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Legal pot grower sues over plants' confiscation in Kalamazoo Township

Published: Sunday, July 25, 2010, 6:00 AM Updated: Sunday, July 25, 2010, 9:43 AM

Chris Killian | Special to the Kalamazoo Gazette Chris Killian | Special to the Kalamazoo...

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0236221_4.jpgJill McLane Baker/GazetteSalman Ali touches a a marijuana plant Wednesday at his home. Last year, his home was raided and his marijuana plants taken, despite his status as a legitimate medical marijuana user.

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KALAMAZOO TOWNSHIP — Last August, Salman Ali was away on a work trip. But when he returned to his rented Kalamazoo Township home, he was greeted by an unpleasant surprise.

 

Township police and members of the Southwest Michigan Enforcement Team, a multi-jurisdictional drug enforcement unit, had raided his home on East Main Street.

 

Ali, a registered medical marijuana patient and caregiver for one patient at the time, had 12 of his marijuana plants — all enclosed in a locked facility, as required by law — confiscated by authorities.

 

But now nearly a year later, he has never been charged with a crime and his plants — if anything remains of them — are still in police custody.

 

Under the state’s medical marijuana law, Ali, 28, was permitted to possess up to 24 plants, 12 each for being a patient and a caregiver. And even though he said he had posted in plain view in the room where the plants were growing a doctor’s recommendation that he was a registered patient — a step not required under the law — the law enforcement agents took the plants anyway, even confiscating the recommendation itself.

 

Copies of his state-issued identification cards indicating he was a registered patient and caregiver were not posted, but that’s not required either.

 

Now Ali has filed a lawsuit against Kalamazoo Township for the return of his property, in this case, being compensated between $1,000 to $3,000 for the value of each of the plants he was growing. The three-count complaint was filed July 7 in Kalamazoo County Circuit Court. The township has until Aug. 9 to respond to the complaint.

 

“They shouldn’t take the medicine first and ask questions later,” Ali said. “I think they should be held accountable.”

 

But even though qualifying individuals may possess marijuana in Michigan — as well as 13 other states that have a medical marijuana law — the drug is still illegal in the eyes of the federal government in all cases.

 

Ali’s case illustrates gray areas in the year-and-a-half old law: Should law enforcement seize a registered patient or caregiver’s medical marijuana? And can the plants be returned if the patient or caregiver is found to be operating within the state’s law?

Calls to SWET seeking comment for this story were not returned.

 

The Kalamazoo Township Police Department and Kalamazoo County Prosecutor’s Office declined to comment on the specifics of the case, citing the fact that it is being litigated, but Timothy Bourgeois, the township’s chief of police, provided a general statement on the matter:

 

“I cannot respond to specifics in the case as the suit is still being litigated,” he said. “The proper place to try this case is in a court of law, not in the media. We’re confident that the process will reach an appropriate conclusion once all the facts are known. The allegations in this case are just that; they haven’t been determined to be fact.”

 

The raid

On Aug. 10 of last year, Ali was doing marijuana-related work in Detroit. He had no idea that police had acquired a warrant two days earlier to search his home for marijuana.

 

According to an affidavit filed by police seeking the warrant, Ali’s landlord at the time, Mark William Davis, contacted the Kalamazoo Township Police Department on Aug. 7 after he saw marijuana plants growing in the home.

 

The affidavit says Davis had come to speak with Ali about being late on his rent.

Davis told police that he received no answer after he knocked on the front door, so he looked in the front bedroom window and saw five marijuana plants growing under a lamp, the affidavit says.

 

Upon entering the residence, he also found one marijuana plant in the bathroom and “unknown amounts of plants” in a rear bedroom, the affidavit says.

 

Davis also told police that he saw a piece of paper affixed to the wall in the front bedroom that had Ali’s name on it as well as a “validation date” of June 2009, the affidavit says. “It is unknown if this paper was a copy of medical marijuana card,” the affidavit says. Ali received his patient and caregiver identification cards in early July 2009 and he said he took them with him on his trip.

 

Prior to entering Ali’s home, police contacted the Michigan Department of Community Health to confirm whether Ali was a medical marijuana patient or caregiver, according to the affidavit.

 

But after contacting the MDCH — the state agency charged with processing patient and caregiver applications and providing regulatory oversight of the law — police were told that the department could not confirm or deny whether Ali was a registered patient and user, the affidavit says.

 

0236218_4.jpgJill McLane Baker/Gazette

The reason? Police didn’t have Ali’s patient and caregiver identification card numbers, the only information that the MDCH will allow to be used to make, or deny confirmation.

Home addresses, names or other personal information about a suspect are not enough. Adding to headaches for law enforcement, calls to the MDCH seeking confirmation can only be made between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, meaning that if law enforcement wants confirmation outside of that time frame, they have to assume that there is wrongdoing, law enforcement officials said.

 

According to Section 6(h)3 of the medical marijuana law: “The department (MDCH) shall verify to law enforcement personnel whether a registry identification card is valid, without disclosing more information than is reasonably necessary to verify the authenticity of the registry identification card.”

 

“We have everyone’s information, but if there is not a card number, then it makes it difficult,” said James McCurtis, spokesman for the MDCH. “They have to have the registration ID number for us to determine if they (a patient or caregiver) is legitimate. If they don’t have the number, then there’s nothing we can do for them. That’s the way the law is.”

 

McCurtis’ advice for a registered user or caregiver unlucky enough not to be home when police raid their home? Get an attorney.

 

“They are still protected,” he said. “The only advice I can give is contact an attorney. It can be a headache, but you can fight it.”

 

McCurtis said that it’s up to law enforcement to understand the protections in the law afforded to registered patients and caregivers.

 

“Now it’s no longer the time when they could just raid a home and take a person’s marijuana,” he said. “The law calls for law enforcement to make adjustments.”

 

But without the ability to make those confirmations, the frustrations mount for police.

“If someone tells us that there is cultivation going on there’s no way determine if it’s allowed under the law or if it’s illegal manufacturing and trafficking,” Bourgeois said.

 

“Then it becomes a safety concern to people and officers. People involved in the illegal manufacture of marijuana are routinely armed. It’s (marijuana) serious and we can’t turn a blind eye to it.

 

“I think this points up the difficulty when laws come into force on a referendum or a ballot issue. The law was written in a very vague way that causes great confusion.”

Daniel Grow, a St. Joseph attorney who is representing Ali in his civil suit, said police need to do more.

 

“They have to wait to see to rule out that it (marijuana) is for medical purposes. They should at least try to find the person,” said Grow, who also represents Joseph Casias, a Battle Creek man who garnered nationwide attention after the Wal-Mart store where he was working fired him last year after he tested positive for marijuana. Casias, 30, was treating an inoperable brain tumor legally with medical marijuana.

 

“We don’t do summary executions on the street, so why should we do summary seizures of people’s medicine?” Grow asked.

 

“Now it seems like it’s seize now and ask questions later. We sense some frustration from law enforcement that they have one hand tied behind their back. But when voters approved this law, they wanted to slow down the war on drugs.”

 

Grow said he tells medical marijuana patients and caregivers to tread carefully when it comes to being open about their marijuana, even though the state has a law that protects them.

 

“Think that it’s illegal, because it almost is,” he said. “The police had notice that these plants were for medical purposes. Historically, a raid like this was justifiable. It (marijuana) was illegal everywhere. That’s not the case anymore.”

 

Back in business

On Sept. 17, 2009, Ali and John Targowski, a Kalamazoo criminal defense attorney who was representing him at the time, met with, Georgeann Ergang, a detective with the Kalamazoo Township Police Department and another SWET officer, according to the complaint. During the meeting, Ali requested that his plants be returned. The request was denied.

 

About a week later, Ergang contacted Targowski and told him that no charges would be filed against Ali, according to the complaint.

 

Law enforcement officials said that Ali’s plants were not returned because once in possession of them, they must follow federal guidelines regarding marijuana, meaning that they can’t return seized property that is illegal.

 

Targowski, who has handled many medical marijuana cases and has spoken at several conferences to lend his expertise on the state’s medical marijuana law, took serious issue with that practice.

 

“State officials operating under state law can’t hide behind federal law to refuse a person what’s rightfully theirs,” he said. “They can’t have their cake and eat it, too. People are still a little skeptical that police might treat them as a criminal, not a patient.”

 

Targowski said that if the raid on Ali’s house had been performed by federal law enforcement officials, nothing likely could be done.

 

Despite the setback, Ali is back in business in a new place — he was evicted from the home he rented last year.

 

Immediately after stepping through the front door of his current home on Kalamazoo’s west side on a recent afternoon, one can smell marijuana.

 

Ali walks upstairs to his “grow” room, located in a bedroom. Before entering, he washes his hands and sprays Lysol on the soles of his shoes to kill any bacteria or viruses that might infect the plants.

 

Then he unlocks the bedroom door and heads inside, where seven plants sit under a large grow light, some more mature than others. The plants sway in the breeze made by a small fan oscillating in the corner, which cools them.

 

Ali is currently providing medical marijuana to five registered patients, he said, some of whom suffer from multiple sclerosis and Hepatitis C. He is also a registered user, using medical marijuana to treat chronic back pain he continues to experience after an injury in 2003.

 

“This is an industry that will grow,” Ali said, “and I want to grow with it.”

 

Still, he’s scared, declining to have his face photographed for this article not just because he fears criminal elements possibly breaking into his home, but also further involvement from police.

 

“I’ve already had one run-in with the police and it didn’t go very well. I don’t want to have another,” he said. “I’m an advocate, working with patients all across the state. This issue is happening all over. Maybe the police will stop doing this. Maybe they’ll stop taking people’s medicine.”

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sigh, i fear we will continue to hear these stories again and again. i am just glad i own my own home!

 

 

i had a house and it was paid for thats why they took it just saying i hope that we can sue them and get it back and are plants Leo did give us back 531$ they took you would think they would have gave us the plants back

 

just ask ED he knows and their are other for sure it is so sad that Leo can just come inn and take what they want/need

 

Peace from the front

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Legal pot grower sues over plants' confiscation in Kalamazoo Township

Published: Sunday, July 25, 2010, 6:00 AM Updated: Sunday, July 25, 2010, 9:43 AM

Chris Killian | Special to the Kalamazoo Gazette Chris Killian | Special to the Kalamazoo...

Follow

Share this story

Story tools

0236221_4.jpgJill McLane Baker/GazetteSalman Ali touches a a marijuana plant Wednesday at his home. Last year, his home was raided and his marijuana plants taken, despite his status as a legitimate medical marijuana user.

21

0

53Share

KALAMAZOO TOWNSHIP — Last August, Salman Ali was away on a work trip. But when he returned to his rented Kalamazoo Township home, he was greeted by an unpleasant surprise.

 

Township police and members of the Southwest Michigan Enforcement Team, a multi-jurisdictional drug enforcement unit, had raided his home on East Main Street.

 

Ali, a registered medical marijuana patient and caregiver for one patient at the time, had 12 of his marijuana plants — all enclosed in a locked facility, as required by law — confiscated by authorities.

 

But now nearly a year later, he has never been charged with a crime and his plants — if anything remains of them — are still in police custody.

 

Under the state’s medical marijuana law, Ali, 28, was permitted to possess up to 24 plants, 12 each for being a patient and a caregiver. And even though he said he had posted in plain view in the room where the plants were growing a doctor’s recommendation that he was a registered patient — a step not required under the law — the law enforcement agents took the plants anyway, even confiscating the recommendation itself.

 

Copies of his state-issued identification cards indicating he was a registered patient and caregiver were not posted, but that’s not required either.

 

Now Ali has filed a lawsuit against Kalamazoo Township for the return of his property, in this case, being compensated between $1,000 to $3,000 for the value of each of the plants he was growing. The three-count complaint was filed July 7 in Kalamazoo County Circuit Court. The township has until Aug. 9 to respond to the complaint.

 

“They shouldn’t take the medicine first and ask questions later,” Ali said. “I think they should be held accountable.”

 

But even though qualifying individuals may possess marijuana in Michigan — as well as 13 other states that have a medical marijuana law — the drug is still illegal in the eyes of the federal government in all cases.

 

Ali’s case illustrates gray areas in the year-and-a-half old law: Should law enforcement seize a registered patient or caregiver’s medical marijuana? And can the plants be returned if the patient or caregiver is found to be operating within the state’s law?

Calls to SWET seeking comment for this story were not returned.

 

The Kalamazoo Township Police Department and Kalamazoo County Prosecutor’s Office declined to comment on the specifics of the case, citing the fact that it is being litigated, but Timothy Bourgeois, the township’s chief of police, provided a general statement on the matter:

 

“I cannot respond to specifics in the case as the suit is still being litigated,” he said. “The proper place to try this case is in a court of law, not in the media. We’re confident that the process will reach an appropriate conclusion once all the facts are known. The allegations in this case are just that; they haven’t been determined to be fact.”

 

The raid

On Aug. 10 of last year, Ali was doing marijuana-related work in Detroit. He had no idea that police had acquired a warrant two days earlier to search his home for marijuana.

 

According to an affidavit filed by police seeking the warrant, Ali’s landlord at the time, Mark William Davis, contacted the Kalamazoo Township Police Department on Aug. 7 after he saw marijuana plants growing in the home.

 

The affidavit says Davis had come to speak with Ali about being late on his rent.

Davis told police that he received no answer after he knocked on the front door, so he looked in the front bedroom window and saw five marijuana plants growing under a lamp, the affidavit says.

 

Upon entering the residence, he also found one marijuana plant in the bathroom and “unknown amounts of plants” in a rear bedroom, the affidavit says.

 

Davis also told police that he saw a piece of paper affixed to the wall in the front bedroom that had Ali’s name on it as well as a “validation date” of June 2009, the affidavit says. “It is unknown if this paper was a copy of medical marijuana card,” the affidavit says. Ali received his patient and caregiver identification cards in early July 2009 and he said he took them with him on his trip.

 

Prior to entering Ali’s home, police contacted the Michigan Department of Community Health to confirm whether Ali was a medical marijuana patient or caregiver, according to the affidavit.

 

But after contacting the MDCH — the state agency charged with processing patient and caregiver applications and providing regulatory oversight of the law — police were told that the department could not confirm or deny whether Ali was a registered patient and user, the affidavit says.

 

0236218_4.jpgJill McLane Baker/Gazette

The reason? Police didn’t have Ali’s patient and caregiver identification card numbers, the only information that the MDCH will allow to be used to make, or deny confirmation.

Home addresses, names or other personal information about a suspect are not enough. Adding to headaches for law enforcement, calls to the MDCH seeking confirmation can only be made between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, meaning that if law enforcement wants confirmation outside of that time frame, they have to assume that there is wrongdoing, law enforcement officials said.

 

According to Section 6(h)3 of the medical marijuana law: “The department (MDCH) shall verify to law enforcement personnel whether a registry identification card is valid, without disclosing more information than is reasonably necessary to verify the authenticity of the registry identification card.”

 

“We have everyone’s information, but if there is not a card number, then it makes it difficult,” said James McCurtis, spokesman for the MDCH. “They have to have the registration ID number for us to determine if they (a patient or caregiver) is legitimate. If they don’t have the number, then there’s nothing we can do for them. That’s the way the law is.”

 

McCurtis’ advice for a registered user or caregiver unlucky enough not to be home when police raid their home? Get an attorney.

 

“They are still protected,” he said. “The only advice I can give is contact an attorney. It can be a headache, but you can fight it.”

 

McCurtis said that it’s up to law enforcement to understand the protections in the law afforded to registered patients and caregivers.

 

“Now it’s no longer the time when they could just raid a home and take a person’s marijuana,” he said. “The law calls for law enforcement to make adjustments.”

 

But without the ability to make those confirmations, the frustrations mount for police.

“If someone tells us that there is cultivation going on there’s no way determine if it’s allowed under the law or if it’s illegal manufacturing and trafficking,” Bourgeois said.

 

“Then it becomes a safety concern to people and officers. People involved in the illegal manufacture of marijuana are routinely armed. It’s (marijuana) serious and we can’t turn a blind eye to it.

 

“I think this points up the difficulty when laws come into force on a referendum or a ballot issue. The law was written in a very vague way that causes great confusion.”

Daniel Grow, a St. Joseph attorney who is representing Ali in his civil suit, said police need to do more.

 

“They have to wait to see to rule out that it (marijuana) is for medical purposes. They should at least try to find the person,” said Grow, who also represents Joseph Casias, a Battle Creek man who garnered nationwide attention after the Wal-Mart store where he was working fired him last year after he tested positive for marijuana. Casias, 30, was treating an inoperable brain tumor legally with medical marijuana.

 

“We don’t do summary executions on the street, so why should we do summary seizures of people’s medicine?” Grow asked.

 

“Now it seems like it’s seize now and ask questions later. We sense some frustration from law enforcement that they have one hand tied behind their back. But when voters approved this law, they wanted to slow down the war on drugs.”

 

Grow said he tells medical marijuana patients and caregivers to tread carefully when it comes to being open about their marijuana, even though the state has a law that protects them.

 

“Think that it’s illegal, because it almost is,” he said. “The police had notice that these plants were for medical purposes. Historically, a raid like this was justifiable. It (marijuana) was illegal everywhere. That’s not the case anymore.”

 

Back in business

On Sept. 17, 2009, Ali and John Targowski, a Kalamazoo criminal defense attorney who was representing him at the time, met with, Georgeann Ergang, a detective with the Kalamazoo Township Police Department and another SWET officer, according to the complaint. During the meeting, Ali requested that his plants be returned. The request was denied.

 

About a week later, Ergang contacted Targowski and told him that no charges would be filed against Ali, according to the complaint.

 

Law enforcement officials said that Ali’s plants were not returned because once in possession of them, they must follow federal guidelines regarding marijuana, meaning that they can’t return seized property that is illegal.

 

Targowski, who has handled many medical marijuana cases and has spoken at several conferences to lend his expertise on the state’s medical marijuana law, took serious issue with that practice.

 

“State officials operating under state law can’t hide behind federal law to refuse a person what’s rightfully theirs,” he said. “They can’t have their cake and eat it, too. People are still a little skeptical that police might treat them as a criminal, not a patient.”

 

Targowski said that if the raid on Ali’s house had been performed by federal law enforcement officials, nothing likely could be done.

 

Despite the setback, Ali is back in business in a new place — he was evicted from the home he rented last year.

 

Immediately after stepping through the front door of his current home on Kalamazoo’s west side on a recent afternoon, one can smell marijuana.

 

Ali walks upstairs to his “grow” room, located in a bedroom. Before entering, he washes his hands and sprays Lysol on the soles of his shoes to kill any bacteria or viruses that might infect the plants.

 

Then he unlocks the bedroom door and heads inside, where seven plants sit under a large grow light, some more mature than others. The plants sway in the breeze made by a small fan oscillating in the corner, which cools them.

 

Ali is currently providing medical marijuana to five registered patients, he said, some of whom suffer from multiple sclerosis and Hepatitis C. He is also a registered user, using medical marijuana to treat chronic back pain he continues to experience after an injury in 2003.

 

“This is an industry that will grow,” Ali said, “and I want to grow with it.”

 

Still, he’s scared, declining to have his face photographed for this article not just because he fears criminal elements possibly breaking into his home, but also further involvement from police.

 

“I’ve already had one run-in with the police and it didn’t go very well. I don’t want to have another,” he said. “I’m an advocate, working with patients all across the state. This issue is happening all over. Maybe the police will stop doing this. Maybe they’ll stop taking people’s medicine.”

man this guy deserves to have a few beers bought for him for taking on SWET and or KVET one and the same. SWET is way to overrly aggressive when conducting operations. They do knock and talks and force their way into peoples homes it happened to my buddy. These NARC Units need to be taken head on in coourt this and only this way will they stop pickin on MEDICAL PATIENTS. I lived in Kalamazoo they have a huge METH PROBLEM and COKE in North Kalamazoo and out in the sticks with SPEED. THEy should focus on that instead of preying on peaceful, tax paying patients. Do you really think a METHEAD pays taxes..? lol...METHHEADS are to busy robbin n stealin then getting blown out to do anything constructive thats for sure.

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Quote from Gazette... "Home addresses, names or other personal information about a suspect are not enough"

 

Do they need DNA. personal medical records, the specific reason why a "SUSPECT" is with the Medical Marijuana Program?

 

UM since when are police officers (federal or local) Doctors?

 

If I was pulled over while in pain will this new Dr. LEO force me to medicate?

 

The "Federal" part of this is with the SWET thing... they (SWET) has minimal funding for helos or planes so the National Guard are brought in, that makes it Federal.

 

A few years back this "Joint" task force wasted lots o money on finding little Cannabis (picture below of what Federally assisted SWET found).

 

Absolutely disgusting how "METHEADS" (LOLX2) can blow up homes, expose children to noxious chemicals, rob, pillage and kill anyone in their way all the while WE THE SICK ARE STOMPED ON FOR A PLANT.

 

Hello? Calling Dr. LEO... Um BP just foxed up the gulf, my bank closed, drive-bys are happening, my former employer fired me so he could hire cheaper labor under the table, prostitutes are on the corner, I heard another meth explosion, more gun shots again, hundred year old bones under trees, Debbie Stabinow's hubby got another hooker, the MDCH is wasting 4 billion dollars in 2 years, corruption is in your police dept's and you won't speak up about it, heroine is in Jackson again, nightclubs are getting shot up... WAKE UP AND WORK ON REAL CRIME, CRIMES THAT HAVE VICTIMS, CRIMES THAT HURT THE COMMUNITY, CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY. PULL YOUR HEAD FROM YOUR KRISPY KREAME LINED COLON AND BUST THE REAL CRIMINALS.

 

That is all I have to say about that (Forrest Gump of the Bubba Gump Shrimping Co.)

 

Ok... pic is too big so I will link the article which I got it from.

 

That picture...is here upper right side, two bundles one envelope of les than half an ounce and a .22 cal pistol which happend to be on the table during the bust not violence related

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i hear that. since when can a landlord let himself into a house he is renting out. doesn't he need an eviction first ? what an A--hole.

 

Ah yeah .. That be a felony, I believe.

 

Interesting how police just do that "no humans involved" thing when it's a grower.

 

See a grower can't be a victim of crime .. mostly. sorta ..

 

Someday, we'll be humans in the eyes of the law. It'll be a great day.

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I'm seeing both good and bad in this story...Overall it appears to be well written and reports a range of opinions without bias.

 

"if law enforcement wants confirmation outside of that time frame, they have to assume that there is wrongdoing, law enforcement officials said."

There is so much wrong with this attitude...if we aren't sure, then just ASSUME people are breaking the law?! Purely antithetical to fundamental tenets of our legal system...

 

"“Now it’s no longer the time when they could just raid a home and take a person’s marijuana,” he said. “The law calls for law enforcement to make adjustments."

The fact that MDCH is on record saying this is a step in the right direction...

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so much for the presumtion of innocence. Even in a case where they called the MDCH so they knew it was possible and more than likely that they were dealing with a Legal patient/caregiver not like they had no idea and so they just ignore that. MDCH is as much to fault for not processing in a timely manner that MOST IMPORTANT number on the CARD that they take 4 months to produce and then have the nerve to say well its law enforcements responsablity to know the patient/caregivers rights but they do not honor the rights and NOONE seems willing to make them.

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so much for the presumtion of innocence. Even in a case where they called the MDCH so they knew it was possible and more than likely that they were dealing with a Legal patient/caregiver not like they had no idea and so they just ignore that. MDCH is as much to fault for not processing in a timely manner that MOST IMPORTANT number on the CARD that they take 4 months to produce and then have the nerve to say well its law enforcements responsablity to know the patient/caregivers rights but they do not honor the rights and NOONE seems willing to make them.

 

And did the MDCH tell police that they, themselves, were most likely breaking the law?

 

If they didn't, why not? And if they did, why were they ignored?

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