California’s cannabis cash grab: Why homeowners are being fined MILLIONS after moving into properties once used to grow illegal weed

Retired couple Corrine and Doug Thomas thought they had found their “forever” home when they purchased a rustic property nestled in the middle of a redwood forest in Humboldt County, California.

It ended their three-year stay in an RV, which was forced on them after their previous home in Los Angeles was destroyed by the 2018 Woolsey Fire.

Instead, they had simply opened the next chapter in an ongoing nightmare.

Less than a week after moving in, Corinne, 70, and Doug, 74, who are both disabled and on fixed incomes, were issued fines that ultimately amounted to more than $1 million because the previous owner had used the property for illegal cannabis use . to grow.

Amazingly, they are among dozens of unwitting homeowners targeted by Humboldt County, whose officials have been accused in a class action lawsuit of trying to squeeze “every dollar” out of legalized marijuana “at the expense of innocent people.”

64-year-old retiree Rhonda Olson faces a fine of more than $7 million because someone else grew marijuana on her property before she bought it.

And Blu Graham, 51, was hit with fines of about $900,000 based on “unfounded and uninvestigated allegations” that he was growing cannabis in his greenhouses when he was actually growing vegetables for his restaurant.

Similarly, a chicken farmer was prosecuted by the province for growing cannabis in a greenhouse where he actually raised chicks.

The extraordinary claims are exposed in a lawsuit filed by the Institute for Justice (IfJ).

Attorney Jared McClain told DailyMail.com that officials were “lashing out” in an attempt to reap the promised financial rewards of legalization, which have yet to materialize.

But while law-abiding citizens are caught out by this greedy approach, California’s real black market continues to thrive, with illegal grows believed to have outnumbered legitimate farms tenfold.

The province even acknowledges that homeowners like Corrine, Doug and Rhonda have never grown cannabis.

But McClain said the county’s position is that current residents are somehow responsible for any past violations on their properties.

“Obviously we are not involved in cannabis,” Doug told DailyMail.com. ‘We don’t even drink alcohol. We’re just old seniors. The province knows it, but they’re still after us.

“They are at war with the community.”

He and his wife, who run the nonprofit Miracle Run Foundation for Autism, used insurance money from the 2018 fire to buy their new home in Humboldt, which sits atop a ridge above the Avenue of the Giants.

Behind the house is a detached garage next to a three-story building that was referred to as a workshop in the advertisement.

When the couple bought the property, the workshop was empty and the electrical wiring inside had been completely severed.

It is in this dilapidated shed that, according to the province, was used to illegally grow cannabis two years earlier.

The Thomases were told that if they did not demolish the building within ten days, they would be fined $12,000 per day.

But they didn’t have the $180,000 they were told it would cost to demolish the shed – and are now facing a $1,080,000 fine.

The couple are among more than 1,200 Humboldt property owners accused of cannabis law violations since it was legalized for personal use in 2018, with hundreds of millions of dollars in fines imposed.

Of these, at least 48 landowners have appealed their sentences, but many more who were unfairly targeted have opted to settle, McClain said.

This is because the county is making accused landowners wait “indefinitely” for a hearing while fines continue to pile up, the lawsuit alleges.

For example, Blu Graham filed for an appeal in 2018, and the county only agreed to finally schedule his hearing 4.5 years later, as he prepared to file the lawsuit.

The mess stems from officials’ ‘dragnet’ approach to enforcing cannabis laws, it is claimed.

Satellite images are used to show “innocuous things such as greenhouses on a property,” which are considered sufficient evidence to charge the landowner with illegally growing marijuana, the document said.

“The entire system is designed to generate money for the province as efficiently as possible – by forcing accused residents to pay the province even if they have done nothing wrong,” it adds.

McClain said the financial benefits from legalization had not been realized as expected in Humboldt County, part of Northern California’s Emerald Triangle, the largest cannabis-producing region in the US.

This was partly because people no longer needed to be in the Humboldt Mountains to grow marijuana, and cultivation spread south.

The province’s haphazard approach to cannabis prosecution is an attempt to recover the “missing money,” McClain claims.

Yet the strategy appears to do little to address the real illegal marijuana market, which has flourished in the wake of legalization.

Lawmakers had hoped the creation of a commercial market would generate $5.3 billion in taxable sales in 2021.

But it failed to take into account the reality that decriminalizing a huge and highly profitable industry would open the floodgates to organized criminals and opportunists, for whom the reduced risks of prosecution fueled their growth.

Mexican cartels have swooped in, leading to massacres and exploitation of workers, linked to illegal cultivation in the state.

Meanwhile, enforcement efforts are sporadic and under-resourced.

The plaintiffs in the Humboldt case suffered a setback last May, when a federal judge sided with the province and granted its request to dismiss the lawsuit.

The IfJ filed an appeal, which was recently heard by the Ninth District Court of Appeals.

A decision is pending. Livelihoods depend on its outcome.

“We lost our home of 35 years to the wildfires,” Doug said. “If we lose this, we lose everything.”

DailyMail.com has contacted Humboldt County for comment.