Appeals Court Reduces Drug-Trafficking Charge to Possession Due to Hemp Argument

A Florida state appeals court this week tossed a drug-trafficking conviction against a man who was caught with two duffel bags containing 50 vacuum-sealed bags of a “leafy green” substance that officials believed to be cannabis, the News Service of Florida reports.

The man, Pete Campbell, was arrested in 2022 at Tampa International Airport after taking a flight from Denver; he was ultimately convicted of drug trafficking and sentenced to three years in prison.

But Campbell appealed the conviction, arguing that because the prosecution had only tested material from one of the 50 packages, it should not be considered sufficient evidence to support a federal drug trafficking charge. Campbell also said that he had believed the material was hemp when purchasing it, and the appeals court noted the difficulty of differentiating illegal cannabis from legal hemp without the capabilities of a testing lab.

Chief Judge Daniel Sleet wrote Wednesday’s ruling, which noted that “Every witness who testified for the state admitted that they were unable to identify by appearance or odor alone whether the substance found in Campbell’s duffle bags was illegal cannabis or legal hemp.”

“The detective handling the K-9 (police dog) testified that his K-9 could not identify whether the duffle bags contained cannabis, rather it could only alert to odors of illicit substances in general. The detective who stopped Campbell at baggage claim testified that he could not distinguish cannabis from hemp by sight or smell alone.” — Judge Sleet, via the News Service of Florida

The appeals court judges ordered a circuit judge to reduce the charges against Campbell to simple drug possession and resentence him, the report said.