CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — A judge sentenced a man who was apart of a major synthetic marijuana operation in the Coastal Bend.
In 2018, officials began their investigation in what they consider one of the largest home-grown cases of synthetic marijuana.
"The guys who were manufacturing and distributing synthetic marijuana throughout the Corpus Christi area. Their operation's done," attorney Ryan K. Patrick said.
Illegal chemicals were being ordered from overseas and then made into synthetic marijuana.
The man sentenced on Tuesday was Charles Callis, who owned 'done right a/c' and received a nearly 19-year sentence for his involvement in the case.
"This type of criminal activity of these toxic poisons will not be tolerated in our community," drug enforcement administrator Paul D'Amato said.
According to officials, getting people off of the streets also means helping the local community and the health issues that were related to the drug.
"Local health impact with the numbers we saw of the calls for service for clearly intoxicated or just people in distress, and it turns out they were using this stuff. and we saw the numbers drop in half once we started executing search warrants and taking these guys off the streets," Patrick said.
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