A Florida appeals court has thrown out a marijuana trafficking conviction after ruling that prosecutors failed to prove whether the substance in question was marijuana or legal hemp.
The decision, issued by the 2nd District Court of Appeals, stems from a case involving a man who was arrested at Tampa International Airport with a duffel bag containing 50 vacuum-sealed packages of a green, leafy substance. Although a drug-sniffing dog alerted to the bag and one of the packages tested positive for cannabis, only a single sample was tested—something the court found insufficient.
The defendant argued on appeal that he believed the contents were hemp, which is legal under both state and federal law. The court sided with him, stating that without testing each individual package, prosecutors could not prove that the total weight exceeded the trafficking threshold or that it was marijuana at all.
In its ruling, the court emphasized that “legal hemp and illegal cannabis are indistinguishable by appearance, texture, and odor,” and that relying on visual and olfactory assumptions violates a defendant’s presumption of innocence.
The ruling in Campbell v. Florida sets a precedent requiring prosecutors to chemically test each individual package in similar trafficking cases when hemp could be a plausible defense.
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