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Fort Collins couple to sue city over $200000 worth of dead …
The Coloradoan, CO

A Fort Collins couple is planning to sue the city and Larimer County for more than $200,000 after police officers destroyed their 39 marijuana plants two years ago.
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Last year in court, James and Lisa Masters successfully showed that city police illegally seized their plants following a raid at their home on Aug. 2, 2006. Judge James Hiatt in December ordered the city to return the seized pot plants, which by then were dead.

The Masters say they use the marijuana for medicinal reasons, growing some for their personal use, and dispensing the rest to other people registered under the state’s medical marijuana law.

And they say that state law, enshrined in the state Constitution as Amendment 20, required the government to maintain their plants.

“The Masters suffer from debilitating medical conditions that were made worse by the stress of this lengthy case,” their lawyer, Rob Corry Jr., wrote in a letter to the city and county declaring plans to sue. “Their valuable medical marijuana was taken away and killed in violation of Colorado law.”

City and county officials say federal law requires them to destroy the plants, or at the very least not care for them.

Raid unearths mammoth hybrid marijuana farm in S. Utah canyon
Salt Lake Tribune

Iron County officials have found thousands of massive marijuana plants near a canyon south of Cedar City.

Iron County Sheriff’s spokesman Jody Edwards said Wednesday that officers — tipped off by hunters — have located at least two major grow areas composed of “very healthy, tall, robust marijuana plants.” Some of the plants towered to 8 feet high and had shafts 2 inches in diameter.

Edwards said it is clear that whoever grew the pot used a hybrid seed that allows marijuana to thrive, even in weather that is not normally conducive to growth. The canyon area, located at about 7,500 feet elevation, gets cool at night, Edwards said, adding that marijuana typically needs hot, humid weather at lower altitudes to flourish.

Officials have not yet estimated how many acres the pot farm encompasses, but Edwards said they needed to walk “quite a distance” to cover the entire area. The find seems to be part of a trend in the southern Utah area lately.

In late July, officials found about 7,500 pot plants with an estimated value of $9 million in neighboring Washington County’s Pine Valley area when some hikers reported seeing the marijuana.