Minot charity finds marijuana among donated goods

MINOT, N.D. (AP) — Workers sorting through donations for the Dakota Boys and Girls Ranch in Minot made an unexpected discovery recently.

And, the source of the donation may be even more surprising.

An individual handling a garbage bag of donations found what appeared to be marijuana.

“She notified me that one of her employees found a garbage bag that was donated and inside the donated bag, there was some other bags that contained what appeared to be drugs and may some drug-related paraphernalia,” the facility’s director Mike McCloud said.

The marijuana was traced to the Berthold Police Department, KXNews reported.

Berthold Police Chief Al Schmidt said his department takes donations of clothes, blankets and other items to the Minot ranch. A recently closed case involved marijuana, and the evidence was set out to be destroyed, he said.

“What we pretty positively believe happened is that when the donations were put into the truck, that marijuana that was supposed to be destroyed was inadvertently placed in there with them,” said Schmidt. “Which is an unfortunate accident.”

The marijuana was returned to the department and then destroyed.

Schmidt says the department prides itself on professionalism and describes this as an embarrassing situation.

“We obviously are very sorry that that happened,” said Schmidt. “And we take full responsibility and want everyone to be assured that this has been addressed.”