Yo, peep this, on Feb. 6, homie Hannah Ledbetter straight up filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Georgia against 12 cannabis companies. She talkin’ bout how all these companies be sellin’ cannabis products as delta hemp products instead of the real deal cannabis products and she want a fat stack of $150 million for that deception. The list of companies include STIIIZY, LLC; Cookies Creative Consulting and Promotions; Cloud 9 Online Smoke & Vape, LLC; Green Rush LLC dba Xhale City; TheSY LLC dba Element Vape; Savage Enterprises; Delta Extrax; L&K Distribution; Columbia Laboratories; PharmLabs; Encore; and Pur ISO Labs LLC.
Shorty Ledbetter say she got played by these companies into coppin’ some federally illegal products thinkin’ they was legit legal hemp products with that lowkey THC content. She claimin’ the companies out here conspiring to sell illegal delta-8 THC vape pens like it’s all good, callin’ it a full-on racketeering vibe.
According to Justia, a racket is just one fraud deal, while racketeering is when you got a whole crew doing multiple illegal activities together on some organized crime tip. The Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act be layin’ it down with crimes like fraud, murder, kidnapping, drug deals, bribery, and more.
Ledbetter said she copped some delta-9 THC gear from Cloud 9, Element, Xhale City and/or Xhale Franchise spots in or around Atlanta, Georgia and that stuff way exceeded the legal limits. She claim all these cannabis companies been pushin’ out that illegal marijuana to thousands of heads over the last four years.
The lawsuit straight up say that customers of these companies think they getting some legal hemp-derived THC but instead getting that illegal marijuana on the low-low, makin’ them millions in fake profits.
Ledbetter’s posse accusing these companies of linkin’ up with third party testing labs Columbia Laboratories in Oregon, and Encore and Pharmalabs SD in California, to drop them fake test results for their shady products. They found out those hemp-based vape pens with strains like Cookies’ Huckleberry “Gelaot,” Extrax’s Forbidden Jelly and Power Plant, Looper’s Blue Gusherz, and STIIIZY Hemp’s OG Kush was hittin’ them high THC levels.
The lawsuit say these labs knew what was up and still dropped them fake results on the internet multiple times for promo and marketing moves, straight up wire fraud.
But hold up, STIIIZY ain’t havin’ none of it. A spokesperson said there ain’t no facts to back up them claims against STIIIZY and they gonna fight back hard to shut that lawsuit down. Cookies and the other defendants ain’t dropped no statements yet.
The lawsuit tryna push for a class action status which gotta pass by a federal judge first. They asking for $50 million in damages which could triple up to $150 million if they win.
A similar lawsuit went down in Cali last summer between Cali state and nine cannabis companies based all over the country. That lawsuit said cannabis products need a Proposition 65 warning label on delta-9 THC cannabis products cuz it be harmful to unborn babies.
Cali Attorney General Rob Bonta say he ain’t playin’, illegal hemp products ain’t cool and they gotta warn the people about the dangers of inhaling that stuff.
The rise of hemp-based cannabis products went up after that 2018 Farm Bill came through. It legalized hemp-based gear like CBD but since then states been droppin’ laws left and right to regulate it. Missouri even got Senate Bill 984 tryna regulate them delta-8 THC products as straight-up cannabis instead of hemp. The latest move for SB-984 includes a Senate Judiciary hearing held on Feb. 12.
So watch your back next time you hittin’ up them cannabis shops ’cause not everything out there is what it seems. Stay safe out there fam!