HILO — Hawaii County settled a lawsuit with a Puna man who claims police illegally confiscated the medical marijuana growing on his Fern Acres property almost four years ago.
The settlement with Brad Snow and three others was for $4,800 total. Snow filed suit in May 2014, claiming his property was improperly raided during a marijuana eradication sweep on June 14, 2012, even though the plaintiffs had medical marijuana cards and were in compliance with the law.
“The value of six months of marijuana growing in your back yard; they take it, and they don’t give you anything for it,” Snow said Tuesday. “They don’t arrest you. They don’t charge you. They just come and take your stuff. I did not have too many plants. I did not have too much marijuana.”
The civil suit sought the return of 28 confiscated plants or compensation of $5,000 per plant, for a total of $120,000. Snow said Tuesday he accepted the settlement because he was feeling “out-gunned, out-financed and out-manned” by the county’s resources.
“I feel that if I had continued the case, I would’ve ended in appeals court at great expense that my other plaintiffs didn’t need to experience,” he said. “And we could’ve been liable for legal fees if we’d been dismissed in appeals court, and we could have been liable for court costs.
“You take your life in your hands when you sue the government. First lawsuit I ever filed; I got them to pay me.”
Snow, who has a caregiver permit to grow for another individual in addition to himself, said changes to the state’s medical marijuana laws to open marijuana dispensaries will take away his ability to be a caregiver in 2018. He called it “a step backwards” in medical marijuana policy.
“In 2018, I will not be able to care-give for even one person,” he said. “Why is it, all of a sudden, after all these years of medical marijuana in Hawaii, they suddenly pop out of the woodwork and come up with all these new rules and regs, when they didn’t even follow the last ones?”
Laureen Martin, the litigation chief in the county’s Office of Corporation Counsel, confirmed the settlement amount and said, “It’s a relatively small amount, given the cost to litigate (the case).”
“They all had medical marijuana cards, so I believe the (settlement) was calculated by the amount of marijuana they are allowed to keep and multiplying that by the value, and anticipating the costs to litigate it, to travel, the depositions, and there would actually have been some witnesses from off-island,” she said.
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.