‘Feels like we got stolen from’ Lawsuit filed after $1M of hemp seized in Spring Hill

Brittney Baird
·2 min read
2

SPRING HILL, Tenn. (WKRN) — It is a race against time for a smoke shop and a distributor after they claimed Spring Hill police illegally seized more than a million dollars worth of hemp.

The owners of Old School Vapor and SAK Wholesale filed a lawsuit against the Spring Hill Police Department and District Attorney Brent Cooper.

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The companies claim officers seized their legal hemp products, which are valued at $1.35 million, earlier this month after the DA’s office said it is the same as marijuana.

“I kept thinking I was gonna go to jail,” said SAK Wholesale and Old School Vapor CEO Sam Oechslin. “If they presume that this is drugs….I’m not going to get to see my kids grow up and my life’s over.”

Oechslin said the officers were not receptive to him trying to explain the difference between legal hemp and illegal marijuana. He said one of his employees heard the officers say hemp and marijuana are the same thing.

“It seemed like they thought they happened upon a ton of marijuana,” Oechslin said.

According to the lawsuit, officers executed search warrants at Old School Vapor unrelated to hemp products on May 9. The seizure of these legal products reportedly violate the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

Oechslin claims that not only was the search warrant for Old School Vapor and not the adjoined distribution business SAK Wholesale, but the warrant was for mushroom products not cannabis.

“They just seemed very dead set on us being nefarious,” he said.

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The companies want their hemp returned before it is ruined. The lawsuit seeks damages of $1,350,607 plus attorney fees.

Old School Vapor is a family-owned smoke shop with five locations in Columbia, Franklin and Spring Hill and opened its first location in 2014. SAK Wholesale is a family-owned wholesale business located in Columbia that opened in January 2024.

A spokesperson for Spring Hill said the city has no comment due to the pending litigation.

Spring Hill Police and the District Attorney did not respond to requests for comment.

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