Washington’s last remaining medical cannabis exchange, the Patient Cannabis Exchange in Parkland, was raided by law enforcement on Sunday, KOMO News reports. Officers arrested individuals with outstanding warrants and seized plants and cash.
Medical cannabis exchanges allow patients to designate a cultivator to grow their cannabis for them. Patients and cultivators at the exchange indicated officers from the Pierce County Sheriff and Tacoma Police, along with representatives from the Liquor and Cannabis Board spent about eight hours at the exchange.
Makaveli de la Cruz, owner of the exchange, told KOMO that the exchange had operated for five years and had never received a cease-and-desist order from regulators. Washington’s legal cannabis industry went online in 2013.
Blogger Miguel Miggy, who uses the name Miggy420, was at the exchange during the raid and, in a KOMO interview, said he believes the crackdown was an attempt by the LCB to reign-in the state’s untaxed grey market.
“I partially think it was the Liquor Control Board flexing their muscle and taking inventory about what’s going on in there just to see what the competition is.” – Miguel Miggy to KOMO
Law enforcement officials said they were looking for illegal drug activity. As of Tuesday morning, the market’s website is also offline.