They were licensed to sell marijuana; now they face years in federal prison

They’re thought-about licensed small-business homeowners in a single state and accused drug traffickers in one other, simply throughout the border.

Don Pirtle and Justin Machacek each realized the onerous approach in regards to the nation’s capricious patchwork of marijuana legal guidelines through which Texas, the place marijuana is unlawful, is surrounded by states which have legalized it for medical remedy.

The 2 males are dealing with felony drug trafficking costs in North Texas federal courtroom regardless of having state licenses to develop and course of marijuana in Oklahoma. Each males are dealing with a number of years behind bars due to their enterprising spirit.

The shortage of consistency in marijuana legal guidelines throughout the nation has created disparate authorized outcomes for individuals concerned in virtually the identical conduct. The Justice Division has stated it is not going to implement federal marijuana legal guidelines in opposition to individuals and firms in states which have legalized the drug for the medical or leisure use of hashish.

Critics say that creates a system of unequal justice.

Olivia Naugle, legislative analyst on the Marijuana Coverage Venture, a Washington D.C. nonprofit advocacy group, stated Texas stays considered one of 14 states with no efficient medical hashish regulation. And that results in conditions through which Pirtle and Machacek now discover themselves, she stated.

“That is yet one more devastating consequence of the obvious and untenable conflicts between state and federal legal guidelines on the subject of hashish legalization,” Naugle stated. “Arresting adults for hashish offenses is a large waste of regulation enforcement officers’ time and assets, and it does nothing to enhance public well being or security.”

Pirtle grew up in a troublesome neighborhood in southern Oklahoma that pressured him to “undertake a hustle” to outlive, in keeping with an internet biography. Machacek went to Rockwall excessive, studied enterprise at Southern Methodist College, and have become lively in state Republican politics.

After repeatedly getting arrested for promoting and utilizing marijuana when he was youthful, Pirtle, 45, determined to benefit from Oklahoma’s 2018 pot regulation and do it proper. The convicted felon, a local of Ardmore, Okla., shaped a enterprise there and obtained a state license to develop marijuana to promote to dispensaries.

However he was caught rising the plant inside a Collin County home the place he was staying when the COVID-19 pandemic first gripped Texas. Pirtle, who has pleaded responsible, now faces six and a half years in federal jail beneath his settlement with the federal government.

“I simply by no means assumed that I might find yourself on this state of affairs,” Pirtle stated in an interview from jail. “I don’t perceive it. I really feel like they gotta provide you with one thing higher than this.”

Machacek, 42, lives in Fort Price and is a tv producer and impartial “faith-based filmmaker” who has been lively in Republican politics, in keeping with on-line biographies. He holds robust Libertarian views, was a supporter of former Texas congressman Ron Paul, and is a vocal proponent of marijuana legalization in Texas.

He’s at present awaiting trial and faces a long time in jail if convicted.

“This can be a MAJOR unresolved battle in our state and federal regulation,” Machacek wrote on Fb in August.

The Japanese District of Texas is likely one of the hardest within the nation for drug enforcement. Juries in that district, which incorporates Denton and Collin counties in addition to massive rural areas within the northern and jap components of the state, are typically white, conservative and non secular. And drug sentences are sometimes very lengthy.

The U.S. legal professional’s workplace there declined to remark. However Legal professional Normal Merrick Garland instructed members of Congress earlier this yr that imposing marijuana legal guidelines is “not a superb use of our assets.”

Nonetheless, many Texas police chiefs and sheriffs have fought legislative efforts to increase medical marijuana use within the state, arguing that it’s addictive and dangerous and presents a public security risk. The Texas Police Chiefs Affiliation and the Sheriffs Affiliation of Texas have stated many marijuana arrests additionally concerned weapons and different medicine like heroin and cocaine.

Marijuana stays categorized as a Schedule I drug beneath the federal Managed Substance Act together with heroin and cocaine, that means it has little or no medical use and a excessive potential for abuse. However 19 states and Washington D.C. have legalized marijuana for adults, and about three-dozen states have handed legal guidelines permitting the sale of marijuana for medical functions.

Not Texas.

“This method results in a disparate affect on people and selective prosecutions throughout the nation,” stated Aaron Wiley, a protection legal professional and former federal prosecutor in Dallas.

A greater concept can be to “go away these issues to the states,” he stated. Or if not, the U.S. ought to have a constant federal coverage on enforcement, Wiley stated.

New begin?

Pirtle grew up in Ardmore, the place he bumped into authorized bother as a younger man throughout the Nineties. His arrests have been for nonviolent drug costs, he stated. A web based bio says he grew up in “a few of the hardest neighborhoods” within the metropolis and “was surrounded by the stereotypical violence related to the streets and gang life.”

“He knew this was not the life he wished and would find yourself useless or in jail,” the bio stated.

Most of his convictions resulted in probation, information present. However Pirtle was sentenced in 2001 to 6 years in an Oklahoma state jail for a drug case. He stated he served three years and that it was the final time he’d confronted critical authorized bother previous to the present federal case.

Pirtle stated he went to varsity to flee the streets however nonetheless had bother with police racially profiling him. He began rapping about his experiences and produced albums. A possibility for development work introduced him to Texas about twenty years in the past, he stated, though he nonetheless maintains robust ties to Oklahoma.

He obtained his Oklahoma marijuana license in 2019 for his firm, Royalty Rains 3000.

The state has a liberal medical marijuana regulation, and enterprise there’s booming. Licenses for dispensaries, growers and processors are comparatively straightforward to acquire, and Oklahoma doesn’t restrict the quantity it points. Consequently, the state has the second-highest variety of pot shops per capita within the nation, officers there say.

Pirtle stated he was staying along with his then-wife and their two youngsters in Anna throughout the COVID lockdown and experimenting with rising methods for his enterprise. He stated he wasn’t promoting medicine out of the home.

“I wished to assist individuals. I consider it has so many medical advantages,” stated Pirtle, who has a card to buy marijuana legally in Oklahoma to deal with his despair and anxiousness.

The Collin County Sheriff’s Workplace obtained an nameless tip in July 2020 that marijuana was being grown in the home. Police searched it the next month and located “a number of marijuana crops within the residing space, master suite, and storage,” courtroom information present.

Officers seized 62 marijuana crops, 22 jars of cultivated marijuana, THC gummies and oils, and three pistols, information say. The state didn’t pursue costs, however federal authorities indicted Pirtle final November.

A federal decide ordered him held in custody after noting that his legal historical past included 13 drug-related costs, seven of which resulted in convictions, courting again to when he was 18. Pirtle pleaded responsible in July to a federal marijuana distribution cost and to being a felon in possession of a firearm.

Pirtle stated he took the plea deal as a result of he wished to keep away from a doubtlessly longer sentence if a jury convicted him. Police didn’t wish to hear something about his authorized pot enterprise in Oklahoma, he stated.

“They actually didn’t care. It appeared like they’d their thoughts made up,” he stated. “They made it look like I used to be some nice drug trafficker.”

Heather Pirtle, his fiancé, stated Don had constructed a construction by hand to deal with the enterprise in Oklahoma. It had been projected to generate between $3 to $6 million in gross sales the primary yr, she stated, however will now possible wither and die earlier than ever getting began.

She stated her fiancé handed all of Oklahoma’s {qualifications} and background checks for a industrial marijuana rising license.

“We have been utterly caught off guard,” she stated in regards to the federal costs.

Pirtle stated he had hoped to hitch the various others in Oklahoma who’re turning marijuana rising right into a official and profitable profession. “I assumed it could be a worthwhile enterprise,” he stated.

He stated he enjoys rising the plant and experimenting with completely different vitamins and methods. “It’s like a backyard.”

Marijuana advocate

Machacek’s on-line bios say he grew to become lively in politics a couple of decade in the past and labored for Ron Paul’s 2012 presidential marketing campaign. He has served in varied roles, together with as a state delegate for the Texas GOP conference, in keeping with his LinkedIn profile.

Like Pirtle, he additionally noticed a enterprise alternative when Oklahoma legalized medical marijuana in 2018. Machacek shaped a pot processing enterprise there referred to as Boho Alchemy, which his LinkedIn account says cultivates and processes medical hashish merchandise.

He was arrested in Might for distributing marijuana since round September 2018 and having a gun, courtroom information present. Federal law makes it a crime for a person of unlawful medicine to personal a firearm even when they don’t have any legal report.

His indictment says he possessed with intent to distribute or dispense “a combination or substance containing a detectable quantity of marijuana or cannabis oil.”

A federal decide initially allowed Machacek to journey to Austin for his “lobbying efforts to legalize marijuana within the state of Texas” whereas he awaited trial, courtroom information present. The decide additionally gave Machacek time to rent a supervisor to run his enterprise.

However he’s been in custody since October when a decide discovered that he violated the phrases of his launch. A court-required drug take a look at got here again constructive for marijuana, information present. A trial date is about for December.

“Texas will spend tens of millions and lose the chance of the financial profit from hashish taxation,” Machacek stated in a Fb put up in Might. “In the meantime, Texas sufferers will proceed to undergo and have to hunt refuge in different authorized states.”

Machacek’s legal professional and his spouse couldn’t be reached. However considered one of his pals stated he was eager to assist individuals with well being issues by means of his marijuana enterprise.

“For him, it’s a medical problem,” stated Jarrod Atkinson, a Dallas enterprise guide. “He all the time refers to it [marijuana] as medication.”

Atkinson, who met Machacek by means of their shared curiosity in Libertarian politics, stated he reached out to potential buyers on his good friend’s behalf early on however that many felt it was too dangerous.

Authorized marijuana companies should take care of massive quantities of money as a result of banks are usually afraid of violating federal regulation, he stated. And that makes it tough to maneuver cash. For those who’re pulled over whereas transporting massive quantities of money in states like Texas, police couldn’t solely confiscate the cash and preserve it by means of civil forfeiture, they might additionally arrest you, Atkinson stated.

“As a political activist who’s additionally a Libertarian, it presents a extremely fascinating problem,” he stated. “It looks like it’s simply an excessive amount of threat.”