Chicago Cannabis Company At the Center of a Lawsuit Over a Pot-Laced Salad
(Bloomberg)—A lawsuit involving pot-laced salads shows just how absurd the clash between federal and state cannabis laws in the U.S. can be — and how lawyers are finding ways to take advantage of it.
The litigation in question emerged in the aftermath of last year’s failed merger between Harvest Health & Recreation Inc. and Verano Holdings Corp. A former employee of Harvest is now accusing Verano of racketeering as part of a plan to expand into new states.
The specifics of the lawsuit, filed March 8 in Colorado District Court, are so convoluted you’ll need a flow chart to keep everything straight—yes, there’s one in the complaint—but what’s most interesting is a claim at the center of it all.
In June 2019, a Verano employee allegedly slipped some clippings of the company’s marijuana into salads purchased from Whole Foods, boarded a flight from Chicago to Memphis, Tennessee, and then drove the greens into Arkansas. There, according to the suit, he used them to grow exact genetic clones of the mother plant in order to start growing marijuana in the state with Harvest.
