A San Jose church this week lost a lengthy legal battle after claiming police violated its religious rights by raiding its minister’s home and seizing 90 pounds of marijuana, nearly 1,200 cannabis vaping cartridges and more than $155,000.
The raid, according to authorities, turned up weed in the large plastic “turkey bags” used for baking the birds, plus the vaping cartridges, parts for vaping pens, 115 cannabis plants growing in a detached garage, a money-counting machine, and cash stashed in a laundry hamper, dresser, and a beer box in a hallway closet.
Lawyer Matthew Pappas, in a phone interview Friday, railed against the sheriff’s office raid and the judge’s ruling. “We’re living in a country that doesn’t follow the Constitution and respect the people who are attempting to practice their religion,” Pappas said. In her written ruling, the judge said Santa Cruz County had not prevented the church from “using or possessing cannabis, in lawful quantities, as a sacrament.” The church, she said, had wrongly argued “that because it is a church rather than a secular organization, it should simply be exempt from all cannabis regulation.” State laws “limit the church’s commercial cannabis activity while permitting its members’ sacramental use,” Hamilton said.
Source: Law Daily Report (lawdailyreport.net)
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