THERE'S A REASON THEY CALL IT "DOPE"
Pot users want pot legalized. But one would wonder if pot users are even competent to make such a decision for themselves.
The following are typical examples of behavior observed by marijuana users:
Examples from before 2005:
- After the pot user was arrested on a warrant, he took the pot from his pocket and hid it in the police car seat, so he
wouldn't have it on him when searched. But he forgot he had wrapped the pot in a traffic ticket he got earlier that day.
- The pot user reported that his TV had been stolen. When police arrived to investigate, they found several pot plants in
the room the TV had been taken from.
- The pot user led two men around town, showing off all of his favorite pot sources. Then the men, who were undercover
policemen, arrested him after he bought some pot for them. His amazed question was: "You guys have been the cops -
all day???"
- He threw the pot into the woods as he was being stopped by police for a traffic violation. But the policeman in the
backup car saw where it went, and retrieved it in a few seconds.
- The pot-using parolee knew he was going to be drug tested that day, so he got his uncle to provide a sample, which he
then deftly switched for his own. He was then arrested for parole violation for cocaine use.
- Miami, FL: A man forgot his marijuana in a cab. The cabbie noticed the dope later and told the dispatcher, who called
the cops. Later the guy called the cab company to ask if anyone turned in the "tobacco" he had left in the cab.
The dispatcher told him he would have to come and identify it as his to get it back. He did. Cops busted him after he made
the ID.
- The pot user offered to dispose of any pot the police had seized as evidence, by selling it and giving half the money
to the police. The police gave him a bag, and then arrested him for drug dealing after his first sale.
- Pontiac MI: Christopher Johns, on trial for marijuana possession, said he had been searched without a warrant. The
prosecutor said the officer didn't need a warrant because the "bulge" in his jacket might have been a gun. He
said "nonsense" and handed the same jacket, which he was wearing, to the judge for examination. The judge found
cocaine in the pocket.
- El Paso TX: Drug smugglers brought a propane tank truck into the US from Mexico. They rigged it so propane would be
released from the valves, while the truck concealed a load of marijuana. But they misspelled the name of the gas company
on the side of the truck.
- A man who reported a safe stolen from his home a month earlier faced charges after police found the safe - with almost
a pound of marijuana inside.
- St. Louis MO: A man came to the police station to bail out a friend who was arrested earlier. The officer asked him to
go through the metal detector. It goes off. The officer asks him to empty his pockets into the basket: cash, a pack of
gum, and a bag of pot.
- San Antonio TX: Amy Brasher was arrested after a mechanic reported to police that 18 packages of marijuana were packed
in the engine compartment of the car she brought in for an oil change.
- Cottonwood ID: The homeowner told police that the thief got his VCR, his bong, and his stash of marijuana. Luckily,
however, the thief had missed his marijuana pipe. Possession of drug paraphernalia!
As you can see, the pot greatly diminished the capacity of the user to think.
Examples from 2005:
- Greenwood Village CO: Sonja Aguirre parked a car loaded with marijuana in a handicap parking space to save a few steps.
The car was towed, and then she was arrested.
- Orlando FL: Edgar Gavin and Jose Clark were hauling pot in a van with expired plates. Guess why police stopped them,
and what they discovered inside.
- Dayton OH: Two people intended to steal the entire inventory of an illegal pot farm. They shoplifted the pantyhose they
intended to use as disguises from a local drugstore. But the store security caught them.
- Belleville IL: Anthony Martin called police to report that his pot plants were stolen. But when he led police to the
scene of the crime, the plants were still there. Busted for using AND possession.
- Taylorsville KY: Danny Walden was shot by the rifle he rigged as a booby trap to protect the 115 pot plants in his
house.
- Medford OR: The strange case of Kevan Thatcher Stephens
Pot use also causes major harm and expense to others, even killing some people:
- A Conrail engine driver high on pot crashed into a commuter train, killing two people.
- A commercial airline pilot high on marijuana crashed an air cargo plane at Newark airport.
- In 1985, a computer operator high on marijuana crashed the American Airlines computer flight reservation system,
causing 19 million dollars damage.
- In 1990, the National Transportation Safety Board studied 182 fatal truck accidents. It found that just as many of the
accidents were caused by drivers using marijuana as were caused by alcohol -- 12.5 percent in each case.
- Of those who feloniously killed police officers in 2002, 46 percent had prior drug arrests. That's higher than any
other reason for arrest in this group.
- Richard Davis was high on pot when he kidnapped and murdered Polly Klass.
The statistics on impaired driving are slanted, because it is a lot more expensive to test for drugs than it is to test
for alcohol. So almost all cases where both alcohol and drugs are present in intoxicating amounts are prosecuted on only
the alcohol charge.
Should we criminalize alcohol too?
It already is criminalized in that respect. There is a difference between consuming small amounts of alcohol and
consuming amounts sufficient to impair:
- Impairment while operating ANY powered vehicle is Driving While Impaired (different states have different names for
this crime).
- Doing other things while impaired is Public Intoxication.
- One idea is a drinking license
More dope in 2006:
- New Braunfuls TX: Drug Dealer Robert Villarreal sold drugs to the same undercover officer three different times, and
was arrested and sentenced each time. The third time (strike 3) he got 50 years.
- Vincennes IN: Two people being stopped for speeding near Vincennes traded seats before stopping the car, so it would
appear that the other person was driving. But the cop saw the seat exchange occur. There was a baby in the back seat, and
the car reeked of marijuana smoke. The seat trade added reckless endangerment to the charges, and also added a charge to
the baby's mother, also in the back seat, for child endangerment.
- Cesar De La Rosa killed a boy on a bicycle while driving under the influence of pot. Don't tell me it's harmless.
And in 2007:
- Monroe County IN: A man called police and reported that a homicidal bush was chasing him down the road, and that it
was trying to kill him. He demanded that police search the house for the bush. They found a grow light, 55 marijuana
plants, and labeled jars filled with different kinds of marijuana.
Maybe this explains the irrational liberal hatred for President George W Bush. (?)
- Howard Fisher, a South Carolina man who was transporting marijuana, crashed into a police car that was blocking I-95
to protect a crash scene.
- Three men with a load of pot were arrested on New York City's Triborough Bridge because they tried to run through the
tollgate. They had $4000 in drugs, but didn't have the $4.50 for the toll. The driver had 8 current suspensions on his
license.
- A man working community service for his drug possession conviction showed up with pot in his pocket at the
pot-sniffing dog training center.
- Adam Hunter smashed his car into a house in Cookeville Tennessee. But he claimed he wasn't impaired, and explained
the pot police found in his car. He didn't use it; he just sold it (bigger crime).
- Portland Oregon residents were bucketing water on the house fire, instead of calling the fire department. They had
pot plants inside the house.
- Faced with a traffic stop, the druggie shook his bag of pot out the window. It blew back in the car, covering him
with pot.
- Delshawn Prejean was arrested for leaving pot as a tip for a Starbucks waitress.
- Ismael Velasquez was arrested because his low-flow toilet wouldn't flush his pot. It floated.
- Wilmington DE: Jesse Dale, faced with a traffic stop, tried to throw his stash out the passenger-side window. But
the window was closed, and the stash landed on the passenger seat, out of his reach.
Question: Are you aware that these people are voting?
Here's the latest dope from 2008:
- The traffic offender hands his wallet to the police. In the wallet was a small bag of pot.
- On one of those car chase shows on TV, a driver crashed into over 20 cars and caused more than a million dollars in
damage before he stopped his own flight by rolling his vehicle upside down. Why did he flee??? He had been smoking pot,
and had two more joints in the car.
And dopiness from 2009:
- Enola PA: A Mechanicsburg PA man, 37, parked in a police station parking lot reserved for police vehicles, reclined
his seat, and went to sleep. He was high on pot and vodka.
- Bloomington IN: Theodore Tolliver, 22, punched a female officer who stopped him. No wonder:
- He didn't stop for the police for several blocks
- His car had no license plate or registration
- He had pot hidden in his clothes and in the vehicle
- There was a TV facing the driver
- He had an open beer container
- His license was suspended
- No brain
I realized two things:
- These people who ran from police because they were using drugs were so bonked on drugs that they turned their
misdemeanor drug charge into several felony charges, by fleeing arrest and endangering others. Stooopid Drug Brain!!
- So many of the liberals I know either are or were drug users. Does drug use cause liberalism?
Another recent wrinkle in the drug story is the discovery that lavender can cause a false positive result on a field
test for marijuana. This can raise the cost of a conclusive result.
I stopped cataloging these dopey dope cases in 2010, because they were just "more of the same" over
and over.
But one case in 2015 stands out: A man killed a policeman to avoid a misdemeanor arrest for pot:
The Inexplicable Case of Tremaine Wilbourn
Pot destroys morality.
Two cases where pot products made children sick
Two more cases of interest appeared once some states legalized recreational pot:
- On November 30, 2018 in Mulberry Florida, a 12-year-old boy ordered and bought online a package of
pot-infused gummi pieces, each piece containing 100 mg of THC. He took this to Mulberry Middle School and shared
it with 6 other 7th-grade pupils. All were sick and 5 were taken to hospital. He was charged with possession of
pot resin and with 6 counts of distribution of drugs within 1000 feet of a school.
- On February 4, 2019 on the east side of Cleveland Ohio, a 9-year-old boy took gummi bears from supplies his
mother and aunt used the night before at a party. It is not known if the kid knew the gummi bears were infused
with pot. He took them to Anton Grdina School and shared them with 13 other children. All 14 got sick, and 9
were taken to hospital. One kid had a stomach ache, a sore throat, and felt extremely hot. The mother was
arrested for child endangerment.
Pot makes children sick.
The original story, posted on a bulletin board:
Medford OR: Kevan Thatcher-Stephens sped recklessly through Medford and crashed, killing himself and another man. He ran
a red light while running from police at over 100 mph. He ran from police because he had used pot.
After the above account was posted, his mother posted this text (spelling repaired):
"Kevan Thatcher-Stephens tried to run away from the cop because he was scared. He was a young man and though like a
young man, he ran because he was chased. The question is, why was he chased by an off duty police officer who may have been
under the influence of drugs himself. And why was he chased into a high traffic area on a Friday night. Get your facts
straight. Kevan had never been arrested, had no police contact, he was profiled by a small town, untrained redneck police
'officer'. Sad."
His mother is denying the truth. Here are the facts:
- Being scared is NO excuse for running. If you run from the law, you are committing another crime - one more serious
than anything rising from a traffic stop. He should have known that. And he should have known that he was endangering
other people by driving recklessly. But the marijuana altered his thinking.
- If he had not run from the police, he would have faced only the following charges:
- driving while impaired
- possession of marijuana
- whatever violation he was originally stopped for
In my state, he would have had 3-4 months in jail and a fine for these misdemeanor violations (most of that time is for
driving while impaired - a mandatory 3-month sentence for a first offense).
- But when he ran from police, he added the following charges, most of them felonies:
- Reckless driving
- Fleeing law enforcement
- Use of a motor vehicle to flee law enforcement (a separate crime in many states)
- Failure to obey a traffic control device - multiple counts
- Exceeding speed limit by more than 15 mph - multiple counts
- Vehicular manslaughter while fleeing law enforcement (a murder charge in some states)
He risked and ended his own life to avoid accepting the penalties for his wrongdoing. If he hadn't died in the crash,
he would have served 20-to-life in prison because of his actions during his flight from police.
- A mother who loves her son would do the following:
- Stop him from using pot.
- Stop him from driving while impaired.
- Impress on him how his actions could endanger other people.
- Teach him that running from police is a worse crime than almost all other traffic violations.
She would not defend his lawbreaking.
- Why an off-duty officer chased him:
- First of all, Kevan broke the law. That is enough reason for the police to stop him:
- If he hadn't used pot, he probably would not have committed a traffic offense.
- If he hadn't committed the traffic offense, he wouldn't have been stopped.
- It's against the law to drive while impaired.
- It's against the law to have marijuana.
There is no excuse for any of these.
- Second, the off-duty status of the police officer has no bearing at all on whether or not Kevan broke the law. It
is the officer's sworn duty to enforce the law at all times, whether or not he is "on duty".
- Third, the policeman had no idea of what kind of criminal he was dealing with. People who flee police usually have
done something a lot more serious. The cop didn't know whether he had a kidnapper, pedophile, car thief, murderer,
drug dealer, or terrorist.
- Did the officer himself have drugs? Is this something that came out in the investigation, or is it an unfounded
accusation?
- There is no mention of this in the investigation.
- In any case, it's NO EXCUSE for anything Kevan did.
- It is a red herring as far as the possible charges against Kevan are concerned. There are no offsetting penalties
in law like there are in football. Both would have been charged with crimes if both did wrong. The cop might lose his
job, but that would not reduce any charges against Kevan, especially if there were other witnesses. A man died!
- Why was Kevan chased into a high traffic area on a Friday night? Maybe it's because he LED police into a high traffic
area. He decided where the chase would lead by the turns he took.
- If the original reason for the police stop was impaired driving, the purpose of the chase was to stop him before he
killed someone. But he beat them to it, killing someone before they could stop him.
- The fact that he used pot means he was DRIVING WHILE IMPAIRED. That is not only a crime; it is also dangerous to other
people. Danger to other people is the MAIN reason pot is illegal.
- Does his mother really think he would have slowed down, if the police stopped chasing him? Experience says he would
not have slowed down. In several freeway chases in California which were on "America's Worst Drivers," the
fleeing drivers kept driving at dangerous speeds after the police abandoned the chase. Usually they kept going at high
speeds until they wrecked.
- Was Kevan Profiled?
- How did the cop even know who was driving at the time? It was night.
- The policeman on the scene usually doesn't know who the car belongs to, or who is driving it, until midway through
the stop. If the driver runs, the chase is already well underway, or has already ended, before the cop has any info.
- With most police departments, the cop radios the station. The station then has to use the DMV computer to trace the
car. Then the station radios the info back to the cop. This all takes time - time Kevan didn't give the cop.
- Meanwhile, the cop is chasing the car BECAUSE it is fleeing (remember, that's a crime too - a felony in most states).
So the moment he ran, Kevan became a felon.
- Once the cop has the license plate info, he still doesn't know who the driver is. The driver could be the car owner,
a relative of the owner, someone who borrowed the car, a mechanic, or a car thief.
- The only person the police could have a description of during the chase is the car owner. And remember, it was night.
That makes identifying the driver even harder.
- If Kevan didn't own the car, was either the real owner, or the car itself, wanted by police? If so, that would have
intensified the need to catch the car.
- They also needed to stay with the car to find out who was driving, so they would know who to charge with all of those
felonies committed during the chase.
- There is nobody to blame for this except Kevan himself. His actions led to the police wanting to stop him, his actions
led to the police chasing him at high speed, his actions led the chase into a high traffic area, and his actions led to the
deaths of another man and himself, plus the injuries of his passenger, plus the passenger in the other driver's car.
- Probably none of this would have happened if he hadn't used pot - which was the main point of my original post.
An update on the Kevan Thatcher-Stephens case several months after the fatal crash:
- He had ingested both alcohol and pot.
- He apparently got the illicit substances at a party hosted by another kid whose parents were away on vacation.
- His parents still blame the police, even after an investigation showed no wrongdoing by the officer (other than having
someone in his car at the time of the chase - he was off-duty).
- The son of a local judge seems to have sold Kevan the pot, and the judge was accused of covering for her son.
- The kids involved in the party refused to talk to police.
- A lawyer started a wacky series of lawsuits.
- Google the name, and read all of the wacky stuff that fell out of the woodwork from that case.
Justice in a blender? Or just ice?
Four years after Kevan's crash caused by his own lawbreaking, his mother still has a website that blames the police.
Talk about denial:
- She lied about Kevan himself:
- Kevan had no valid license at the time of the crash. It was suspended for the offenses listed below.
- Kevan repeatedly took the car without permission.
- Kevan was known for trying to bait cops who stopped other drivers.
- Kevan had previous offenses of driving without ever having received a license, 74 in a 45 zone, careless driving,
driving without insurance, and a chargeable accident the day he got his license (which he got only because the other
offenses hadn't yet been tried). Yet, his mother said in the above web post that he had never been arrested.
- Kevan's blood alcohol was twice the legal limit the day he killed himself in the crash.
- The insurance company covering the car Kevan drove was not required by the court to pay, because Kevan didn't have
permission to drive the car.
- Kevan's estate was sued by the family of the dead man. Good luck trying to collect.
- His mother used spam posts to get Google to index her website.
- The kid who gave Kevan the drugs, and his parents, also had legal trouble:
- The kid was already on probation for delivering controlled substances within 100 feet of a school. The party the
night of the accident was to celebrate his release from probation. So what does the stupid idiot do? He gets more drugs!
NO BRAIN!
- Both of that kid's parents were on vacation in Mexico at the time of the crash. They had left him at home alone.
- That kid's mother was originally the juvenile judge in the case, but she was disqualified and replaced. She decided
not to seek re-election. GOOD!
- His father, a lawyer, had a conflict of interest when he advised students who were friends of Kevan and his own son
not to speak to police.
- Both of that kid's parents were investigated for wrong conduct as officers of the court, but were cleared, due to
lack of evidence.
- The kid was later convicted for another count of delivering controlled substances within 100 feet of a school (stupid
again), along with drug possession and weapons charges. He has also been sued by the victims of the crash and the estate
of the dead victim. His friends at the party were sued too.
- The kids at the party said that Kevan hadn't had anything to drink. This contradicts the medical examiner's
report.
- Her statements about the police were false:
- The police involved were totally cleared of any wrongdoing.
- The only mistake the officer made was not letting the passenger out of his vehicle before the chase.
- A second police car was involved in the chase. None of the mother's accusations could apply to both policemen.
The moral of this story:
DRUG USE MAKES PEOPLE STUPID!
- Anyone who has reached age 21 with a high school diploma, and without any convictions for the crimes listed below, can
apply for and receive a Drinking License.
- Temporary licenses are available for travelers from states without licensed drinking who have no DWI convictions.
- A drinking license is required to purchase, transport, enter a vendor of, or consume alcoholic beverages.
- A Driving While Impaired (DWI) conviction shall result in suspension of the drinking license for twice the period the
driver license is suspended.
- Any conviction of Public Intoxication, Drunk and Disorderly, open container violation, or any misdemeanor committed
while intoxicated, shall have a mandatory 6 month suspension of the drinking license.
- Anyone convicted of Unlicensed Drinking, Drinking While Suspended, Furnishing Alcohol to a Minor, Theft of alcoholic
beverages, any felony committed while intoxicated, or Domestic Violence shall permanently lose the drinking license for
life.
- Anyone found to be drinking after permanently losing the drinking license for life shall have a mandatory jail sentence
of 1 year with no parole.
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