WACO, Texas — The owner of a hemp dispensary and smoke shop in Waco is suing the City of Waco, Waco Police Chief Sheryl Victorian and another officer, saying Waco PD's raid of the business back in March was illegal.
Kallan Salganik owns and manages Treehouse Dispensary and Smoke Shop on Franklin Avenue. There, he displays his Consumable Hemp license, which grants him the ability to legally manufacture, distribute and sell consumable hemp products that contain less than .3% delta-9 THC, per the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 and Texas House Bill 1325.
On March 26, Waco PD's Sgt. Jeremy Angel sent undercover officers to Treehouse Dispensary where they purchased some items. Angel then conducted "presumptive field tests" on two products, which "did show a result of more than .3% THC content," the 49-page lawsuit states.
As a result, on March 27, Angel executed a search and seizure warrant. SWAT officers raided the business and seized about $30,000 worth of product, $3,000 in cash, as well as other items, including Certificates of Analysis for the products, the lawsuit continues.
By doing so, "the defendants violated [Salganik's] rights, privileges, and immunities, secured and guaranteed by the Fourth, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments," the lawsuit reads.
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The lawsuit brings into question the validity of the presumptive field test Angel conducted and based the search and seizure warrant on. The tests were provided by DetectaChem, Inc., an organization which provides police departments tools to help detect drugs or explosives. The company is also named in the suit.
In the warrant, Angel said "the test kits used are utilized in the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) standardized chemistries approved for use in the presumptive field drug testing and can be used as evidence in court.” The lawsuit argues that's not true.
"In actuality, NIJ warns law enforcement and kit manufacturers... kits should contain, including those for THC... a statement that the kit is intended to be used for presumptive identification purposes only, and that all substances tested should be subjected to more definitive examination by qualified scientists in a properly equipped crime laboratory," the lawsuit reads. "... Users of the kit should receive appropriate training in its use and should be taught that the reagents can give false-positive as well as false-negative results.”
The lawsuit also quotes Major Mark Melson, the spokesperson for the Texas Department of Public Safety, who testified before the state legislature that "there are no roadside presumptive field tests available that distinguish between illegal marijuana, legal hemp or Delta 8."
"The point here is that our client sold hemp, our client possessed hemp, it was legal," said David Sergi, the plaintiff's attorney. "They used a probable cause based on a field test. They can't tell the difference and they came in with the swat team, scared the crap out of people and at the same time, it was totally unnecessary."
Sergi said they tried to work with Waco PD to help educate on the legitimacy of the hemp industry when there is good, clean product that is complaint and also how to test properly. The attorney, who primarily works hemp law, said they were basically told 'no.'
"They've been sitting on the product," Sergi explained. "Now, we want that product back and now my client has been damaged and so we're gonna seek the appropriate damages, but more importantly, we wanna reaffirm his right to sell a product that's authorized by Texas and federal law."
Sergi said the lawsuit isn't as much about money as it is about being able to provide a product and service to the community.
"There's so much more to this than just a bunch of people getting high," Sergi told 6 News. "This is about a product that has real benefits to people that need it and that's really all my client is doing is selling to the veteran community, to the elderly community as well as to the community that needs it for PTSD, that needs it for pain and other issues. Certainly people use it recreationally, but this is really more about the access to this medication that has more and more and more uses."
The lawsuit alleges "Angel acted willfully with reckless disregard" for not getting more testing from a crime lab prior to executing the search warrant. It also argues that the City and Victorian were negligent in signing off on the search and seizure warrant.
"Sergeant Angel, Chief Victorian and the magistrate should have had the knowledge that the National Institute of Justice actually recommends that THC substances be submitted for testing by scientists at a crime laboratory, which is crucial information for the magistrate to have before signing off on an overbroad search warrant," the lawsuit states.
Furthermore, the lawsuit says that the warrant fails to identify which THC products should be seized.
"Clearly, not all THC is illegal, and, in fact, all items seized by law enforcement were legal THC products," the lawsuit states.
Sergi told 6 News he believes they have a strong case and the judge will side with them.
"At the end of the day, we're not selling an illegal product," Sergi added. "They've taken our product, they haven't given it back. We've asked for it back very politely. We tried to engage in conversation and when polite conversation doesn't work, you have to resort to lawsuits. We wished it hadn't happened."
6 News reached out to the City of Waco and the Waco Police Department for comment. The City of Waco responded with the following statement:
"The City of Waco has not been served yet with this lawsuit. The City will review the lawsuit if and when the City is served."
Stay with 6 News as this story develops.