iHempWA’s 10th Birthday

A letter from :David Chick Vice Chairperson to the iHempWA members and industry stakeholders 23 February 2025 Stepping back…

What can we celebrate?

• A reasonably unified local hemp industry stakeholder network.
• We provide an online contact point and some hemp related information (that needs updating).
• Thanks to Georgina Wilkinson & Alannah MacTiernan on 11 September 2018 the maximum allowable THC levels were raised to 1% in WA for licences.
• iHempWA’s grass roots community network and information sharing events:

What can’t we celebrate?

• A unified national hemp industry stakeholder network.
• Good working relationships with government agencies.

It’s been a fun & frustrating, learning and confirming experience for me.

Clearly Cannabis can help us in so many wonderful ways…

…alas the dark forces agenda, propaganda and misinformation program, has been very effective.

I can’t free the plant, let alone the people or the planet! I’ve given this crazy idea priority over many other achievable projects and natural needs for too long. I need to step back from iHempWA.

Why

Hemp / Cannabis Sativa is locked in a legal fiction gaol, it’s a controlled substance and a poison.

Mainstream narrative propaganda, Bureaucracy & corruption, the conspiring continues today.

Fear, intimidation & defamation, armed police raids traumatising licenced Hemp Farmers.

Limited funding used for more trial crops when product & market development is needed.

Two national peak bodies, division, power struggles, egos, stories.

Evidence: Below is the documented experience from one of our previous members who had a 3 fold integrated, emerging industry plan in action;

1.  Grow hemp for grain under lease agreement with landholder.

2.  Expand the crop size in collaboration with farmers in Gingin looking for an alternative crop to transition away from turf.

3.  Provide aquaculture feed producers with a sustainable substitute to ocean fish stock (100kg sardines produces 10kg Barramundi fillet). 70% of the nutrient needed is available within the Omega profile of hemp seed.

 

Start of evidence provided via email 2 September 2024.

Hemp Issues – 2019 to 2024

Phase 1 – An introduction to the industry representatives in government

I applied for a licence for 2 properties (sand and gravel based)

Made it very clear that I had infra structure on my place that I wanted to use – shade houses, hot houses for seedling control.

Travelled overseas to look at seed supplies and cultivars

Purchased seed

Missed first summer

Concerned about seed viability so contacted DIPRID

Was told a charge of $800 applied to sprout 20 seeds.

I did this myself and got >80% germination.

Rang Mike Davis at the Dept to inform them and was yelled at and abused.

That afternoon a vehicle raced onto my property and I was verbally and physically abused by Mike Davis. I have witnesses. He would not let me talk, was yelling and completely irrational. I had to leave or I was going to retaliate.

I did not say or do anything to cause this – he was supercharged.

$600 was removed from my DIPIRD account that was to be used for purchasing fish after being told there was no cost for the abusive service.

I wrote to the Sonya Boughton at the Dept and explained what had happened.

No reply – I followed up and still got no response.

I did get an abusive letter explaining I had breached my licence conditions and that was my last warning before they took my licence off me.

I approached the Dept again and got no response.

There was no engagement, no listening, no understanding and no refund even though the funds were removed without my permission.

Cost to date – licence, seed, travel, paying for public servants approx. $20,000

Phase 2 – Government employees with a negative agenda

I contacted the Dept and asked for a licence transfer or addition. I have records of the telephone calls. I was told Mike Davis had annual leave in 2 days and was too busy to assist. I was told that no written applications would be received. I reapplied verbally a few days later and was told the licence transfer service was not permitted. I told them the address etc.

A government department who was sanctioned to perform a task was now refusing to do that task granted to them by statutory law.

The viability of the seeds would not endure another year of storage.

Through commercial necessity I planted the seeds.

Clearly, the Dept was against me and so I lost all trust and faith in the individuals and the organisation.

As a research scientist I wanted to learn and also advise the industry on 3 issues : Weed management, Water management and Nutrient management.

The crop grew well and was due to be harvested in 2 days.

The research design was successful and there were clear differences in treatments. No data was collected.

The majority of the seed was to be used for a 50 acre pivot irrigated crop in Gin Gin and the rest was going to be used for making Fish Pellets, Marron Pellets and Pet Food.

Added cost to date – lease, planting, pumps, fertiliser, labour $15,000

I did not want to feed the public servants getting paid to actively damage me and an industry. SO under advice I did not take these issues further – a mistake.

Phase 3 – Life became a WAR and nobody would listen

The crop was destroyed immediately by Crime and Corruption Squad. 700kg of seed. 12 hostile police attended to site and searched all sheds and houses. Samples were taken an analysed.

All research data was lost.

NO choice was given to me about preserving the crop until the issues had been sorted.

I was now considered a “drug lord” and was referred to as “the most wanted person in Australia as a proven criminal ” I was guilty and could not get help from anybody.

DIRPID representatives laughed at me and told me I deserved all that came to me. They even said “We just had to wait until we got you.”

I had 3 cruelling interviews at police head quarters that lasted about 12 hours in total. Went to court 6 times, was put in jail, had to sign in to a police station 3 times a week for 6 months.

I was told in extreme terms that I would have a minimum jail term of 15 years and all my property and savings would be ceased as “proceeds of crime.”

I now had an instant criminal record and could not work at the Universities, apply for grants and I lost my business. My biggest client was the Police Dept.

The judges I appeared before were hostile and would not even listen to me.

After $40,000 of legal fees and 6 months of hell the police decided to drop all charges.

DIPIRD then took over the case and made me turn up to court 13 times only to keep deferring the matter.

I wrote to the minister, spoke to her offsiders and even spoke to her face to face thanks to David Chick at an IHemp function.  

I told her that public servants in her department were deliberately attacking me through various acts and omissions. She told me I was lying and was drunk. I am a non-drinker of alcohol. She did write a letter to the Commissioner of Police and ask for leniency. This had no influence whatsoever.

Added costs directly $50,000 indirectly $1,300,000

Phase 4 – Final Court Case

The DIPIRD lawyer Chris Main lied to the judge and even tried to claim some $47,000 costs for them delaying the case. It was only at this stage that the analysis of the crop was revealed with THC <1%, some 18 months after they had the results of the analysis.

I went to see Mia Carbon – a leading public servant that governs public servants in DIPIRD. She was attentive and when I told her what had happened she was suitably horrified and understood my urgency to get some justice, balance and retribution for all of these special public servants that had done so much damage to my life. I asked for an investigation to substantiate the facts. After I waited 75 days and I got an email saying “It is not appropriate that they get involved.”

I wrote to the Chief Justice to explain the abuse of power and protection of public servants and asked if as the head of our legal system if something could be done to stop public servants being so powerful without responsibility. He referred me to the Crime and Corruption Commission who began the attack on me directed by DIPIRD.  The police always informed me that it was DIPIRD that was driving the issue.

Questions

* Who informed the police about the crop when I gave the address to Mike Davis ?

* Why did they not engage with me and just raided the crop? They admitted it was clearly not a drug crop because of the type of plant, the number of males, the style of cultivation etc.

* Why was I abused and physically attacked by Mike Davis ?

* Why could I not get a response from Sonya Boughton ?

* Why could I not get any assistance from DIPIRD ?

* Why did Chris Main prolong proceedings and then lie so much in court ?

* Why did DIPIRD prolong litigation other than to do extended damage to my life ?

* Why did Mia Carbon not look at the court records or even the history to control her paid, protected and malicious public servants under her control ?

* Why did DIPIRD not inform me of the drug content of the crop for 18 months given that the corrupt and malicious acts of the public servants was expected to continue by falsifying the samples ? This caused me extreme stress.

* Why have DIPIRD not try to engage and assist me.  Why have DIPIRD personnel been so hostile towards me and the industry when they are paid under statute to assist. Why can I not get the personnel investigated after they have done so much damage to me and the industry.

Summary

All this happened because it was orchestrated by acts and omissions by malicious public servants.

* They are required by law to issue me a transfer of licence – they would not.

* They are required by law not to abuse their positions – they did.

* They are “public servants” acting in their own interests to cause an individual harm. Nobody will listen.

* They could have assisted to reduce the damages to me, my business and my finances – they not only did nothing they exacerbated all issues on every step of the horror story.

* The crop did not need to get pulled up and destroyed.

* I was guilty even before I was spoken to and was treated as guilty to a point that if my name was entered into a Police data base I was not permitted to do my job.  No damages have been offered.

End of evidence.