This week, state law enforcement raided a number of “hemp” or “smoke” shops, including those in Troy. 

According to a release from the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency (ALEA), agents with ALEA’s State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) executed search warrants in Troy, Enterprise, Wetumpka and Clanton on Monday. 

“This operation was the culmination of an investigation that spanned over the course of several

months following numerous complaints regarding certain cannabidiol (CBD) specialty stores and

vape shops violating current, long-standing marijuana laws,” a statement from ALEA read. “The search warrants resulted in the seizure of large amounts of marijuana and drug paraphernalia, which are currently being inventoried.” 

Smoke ‘R’ Us Troy manager Abbey Rice confirmed that her store was one of those raided in a public post on social media. Rice connected the raids to the recently passed Hemp Bill, which goes into effect on July 1. 

“The State of Alabama decided to raid smoke shops a week early before July 1,” Rice said in the post. “It’s crazy you would put out these new laws that are coming into effect and then go backwards on it and make us look like we’re criminals.

“They went across the state, it’s not just us, and hit many stores. They’re insinuating and making allegations that we are selling narcotics. That’s what they’re going on, that we’re selling narcotics. We have our labwork, they didn’t even care about the lab work that I had.”

The new Hemp Bill, HB445, bans smokeable hemp, high-potency gummies and synthetically produced forms of THC, which includes Delta 8 and Delta 10. 

“They weren’t worried about our vapes, our gummies, any of that,” Rice said in her social media post. “They couldn’t even tell me why. We’ve complied since the beginning. This store has been open for five years now, over five years, and we have complied since the very beginning. We’ve done nothing illegal, we’ve complied with all state regulations and we are fully complying with everything.” 

Rice alleged that officers took more than just THC or hemp during the raids.

“They even took our tip money,” she said. “I had our tip money in envelopes with our names on it in the back and they stole it. They took our tip money. 

“They took our safe, they took electronics, even people’s personal electronics. You can’t do that, how is that legal? They put these laws out there to get the ‘bad guys,’ while they’re coming for the good guys. Bad guys are going to do what bad guys do.” 

No arrests have been reported stemming from the raids. ALEA and the Alabama Attorney General’s Office will hold a press conference in Montgomery on June 27 at 9 a.m. to further discuss the raids.