ORANGE PARK – Last month, police in “full body armor” raided a newly-opened CBD dispensary deemed illegal over claims the medicine contained amounts of tetrahydrocannabinol, the compound in marijuana that gives users a ‘high.’

Police, armed with guns and a search warrant, stuffed themselves into the 400-square foot dispensary located at 418 Kingsley Avenue. By the time they left, Harry Satur’s entire product line was gone.

Now he wants his goods back and claims he has lab results that prove his products, which are made from industrial hemp, should not have been confiscated by police.

He is currently considering legal action against the town for confiscating his goods. Without a large sum of money to retain an attorney willing to take the case, however, he said he’s in a “wait and see” position.

“We were just a little storefront trying to help people, and they came in and took everything,” Satur said. “I wish they would have come and talked to me first before they brought 20 officers and raided our store like we were a bunch of criminals.”

Officers confiscated Satur’s cellphone and his mother-in-law’s cellphone and he said officers have not returned calls, emails or text messages asking to talk about the incident.

No charges have been brought against Satur since officers raided his shop on Nov. 29. Satur said charges shouldn’t be brought against him because ambiguity in the interpretation in Florida’s 2014 Compassionate Cannabis Act doesn’t apply to cannabidiol, or CBD, which is non-psychoactive.

CBD oil from industrial hemp is already legal in all 50 states because the initial product contains no traceable amounts of THC. Industrial hemp is genetically bred to have high levels of CBD and is safe for children and the elderly to consume.

“If it carried high amounts of THC, then yes, it’s illegal,” Satur said. “But it has no THC or very low [THC] because it’s industrial hemp, it’s not to get you high, it’s for health benefits.”

Last month’s raid of the Town of Orange Park’s first CBD dispensary has turned into part legend and part rumor. The raid has especially been a prime topic of discussion among those shops that have sold the medicine for years.

Many believe the shop’s prominent signage – and its location across the street from the Orange Park Police Department building – made it more of a prime target of scrutiny. Others believe the product taken off the shelves Nov. 29 did contain illegal amounts of THC.

“CBD is legal, THC is illegal,” said Shannon Durante, a local glassblower and employee at Smoke City tobacco accessory shop, which sells CBD products at 295 Blanding Blvd. “It’s also a small town. We have a lot of people coming in and talking about [the dispensary’s closure], but we really don’t know what happened.”

Smoke City carries many of the same types of products Satur’s CBD shop sold. Edibles and vape liquids for e-cigarettes namely, however when asked, she said she had never had any trouble from local police, and furnished a lab report claiming their product contained no THC whatsoever.

Durante said, however, that Smoke City does not rely solely on one product to make a profit. If it lost the right to sell, their shop would remain open unlike what happened to Satur.

Satur said the Clay County location of his local Jacksonville smoke shop chain RYO Tobacco, which he closed in October, carried CBD as well, something he never received any trouble for from local authorities in Jacksonville or Clay County.

At Granary Whole Foods, which sells vitamins and herbal supplements, however, sales for CBD oil come from customers who say the medicine is extremely beneficial, especially with autistic children.

“They’re nonverbal, and they can tell a huge difference since they started giving it to them,” said Amanda Usry, who has worked at the Orange Park-based shop for 12 years. “We’ve never had an issue [with police.] We don’t advertise our product. [The dispensary] had, right next to the police station, a big, green cross, which is a big symbol out in Colorado.”

Other speculation surrounds the timing of Satur opening his shop and how closely it occurred after the Nov. 8 election in which voters overwhelming passed Amendment 2, which makes medical marijuana legal in Florida. The amendment has municipalities scrambling to establish moratoria on medical marijuana shops until they can decide new zoning classifications would be best.

A three-page document filed earlier this month finalized a rule to establish a controlled substance code number for “marijuana extracts,” which will allow the Drug Enforcement Administration to track CBD shipments across the country separate from marijuana.

The DEA will continue to list it as a Schedule I controlled substance, a category reserved for drugs with “a high potential for abuse” and “no currently accepted medical use.”

For law enforcement officers involved with the incident, however, the reason for the raid is simple. The raid was the culmination of a weeklong undercover operation where product was purchased, tested and found to contain THC in illegal amounts, which can only be sold with a license.

“They weren’t licensed, they weren’t asking for prescriptions, they weren’t doing any of the things that the state of Florida requires them to do to sell these products,” said Sgt. Jeremy Clark with Clay County Sheriff’s Office narcotics. “So, essentially, they were just selling marijuana.”