Michigan Cops Legally Rob ‘Every Belonging’ from Medical Marijuana Patient

http://www.pharmaciststeve.com/?p=10712

Medical marijuana user Ginnifer Hency told a group of Michigan lawmakers last week that a drug task force raided her home and kept ‘every belonging’ she owned — including her vibrator — even after a judge dismissed the charges against her…

Hency explained that her neurologist had recommended medical marijuana to treat pain associated with multiple sclerosis. She is also registered in the state of Michigan as a caregiver for five other patients, giving her the ability to distribute medical marijuana…

“They have had my stuff for 10 months, my ladder, my iPad, my children’s iPads, my children’s phones, my medicine for my patients,” Hency noted. “Why a ladder? Why my vibrator, I don’t know either. Why TVs?”

“The prosecutor came out to me and said, ‘Well, I can still beat you in civil court. I can still take your stuff,’” Hency recalled, adding, “I was at a loss. I literally just sat there dumbfounded.” …

But under the proposed law, local agencies would continue to keep 100 percent of the proceeds from forfeitures, “which gives them a strong incentive to target people based on the assets they own instead of the threat they pose to public safety,” Sullum wrote.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobsullum/2015/05/28/state-legislators-reconsider-forfeiture-laws-that-turn-cops-into-robbers/

“After they breached the door at gunpoint with masks, they proceeded to take every belonging in my house,” Shattuck said. The cops’ haul included bicycles, her husband’s tools, a lawn mower, a weed whacker, her children’s Christmas presents, cash (totaling $85) taken from her daughter’s birthday cards, the kids’ car seats and soccer equipment, and vital documents such as driver’s licenses, insurance cards, and birth certificates. “How do you explain to your kids when they come home and everything is gone?” Shattuck asked.

She added that her 9-year-old daughter is now afraid of the police and “cried for weeks” because the cops threatened to shoot the family dog during the raid. Although “my husband and I have not been convicted of any crime,” Shattuck said, they cannot get their property back, and their bank accounts remain frozen…