Unfair Park from p4 back pain was completely gone,” Robinson recalled. “I didn’t feel high. I didn’t feel any type of euphoric effect. My body, mind and everything just felt finally in a place where I can relax. I ended up going to sleep about an hour later. I had probably the best sleep I’ve had in five years at that time.” He woke up the next day in just as much discomfort as ever. So he tried it again. Again, his pain subsided, and he uses CBD to this day. He was intrigued and started researching the new industry that blossomed after Con- gress ended the federal ban on cultivating hemp. That’s when he called Purcell. “I said, ‘Sky, the green rush is here,’” Rob- inson recalled. In 2018, the U.S. Farm Bill legalized the cultivation of cannabis containing no more than 0.3% delta-9 THC by dry weight. The bill allowed states to set up their own regula- tory schemes for hemp growers, and Texas jumped in. Robinson and Purcell spent two years re- searching the laws and the market. The plan was to stay in good standing with federal and state authorities so if high-THC canna- bis was ever legalized, Sky & Hobbs Organ- ics could be one of the first companies certified to grow and sell it. “This right here is the medicine that we believe is going to be the future of medi- cine,” Robinson said. As they were setting up their business, they ran into a few law enforcement officers and struck up conversations about the hemp industry and their plans. Robinson said he offered to have them come by their facility and guide them through the new laws if they needed help. “We offered our hand to these people,” he said. “Keep in mind, you’re talking to a gentleman who had a [thin] blue line flag on his truck. That’s me. I absolutely support my law enforcement, and I was more than will- ing to help in any way possible.” Getting the business started, they were working 20-hour days on top of their day jobs, but things went smoothly once they were operating. “We were just flying,” Rob- inson said. “We were out there.” They were even planning to move into a bigger facility. “We had a line at the door ba- sically,” Robinson said. They estimate they were on their way to becoming a multimil- lion dollar hemp company. Then, they were raided, for the first time, on June 10, 2021. Officers with the Navarro County Sher- iff’s Office arrived with a search warrant is- sued that morning by Navarro County District Judge James E. Lagomarsino. The only details mentioned in the war- rant were a description of the building, the business address and a weed smell reported by neighbors. An affidavit supporting the warrant references their equipment as being used for “marijuana growing.” Clint Andrews, a deputy with the Na- varro County Sheriff’s Department assigned to the Narcotics Division, was one of the of- ficers taking part in the raid. Andrews conducted surveillance on the 66 business the day before the raid, according to the affidavit, after the sheriff’s office al- legedly received a tip about the property. “The problem that I have is that I had all these beliefs in my country, in my nation and the American dream, and I assumed these people would be there to support me if I did what was right,” Robinson said. “Instead, they took the route of ‘We don’t care. We’re not going to educate ourselves.’” He said they had their licenses posted around their building in case law enforce- ment wanted to check them out. Robinson recorded his interactions with law enforcement during the first raid and posted the videos on YouTube. Farmer at one point asks why Robinson is filming. Robinson starts to say that a lot of harassment takes place between law enforcement and people in the hemp industry. Farmer got combative after Robinson brought up harassment. “I want to be perfectly clear real quick,” Farmer says. “That’s a big, strong word to use. … Don’t say that word in front of me.” At one point, Farmer says, “You come at us wrong, we come at you wrong, how about that?” Arguably, that sounds exactly like harass- ment and a threat to punish Robinson for speech, which like licensed hemp growing is protected by law, at least in parts of the United States outside Navarro County. The hemp licenses posted at the facility were slightly out of date, but Robinson was able to show officers a current license when he arrived. He said they just hadn’t gotten around to printing out their most recent li- cense. Purcell said once the police found out the Nathan Hunsinger He, as well as Captain Stan Farmer and Corporal Shane Richards, went back on the 10th. Reached for comment, Farmer said he couldn’t discuss the case. “On 6-10-21 Lieutenant Andrews, Cap- tain Farmer and Corporal Richards went back to the location and on the west side where the plastic pots are located observed what is believed to be pots containing mari- juana stems and other plant materials used in a growing operation,” the affidavit said. “Lieutenant Andrews could also smell what he knew to be marijuana emitting from the vents coming out of the building.” Perhaps Andrews hadn’t heard of hemp, which looks and smells just like high-THC cannabis. They’re so identical, many district attorneys won’t prosecute for marijuana pos- session unless the plant is tested and proven to contain illegal amounts of THC. These complications and the costs of the tests have led some municipalities to relax marijuana enforcement, but there was nothing relaxed about Sky & Hobbs Organics’ interactions with the Navarro County Sheriff’s Office. During the first raid, the cops seized some of their products. Purcell and Robin- son said they’re not sure how much was taken during the first raid, but no one was arrested or charged at the scene after pro- viding legal paperwork. Their legal troubles didn’t end there though. “This isn’t a case where they came in look- ing to hand out a possession charge,” Purcell said of the raid. “They came in because they thought, ‘Oh, there’s distribution, there’s Skyler Purcell had all the correct licensing for his hemp business, but police still harrassed the company and seized product. manufacturing and there’s trafficking going on from this establishment.’ Since they came in with that mindset, we were treated as such. We were treated as criminals, not as a TDA- licensed facility. It’s nuts that this turned into a felony possession case on an individual when this is a licensed business. “Had they just called us, we would’ve let them in. We wanted to educate … everyone, including law enforcement.” The first affidavit says police knocked, but didn’t get an answer. That’s when they busted in. Officers at the scene told them they had no knowledge of the state’s hemp program, Robinson and Purcell said. “Dude, I’m a disabled and decorated vet- eran,” Robinson said. “It is their job to en- sure that you can still be an American in this country.” Perhaps the Navarro County officers truly hadn’t heard of the state’s widely pub- licized hemp program and, despite being law enforcement officers, are not up to speed on the laws they’re paid to enforce. A spokesperson with the agriculture depart- ment told the Observer that when the hemp program was approved, there was little to no funding allocated for outreach. Most of law enforcement’s knowledge of the program has come from one-on-one interactions when they’ve reached out to the TDA, the spokesperson said. hemp license was real, they still didn’t con- tact the TDA, although the TDA has an ad- ministrative report that the police are supposed to file. “Everything that the police were filing should have been filed with the TDA, and still to this day the TDA hasn’t been contacted,” Purcell said. “There’s a reason for that.” Robinson and Purcell said all of their plants came from state certified seeds. They even chose strains that didn’t look as good but more reliably tested under the legal limit. They also avoided the market for THC isomers, which are chemical variants of delta-9 THC that some growers argue the law allows. That area of the law was too gray for Sky & Hobbs’ comfort. Purcell said every time the TDA tested their hemp, they passed. The Texas Depart- ment of State Health Services tested the products from that hemp, looking specifi- cally for delta-9, and they would pass those as well. But during the first raid, cops would take two CBD varieties and one CBG variety. They said the samples would be sent to a Department of Public Safety lab, which seemed promising to Robinson and Purcell. Instead, the county eventually decided to send it to a private lab. Farmer said he would keep them updated. Their business remained an active crime scene, and they were told they weren’t al- lowed inside. “They held our property hostage where we couldn’t do business, we couldn’t get out of there,” Robinson said. “It was an active crime scene. My lawyer said ‘If you touch anything in there it could be considered tampering with evidence.’” A little over two months went by >> p8 MONTH XX–MONTH XX, 2014 APRIL 14–20, 2022 DALLAS OBSERVER DALLAS OBSERVER | CLASSIFIED | MUSIC | DISH | MOVIES | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | FEATURE | SCHUTZE | UNFAIR PARK | CONTENTS | CLASSIFIED | MUSIC | DISH | CULTURE | UNFAIR PARK | CONTENTS dallasobserver.comdallasobserver.com
