The Bizarre World of the Drug War
Here are a few of the more off-beat recent drug war stories. Some of these have already been posted by the other drug war blogs listed on the left, so I'm just catching up, but I thought you might find them interesting/strange/outrageous.
 Even cops can get ripped off. Link
Officers set up a sting with the help of an informant to buy a pound of marijuana for $3,200. Informant meets with dealer and gives him the money. Dealer leaves the car to go get the pot and... doesn't return. No pot. No money. The cops finally tracked him down and recovered the money and charged him with "theft by unlawful taking."
So essentially they're arresting and charging him with not delivering an illegal substance to them. Seems to me that the cops wanted to buy illegal drugs. The informant wanted to buy illegal drugs. The "thief" merely wanted to prevent the sale of illegal drugs by taking the drug money out of the black market and use it legitimately to buy stuff. He should be commended.
Question: If someone other than the cops lost money to someone who took their money without supplying drugs, would they be able to get the police to charge their thief with "unlawful taking"?
Trained Wasps! Link
An unusual device that uses trained wasps, rather than trained dogs, to detect specific chemical odors could one day be used to find hidden explosives, plant diseases, illegal drugs, cancer and even buried bodies, according to a joint study by researchers at the University of Georgia and U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Crackheads Gone Wild Link
Billed as an Xtreeme documentary, this is a kind of real-life post-modern Reefer Madness for crack, that looks as if it had been created by Dave Chappelle.
Will he be charged as an adult? Link
PHILADELPHIA -- A 2-year-old boy was removed from his family and his mother could face charges after the child handed his daycare teacher two packets of crack cocaine, and a search of his jacket pocket turned up nine more, police said.
[...]
The toddler talked about the drugs, but it wasn't clear how much he understood. According to police, he said he took the packets off a table at home.
I've got some killer parsley. Link
Two Flagler County elementary school pupils were arrested last week after pretending a plastic bag of parsley was marijuana.
An arrest report by Cpl. Don Apperson, a school resource deputy with the Flagler County Sheriff's Office, said the two girls, each 10-year-old pupils at Old Kings Elementary School, were showing classmates a plastic bag with a green leafy substance they said was marijuana.
[...]
The girls were charged under a state law that makes it a crime to claim that a substance is a drug -- whether or not the item is intended for sale or distribution, according to Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Debra Johnson.
How do they shoot movies or produce plays in Florida?
11:25:43 PM | drug policy | Related | permalink |
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