SPARTANBURG COUNTY, S.C. — A traffic stop in South Carolina led police to uncover what they believed was more than 150 pounds of marijuana.
The owner of the product claimed it was all legal hemp.
Officers found the goods in a truck headed to Texas after the drivers say they had just completed a pickup at Bio Lab Global, a hemp farm in Charlotte.
Wellford Police told our news partner WYFF News 4 that investigators wanted to test the material at a lab to be 100% sure of what it might be.
“We do not want to withhold anything that's legal from anybody," Wellford Police Chief David Green said. "But the way it's packaged and the way the investigation has gone up to this point we wanted to do our due diligence."
The results showed the product was in fact hemp, but the THC levels were higher than South Carolina’s legal .3% limit.
Police say in this case, they did not want to press charges against the truck drivers but instead get clarity from lawmakers about how to spot the difference between legal hemp and illegal marijuana.
“Legislators to try to get behind us on how hemp is packaged and transported and the way it should be labeled, and the paperwork to go with it,” Chief Green said.
In a statement, Bio Lab president Austin Diggs says, in part "Business was transacted in North Carolina, where we are fully licensed and continue to do good business. We have worked closely and helped educate our own local police departments on these matters, and it is a frustrating process for everyone."
Police say after the testing, the material was destroyed once the results showed higher than legal levels of THC.