KERN COUNTY - An established agricultural research institution has sued Kern County officials and the California Department of Fish & Wildlife for allegedly improperly razing a crop of its legal hemp plants. Apothio LLC alleges that Kern County and state officials violated its civil rights and rights under the U.S. Constitution when they razed 500 acres of hemp that was worth an estimated $1 billion.
“Federal and California law now recognize the significance of, and encourage, hemp research and commercialization,” said Katherine Eskovitz, plaintiff’s attorney in a press release. “But instead of supporting Apothio's valuable work—including its leading research on non-psychoactive CBD and other cannabinoids to treat epilepsy and other life-threatening conditions—the Defendants showed up without warning in full tactical gear and ordered the farmers to demolish all of the hemp crops.”
Megan Person, spokesperson for Kern County, said it does not comment on pending litigation.
Eskovitz
“We’re aware of the lawsuit and will defend the County vigorously,” Person told the Southern California Record.
As a certified Established Agricultural Research Institution (EARI) plaintiff Apothio LLC is permitted by federal and state authorities to grow and research hemp to be used as nourishment or medicine for conditions such as epilepsy, according to the lawsuit.
“This is a volatile issue with the religious right,” said Rex Parris, who was elected Mayor of Lancaster, which is adjacent to Kern. “We are growing hemp in Lancaster County but we had to change the law to do it.”
At $6 a seed, hemp is expensive, according to Parris.
“We don’t have a problem with growing hemp in Lancaster except when the wind comes up and then we get odor complaints from a neighboring Christian college,” he told the Southern California Record. “Other than that, it’s a good crop that you can do all kinds of things with except get high.”
Apothio’s complaint further alleges that the defendants’ misconduct wiped out significant intellectual property owned by Apothio as well as scientific progress.
“Apothio had developed specific genetic strains of hemp, grown under carefully monitored conditions, to lead to plants with certain chemical characteristics that could be reproduced in the future,” wrote Eskovitz in the lawsuit. “Defendants’ actions caused critical damage to Apothio’s ongoing research in that Apothio can no longer identify, organize, and carefully track the genetic and phenotypical characteristics of the millions of hemp plants that were indiscriminately bulldozed and will now germinate outside of Apothio’s controlled conditions.”