payments on his student loans or other bills. And he could no longer complete the immigration process for his wife, a resident of Africa. ... Thomas Williams, another southwest Michigan resident, suffered a similar ordeal. His medical marijuana activities prompted police to ransack his property while they left him handcuffed for 10 hours. The cops took his car, phone, TV, and cash. Afterward, he had no means of getting to the grocery store or even contacting another human being for days. Like Kowalski, he hasn't been charged with a crime.Fun fact: police officers ransacked Kowalski's house for what we can only assume is evidence of his participation in a high-power midwestern drug cartel---but they didn't confiscate his marijuana license.