Marijuana remains illegal under federal law but the Washington bureaucracy essentially has chosen to ignore the multiple states that have made it legal within their borders, for medicinal or recreational uses.
But that doesn’t make those who make money on drugs in those states where it is legal exempt from the laws in states where it remains against the law.
As one drug dealer found out – in a very harsh way – from the Wyoming state Supreme Court.
According to the Cowboy State Daily, that court has ruled that the state can seize cash from out-of-state travelers who are carrying money from drug deals – even if those deals were legal in the state where the money was made.
Because those deals remain illegal in Wyoming.
“Wyoming Supreme Court Justice Keith Kautz penned a Thursday opinion on behalf of the high court, saying that the state can keep $75,000 found in possession of a man who was reportedly transporting the cash and marijuana as he passed through from Illinois to California. The state can keep that money because it was linked to drug transactions that would be illegal if committed in Wyoming,” the report confirmed.
Wyoming Attorney General Bridget Hill had gone to the high court after a lower court ruling said the state wasn’t allowed to keep the money, taken from an Illinois man traveling through the state.
Hill pointed out that lawmakers in the state “specifically authorized her office to seize money tied to acts that violate the state’s drug laws.,” the report said.
She told the publication that “appears to show the Wyoming Legislature’s policy determination that they would like me and my office to diligently pursue these civil matters. The court’s decision today affirms that we did so in accordance with the law.”
She said the presumed purpose of the law is to deter drug trafficking.
The case began in 2020 when a highway patrol officer stopped a rented Cadillac Escalade going 84 mph in a 75 zone on Interstate 80.
The trooper, when driver Lorenzo Gallaga rolled down his window, smelled raw cannabis in the vehicle.
A search resulted in “marijuana joints, THC cartridges, concentrated THC, rolling papers and a suitcase containing rubber band-tied clumps of $100 bills, plus a business ledger listing dollar amounts and cannabis strains,” the report said.
A jury acquitted him of drug possession in a criminal court, as the driver said he had medical cannabis licenses in California and Illinois.
But state officials seized the $75,000 in a civil proceeding.
The report outlined how Gallaga gave “conflicting accounts” of where the money came from and why he had it, but an investigation showed his tax statements didn’t support his lawful possession of that amount of cash.
“He said he was going to use the $75,000 to buy a legal marijuana garden in Illinois, which law enforcement agents found improbable since he was headed to California,” the report noted.
Wyoming’s law allows the state to seize money “that’s being furnished in exchange for a drug that’s illegal in Wyoming.”
The court found, “Mr. Gallaga committed an overt act in furtherance of the drug conspiracy by driving through Wyoming with the currency.”
IMPORTANT NOTE TO WND READERS: Shortly after Hamas terrorists fired over 5,000 rockets from Gaza into Israel on Oct. 7 and then proceeded to attack the Jewish state by land, sea and air – torturing, burning, beheading and murdering well over a thousand people, including women, children and infants, and wounding and abducting hundreds more – world reaction was, in its own way, almost equally shocking.
For after the biggest one-day mass slaughter of Jews since the Nazi Holocaust, what followed was an outpouring of celebratory demonstrations, unbridled Jew-hatred, deliriously gleeful support for Hamas and bitter condemnation of the nation of Israel. Not just in the Arab-Muslim world, but throughout the Western world as well, including all across America.
Why? What is behind the explosion of anti-Israel, anti-Jewish, pro-terror sentiment in the United States, where Israel has long been one of America’s closest friends and allies? Why are hordes of young “woke” LGBT demonstrators marching in support of Hamas – when Hamas wouldn’t think twice about binding and blindfolding them and throwing them off the roof of a tall building – as they routinely do in the Muslim world?
It turns out there’s one area of agreement that is so powerful, deep-seated and all-consuming that the vast differences between the deranged left and the murderous jihadists melt away into Kumbaya harmony.
All of this and much more is completely exposed in November’s issue of WND’s critically acclaimed monthly Whistleblower magazine, titled ISRAEL VS. GLOBAL JIHAD: How Jew-hatred, radical Islam and Leftism are pushing us toward World War III. Beyond a deeply insightful dive into why leftists are surging toward radical Islam – which hates and dreams of raping and butchering them – this Whistleblower issue includes fantastic articles by everyone from top Israeli analyst (and former Israel Defense Forces officer) Caroline Glick to Harvest Christian Fellowship’s Pastor Greg Laurie on the current war in Israel and biblical prophecies regarding the End Times … which he says are now upon us.
WHISTLEBLOWER is available in both the popular print edition and a state-of-the-art digital version, either single issues or discounted annual subscriptions.
For 25 years, WND has boldly brought you the news that really matters. If you appreciate our Christian journalists and their uniquely truthful reporting and analysis, please help us by becoming a WND Insider!
Content created by the WND News Center is available for re-publication without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact [email protected].
SUPPORT TRUTHFUL JOURNALISM. MAKE A DONATION TO THE NONPROFIT WND NEWS CENTER. THANK YOU!
