Police in Pullman, Wash., got a tip from a “concerned citizen” that a grow operation was going on in an apartment that he’d just visited. Two hours later, police had their search warrant, and eight police officers went in, guns drawn.
It was indeed a grow operation. The residents were growing tomatoes.
The two people who had tipped off the police were there earlier in the day to view the apartment, and told police that they saw marijuana under grow lights in a closet, smelled burnt marijuana, and that the residents were acting nervous.
Apparently these two have never seen tomato plants before. They look nothing like marijuana plants. But they apparently somehow convinced the cops.
Robert Barry, a senior civil engineering major, stood in shock as police searched his apartment for a suspected marijuana growth. . . .
Roommate Jacin Davis, a senior business administration major, said he was sitting on the couch watching television and did not understand how he could have come across as nervous nor how they would have smelled marijuana. . . .
“They went straight to the closet and saw tomatoes,” Barry said. “They regrouped for a second and then searched the rest of the apartment visually.” Barry said the officers found nothing and even threatened to bring dogs back to search the apartment further.
“They must have felt stupid by then,” he said. — Daily Evergreen
Remember when I said “yet another”? This sort of thing happens all the time.Reason senior editor and former Cato Institute policy analyst Radley Balko explains:
I feel like a broken record on this stuff. But this isn’t the first time people have had their homes raided over misidentified plants. Hell, it’s not even the first time it’s happened with tomatoes. I’ve also found several home invasion raids after a citizen or police officer mistook hibiscus plants for marijuana. There was the time that police in Bel Aire, Kansas raided the home of the town’s former mayor after mistaking a sunflower plant for marijuana (the sunflower is also the state flower of Kansas). In 2002, police in Travis County, Texas brought a helicopter to raid the home of Sandra Smith, during which they awoke her and her roommates to the sight of guns pointed at their heads. The marijuana they were after turned out to be ragweed. And there’s Ed and Jan Carden, an Orlando couple raided when police mistook elderberry bushes for marijuana.
Then there is the long history of people wrongly raided for the crime of merely owning plant growing equipment or, even worse, merely shopping at stores that sell plant growing equipment that could be used to grow marijuana (or, for that matter, just about anything else). Here’s just one example. Here’s another.
These military-ish attacks on small-time marijuana offenders, and the mistaken raids that go with them, have been going on for 20 years. — Hit & Run
It’s bad enough that people growing marijuana are persecuted under the insane war on some drugs, but this sort of police-state mentality is the natural consequence of banning something people want. Unfortunately, we didn’t learn from Prohibition the first time, and we apparently still haven’t learned. It’s time to save our neighborhoods, our families, our children, from the scourge of the War on Drugs, and end Prohibition again.
(3 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
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Colleen McCool
Apr 13, 2007
Many of today’s leaders seem to have minds like concrete; thoroughly mixed up and permanently set. Blinded by the light of billions in tax and lobby money; bleeding leaders, thus corrupted, are blithely unconscious of the societal harm their policies cause. Jiminey Cricket, where is their
conscience?
Michael Hampton
Apr 13, 2007
A conscience is no longer required for a career in law enforcement. In fact, it’s apparently actively discouraged.
Jeff Hope
Apr 13, 2007
I’m not surprised.
Many people now cannot even identify simple foods. My supermarket sells two types of fruit: packaged and loose. I buy loose. The checkout girl always has to ask. A while back I told her they were bananas. She hesitated for a full second. Then I confessed they were plums. She accepted that. They were apricots. I haven’t paid full price ever since. Information age my ass.
BelchSpeak
Apr 13, 2007
Mike is STILL advocating for dope smoking. Confuses “prosecution” with “persecution.” Smoking all that cannabis will make you paranoid, you know.
Meanwhile the drumbeat goes on to ban a legalized product of tobacco. And you think they will ban the one and accept the other? Maybe on planet crazy.
Verbos
Apr 13, 2007
I’ve known a few cops personally. It’s “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”.
I do have one story:
Years ago one of the local youths planted some seed in a planter outside the cop shop door. I mean just outside the door where they walked to and from their cars. I don’t think they would have noticed accept that it began to smell like a skunk. They never did see the twelve foot plant in the middle of the kids front yard.
Michael Hampton
Apr 13, 2007
Hey, BelchSpeak is back, and still as confused as ever.
Jeff Hoyt
Apr 13, 2007
I think he’s a “plant”.
H to the Q
Apr 14, 2007
In the immortal words of ‘Mountain Girl’ (Kesey’s gal-pal): “Can’t bust ‘em!”
Q
Apr 16, 2007
YES, YES, thank you for posting this, another victory in the war against vegetation. yee-haw.
Thebes
Apr 17, 2007
This is not much of a surprise. Back in the early days of The Farm (famous commune of the hippie days, still around) the police in Summertown TN raided a watermelon patch… totally buggered it up, large numbers of cops and if I remember correctly, even helicopters. Cops had to pay of the watermelons at least
Cops make far too many of these sorts of mistakes. And “guns drawn”, over just a few natural living plants? Its BS.
Michael C
Apr 21, 2007
Yep, this is proof that marijuana should be legalised. Not.
Spark
Apr 26, 2007
Proof that it should be legalized? No.
Proof that the “war on drugs” has gotten totally out of hand? Absolutely.
Jimmy Gilliam
May 03, 2007
It’s also proof that concern over citizen rights is a non-issue. The only important aspect is law enforcement can do no wrong. Why else would a cop want to threaten a person with “we’ll be back with dogs” when there was no valid reason to be there is the first place?
Ben
Feb 12, 2008
Very well said Colleen. I deeply agree with you, vote Ron Pauk, and check out the book “The Emperors Wears no Clothes.” Ironically, it should be at your local library.
JayJay
Dec 11, 2009
It’s not a war on drugs….it’s a war on personal freedoms.
Never forget that!