A federal judge has ruled that three Tennessee Department of Children’s Services (DCS) employees can be held liable for taking five children away from a mother following a misdemeanor traffic stop involving marijuana.
According to Tennessee Lookout, a woman, her partner and her five children were driving to a family funeral when police conducted a traffic stop.
The officers said they smelled marijuana and conducted a search, finding less than 5 grams in the vehicle. Although the offense is a misdemeanor in the state that usually results in a citation, the woman’s partner was arrested while the woman was given a citation and allowed to leave with her children.
Police reportedly told DCS employees that the children were not in danger and that they should stay with their mother, but the agents sought an emergency court order anyway and took the five children into state custody hours after the stop. The children were kept in foster homes for 55 days before they were returned to their parents.
The lawsuit claims the DCS employees violated the family’s Fourth Amendment protections against unlawful search and seizures and unlawfully imprisoning the mother and her children.
U.S. District Judge Clifton Corker agreed with the woman and is allowing the case to go forward. The judge also decided that the three DCS employees can be held liable for their actions in spite of the department’s request that they be dismissed from the suit.
Missouri Recalls Massive Amount of Products
Missouri regulators recently issued a massive marijuana product recall. This recall is twice as large as a similar one that was issued a year ago.
The state issued two recall notices earlier this month involving 135,000 products. The first recall, issued Aug. 6, alerted consumers and patients that 2,650 products from a state-licensed producer were only tested for compliance during the raw stage and not during the final product stage. The second recall occurred on Aug. 8, when regulators said 133,000 products were not properly entered into the state’s track and trace system.
Regulators said there have been no adverse reactions reported from the public.
The state last year recalled 60,000 products from a business that was accused of sourcing cannabis from outside the state.
Colorado Official Says Weed Rules Will Guide Psychedelics Program
Dominique Mendiola, the head of both Colorado’s Marijuana Enforcement Division and Natural Medicine Division, recently told an interviewer that she expects to use the lessons she’s learned in regulating the marijuana industry to inform her decisions for the state’s new psychedelics program.
During an appearance on the Weed Wonks podcast, Mendiola said the two substances are “very different,” but many employees from the state’s marijuana regulatory agency are working “split roles” in both agencies based on their ability to leverage resources from their experience with cannabis.
Colorado is currently in the process of developing the rules for the psychedelic treatment program.