Raw Foodists Arrested for Trafficking Chocolate; Interrogated for "Cacao Crimes"

by Mike Adams, Natural News (24 Sept, 2008) If you like using natural, raw, organic products, you will find this story quite bizarre and distressing




This story is another example of insane Drug War nonsense
When Ron and Nadine from the Living Libations beauty care and chocolate company attempted to fly to the United States in August of this year, they ran into something completely unexpected: Drug-sniffing dogs at the Toronto airport. When their dogs took a special interest in their raw, unrefined chocolate with hemp seeds and superfood extracts, they were arrested, handcuffed and put through hours of tortuous interrogation. Such begins the journey of Ron and Nadine, the chocolate freedom fighters from Canada.

Accused of trafficking two and a half pounds of hashish (which was really just raw, homemade chocolate), Ron and Nadine were arrested, physically separated into interrogation rooms and handcuffed to chairs. Their six-month old baby was forcibly taken from them, and they were immediately subjected to intense interrogation.

Their chocolate looked suspicious, they were told, because it wasn't in a commercial wrapper. If it's not Hershey's, it must be drugs! An on-the-spot drug test from the NIK company (which makes portable drug testing kits) returned a positive result, the Canadian police claimed, and that's all the evidence they need to arrest anyone.

As you'll learn later, however, it turns out the NIK drug testing kits return false positives nearly 100% of the time if the results are interpreted incorrectly, as they were in this case... (see photos below).


Is this Canada, or Gitmo?

Emboldened by the positive drug test on the two pounds of raw chocolate, Canadian drug agents scrambled to action. They hadn't seen a big drug bust in a long time, and excitement was brewing over the possibility of nabbing someone with a whopping two pounds of hashish! Thus, the tyrants of law enforcement went to work on Ron and Nadine, using Guantanamo Bay tactics to try to force them to admit to being hashish drug traffickers.

Over the next several hours, Ron and Nadine were interrogated by the Canadian equivalent of FBI agents who verbally assaulted them using every lying, deceitful police interrogation tactic in the book. They screamed at Ron and Nadine, threatened them with years in prison and even told each of them that the other had already confessed to drug trafficking, trying to trick them into admitting to crimes they never committed. (There is no law that says police have to tell the truth when they are interrogating you, even for false arrest, by the way.)

Through the entire episode, Ron and Nadine resisted the tactics, held their ground and continued to hold positive intentions. "As I was sitting in the cell," Ron told NaturalNews, "I kept focused on light and truth. I felt like no matter what was happening around me, I was opening up a gateway of light and total truth."

After the interrogation, the threats of "life in jail" and other dishonest tactics used by law enforcement to try to get them to "admit" to drug trafficking, they were finally released on bail. Their baby son was returned to them, and they went home. For the next 30 days, they were subjected to surprise visits by Children's Aid employees (the Canadian version of Child Protective Services), who were told by law enforcement authorities that Ron and Nadine were drug smugglers.

Over this 30 day period, as felony drug trafficking charges were pending against them, Ron and Nadine managed to connect with legal help. Their lawyer, Marcy Segal, was able to persuade the Crown Attorney to send the chocolate "hashish" sample to a proper lab for testing. And wouldn't you know it: The test showed that chocolate is chocolate, not hashish.

The charges were dropped, but no apology was ever offered to the couple. Instead, Canadian law enforcement authorities declared, "You must have been smoking something before you came to the airport." (No doubt someone in this story was on crack, but it doesn't seem to be Ron and Nadine...)

NaturalNews has acquired the actual document delivered to law enforcement official in Toronto, declaring there to be absolutely no drugs in Ron and Nadine's possession. You can view the PDF of this document by clicking here.



Ron and Nadine with their baby

Let's try this again

Following their being cleared by the lab tests, they were determined to return to the United States and attend the Raw Spirit Festival in Sedona, Arizona. Their lawyer had contacted U.S. authorities in advance, advising them that Ron and Nadine were bringing chocolate through their security checkpoints as they crossed from Canada to the United States. "Watch out, it's chocolate!"

They were told everything was understood, and the chocolate would be allowed through. Imagine their surprise, however, when Ron and Nadine were once against arrested at the airport and accused of -- guess what? -- smuggling hashish disguised as chocolate!

U.S. law enforcement authorities boost their careers when they take part in big drug busts, and 2.5 pounds of hashish was a huge bust by anyone's accounting. So they had every incentive to try to make this bust stick. Desperate to prove themselves right, the American drug enforcement police ripped though Ron and Nadine's luggage and clothing, opening every vial, asking questions about all the "strange" things they found there. What kind of strange things? Sea salt. Zeolites. Tea tree oil. Essential oils. Hemp seeds. Probiotics. Raw cacao nibs. You know, dangerous superfoods and supplements.

They were questioned at great length about all these "strange" substances. Apparently, law enforcement personnel have actually never seen superfoods! Subsisting on a diet of processed foods and diet soda, they apparently believe real food is a foreign substance... a criminal substance, in fact. It is a strange world, indeed, when those who claim to uphold the laws of the land have zero familiarity with food harvested from the land...


The field kit drug tests produce false positives!

So why did the NIK drug test reveal a positive result when the cacao was tested? To answer that question, NaturalNews purchased a portable narcotics drug test kit from CopQuest.com, an online supply source for law enforcement. The product we purchased is the Narcotics Identification System, part #6060. It is manufactured by NIK Public Safety, Inc. in Jacksonville, FL.

The test we used is test "E" -- which claims to offer "presumptive identifications of Marijuana, Hashish, Hash Oil and THC." According to the instructions, the test reveals a "positive" for Marijuana (or the other substances listed) when it turns purple. As is stated on the NIK Instructions for Use, step 5:

"5. Break middle ampoule and agitate gently. A blue-violet (or purple) color will develop within a few seconds to a minute if Marijuana, Hashish, Hash Oil or THC is present. Allow sufficient time for the blue-violet (or purple) to develop for a positive test."

Here at NaturalNews, we decided to put it to our own test.


The NaturalNews Drug Labs

Here in our NaturalNews labs, we have hundreds of pounds of Hashish just lying around. Or at least that's what the NIK drug test says. Let me explain: To test this NIK marijuana kit, I went to my kitchen and grabbed some Amazing Grass Chocolate Superfood. I thought, if we're testing for grass, why not test amazing grass?



Carefully following the NIK instructions, I prepared test E for marijuana: I put a small sample of Amazing Grass superfood into the plastic bag, resealed the test kit, then broke the left ampoule as instructed. After shaking for 60 seconds (as instructed), here's what the pouch looked like:




Next, I broke the center ampoule and agitated it gently, just as instructed. To my surprise, the liquid turned a dark blue/green purple color! Here's the picture you can see for yourself:




Now, remember that the test kit says, "A blue-violet (or purple) color will develop within a few seconds to a minute if Marijuana, Hashish, Hash Oil or THC is present. Allow sufficient time for the blue-violet (or purple) to develop for a positive test."

I proceeded with the next step (breaking the right ampoule), and it produced this result (notice the purple color of the liquid at the bottom):





Here's a close-up of the result against a white background, where you can clearly see a purple hue in the top layer of the liquid at the bottom of the pouch: