Why Do You Think
They Call It Dope?
Part One
Compiled from American police reports
by Karen Littleton
While substance and alcohol
abuse are serious issues with
far reaching consequences, it’s
sometimes difficult not tochuckle
when someone’s drug-addled
stupidity makes the news.
Watch for
Part 2 of this series in the October issue of San Antonio Medicine.
Driver ODs, crashes into drug
treatment center
A man with a needle sticking out of
his arm crashed his car into a
Cincinnati drug treatment center, witnesses
said. The driver was arrested and
taken to a hospital for treatment of
unspecified injuries.
Police said the man was unconscious
and had overdosed on a drug,
possibly heroin. He regained consciousness
when he was loaded into an
ambulance and attempted to jump out
and flee, but police caught him and
restrained him with handcuffs. No
other injuries were reported.
Man asks police for ride, gets
hauled to jail
A 26-year-old Florida man who
begged a police officer for a ride ended
up in jail after a pat down search yielded
marijuana and a candid admission
that led the officer to several marijuana
plants.
The man was charged with possession
of cannabis and cultivation of a
controlled substance after a uniformed
police officer spotted him
walking along a road at about 5 a.m.
It was not known why he asked the
patrol officer for a lift home, but
before he could get in the officer told
him he had to pat him down. That’s
when the officer found the marijuana
on him.
Faced with a possession charge, the
suspect admitted to the officer that he
got the marijuana “from a wooded
area.”
“The police found six marijuana
plants growing in the woods behind
his house,” a police official said.
In the bag
A “tourist,” supposedly on a golf
holiday, stood in line at the airport
customs counter. While making idle
chatter, the customs official thought it
odd that the golfer didn’t know what a
handicap was.
The officer then asked the tourist to
demonstrate his swing. He did —
backwards. A substantial amount of
narcotics was found in the man’s golf
bag.
Car troubles
A 45-year-old woman was arrested
in San Antonio after a mechanic
reported to police that 18 packages of
marijuana were packed in the engine
compartment of the car which she had
brought to him for an oil change.
According to police, the woman
later said that she didn’t realize that
the mechanic would have to raise the
hood to change the oil.
Check for yourself, your honor
A drug possession defendant on trial
in Pontiac, Michigan, said he had been
searched without a warrant. The prosecutor
said the officer didn’t need a warrant
because a “bulge” in the defendant’s
jacket could have been a gun.
Nonsense, said the defendant, who
happened to be wearing the same jacket
that day in court. He handed it over so
the judge could see it. The judge discovered
a packet of cocaine in the pocket
and laughed so hard he required a five minute
recess to compose himself.
Propain?
Clever drug traffickers used a propane
tanker truck to enter El Paso from
Mexico. They rigged it so propane gas
would be released from all of its valves
while the truck concealed 6,240
pounds of marijuana.
They were clever, but not bright.
They misspelled the name of the gas
company on the side of the truck.
Burger King workers busted for
slipping pot into cops’ burgers
Some people pay good money for
marijuana. Others, namely police,
aren’t happy even if you give them free
pot. Two New Mexico Burger King
employees and their manager were
charged with aggravated battery on an
officer when they slipped a bit of pot
into the burgers of two unsuspecting
members of the Isleta Police
Department.
The officers thought they tasted
something unusual in the cheeseburgers
they’d purchased at the drivethrough.
One of the officers said, “This
thing tastes like it has marijuana in it.”
And that’s what he found when he
opened the bun to see what was inside.
According to the police report, the
officers “began acting odd after ingesting
the marijuana” and were taken to a hospital for evaluation. In addition to
being charged with aggravated battery
on an officer, the two men and their
manager were charged with possession
of marijuana.
Bad things inside the Good Book
A 28-year-old woman from Indiana
was sentenced to six months in prison
for smuggling cocaine inside two
Bibles to her jailed husband.
The judge gave her four years each
on two charges of drug trafficking
with an inmate, and ordered her to
serve 90 days on each count. The
remainder of both terms will be
served as probation.
“When I committed this offense, I
wasn’t thinking about my three children,”
the woman said, reading from a
written statement. “It only took one
time to learn a lesson.” The woman
had admitted to placing bags of
cocaine in the spines of two Bibles and
having them delivered to her husband
who was in jail on a misdemeanor
charge of visiting a common nuisance.
Nude man leads cops to pot farm
A Florida man was found rolling
around naked on a neighborhood street,
babbling, immune to pepper spray and
accused of punching a police officer.
Investigators said they discovered a
well equipped marijuana growing
operation in the house the man rented
with another man in a normally quiet
community in southern Orange
County. “They were growing and storing
so much, the odor was overwhelming,”
a police officer said. “For this
town, it was a good-sized operation.”
A 911 call about the nude man’s
antics touched off the events that led
police to the house, which was set up
to grow, dry and package marijuana,
police said. Five pounds of the weed
packaged for sale, $10,000 in cash, a 3-
foot-tall hookah and a cache of martial
arts weapons were found at the house,
police said.
After the suspect received treatment
for minor injuries and a mental health
evaluation, he was ordered held on
$10,000 bail at the Orange County Jail.
Drug idea fizzles for dumb
rocketeers
It’s hard to tell how long it took the
two Kentucky methamphetamine dealers
to come up with the idea, but they
sure thought it was sweet once it came
together.
Imagine a homemade, cigarettelighter-powered, drug-hiding rocket
that sits in the trunk and can be activated
from the driver’s seat, ejecting
illegal contraband from the vehicle
with the flip of a switch.
The trouble is — the rocket won’t
launch if it’s not plugged in. That’s
apparently what these two jokers forgot
last year when they were stopped
for speeding in Missouri on Interstate
70.
A Highway Patrol trooper pulled
over the pair, opened the trunk of the
red 1990 Ford Thunderbird and found
the 4-foot-long cylindrical device
stuffed with two pounds of methamphetamine.
One of the Kentucky dimwits pleaded
guilty before U.S. District Judge to
participating in a conspiracy to distribute
500 grams or more of methamphetamine.
The other good old boy
pleaded guilty to his role in the conspiracy.
The driver of the car fled on
foot after the traffic stop and was
arrested after throwing a small amount
of suspected meth on the ground.
According to an affidavit given by a
Special Agent of the U.S. Drug
Enforcement Administration, the rocket
was controlled by an elaborate system
of ropes and pulleys designed to
lift it into an upright position once the
trunk was popped from inside the
vehicle. The bottom of the 4-foot-long
rocket, which was about 4 inches in
diameter, had eight explosive charges
connected by a series of wires to a
homemade switch in the front of the
car.
The wires drew power from an
adapter plugged into the car’s cigarette
lighter, the agent said, adding that a
bomb squad from the Missouri
Highway Patrol found the contraption
to be functional. Inside the rocket, law
enforcement officials found two gallon-
size Ziploc bags containing two
pounds of methamphetamine.
However, the power source to the
rocket had been disconnected. So the
Kentucky men’s elaborate plan to
shoot their “ice” into space never got
off the launch pad. Three pipe bombs
also found in the trunk were tested
and determined to be phony. But
inside the bombs, officers discovered
more illegal drugs. To top it off, officers
found a bundle of $12,000 in cash
underneath a newspaper near the front
of the passenger seat.
One of the arrested men claimed he
had saved the cash from his $40,000-ayear
job as a “chicken catcher” at Tyson
Foods, the DEA agent said.
Man’s plan to bail himself out
of jail turns out ‘unsafe’
A Danbury, Connecticut man's
plans to bail himself out after a drug
bust went awry over one weekend.
State police said that a small safe that
the convict had his aunt bring in to the
jail not only contained $5,000 in cash
for bail, but also drug paraphernalia
and 16 grams of cocaine, leading to
more charges.
