What ignorant assholes. "What are doing with those cantelopes and watermelons?" I'm making a fruit salad pig. Jeeesh.

"What are you doing with those cantelopes and watermelons?"
well, I WAS going to cut that 10 pounds of heroin over there with it.

Evidently, some well-meaning but horticulturally challenged citizen...

No. It should read:

Evidently, some stupid nosy asshat...

Property rights guaranteed by the Constitution are now a joke in this country.

I think the judge that gave the warrant, the "informant", and the chief of police should be punished in some way after such an event: an IRS audit going back 7 years should do the trick.

Well, they DO look a lot alike. :-/

/sarcasm

Someone needs a class in horbaculture.

Sounds to me like having any plants inside your house can cause a visit from the cops. How about all americans start keeping "fake" pot plants in their house... you know "silk". A quick google search yeilded this:

http://www.geocities.com/legalizemichigan/products/silkweed/

Now we can all get on the news for being busted by dumbass cops!!! Oh, and don't forget to pay your $4.20 shipping and handling.

"No apology, no nothing"

Mister, you be thankful as it is. With Homeland Security's new stormtrooper policies you might well have been 'disappeared' for being a terrorist. After all, needlessly detracting law enforcement personnel from safeguarding against terrorism is a well known terrorist ploy. It says so in the report: "Statistically Adjusted 'Facts'--An Analysis Substantiating Unlimited Governmental Subjugation Of The People".

That, and having suspicious plants--'potted' ones at that. I'm surprised they didn't shoot you on the spot.

The best kept secret ever is that hibiscus gives the exact same high as pot.

/ooops, now the secret is out

Not to worry, I'm sure its just another isolated incedent

http://blogs.salon.com/0002762/stories/2003/08/17/drugWarVictims.html

This pointless war must end. Licky this guy didn't get shot just for standing at the door.

/can I PLEASE have my HTML privilages reinstated

Guy's lucky he didn't have a can of corned beef hash in the cupboard.

The last time I checked, pot plants didn't have big, pretty flowers.

This definitely deserves the "GET A BRAIN, MORANS" pic.

Stupid f'ng cops. They should be forced to get real jobs

Davis said the team of narcotics officers combed his house for about an hour, at one point discussing whether red and gold bamboo growing in his window might be marijuana.

Maybe these cops need a bit of training before they get on a "task force"?

Bamboo!?!??!

A couple of years ago, a friend of mine had the same problem with his hydroponic tomatoes. Lucky he wasn't home when it happened.

The real victims of the war on drugs

fark man, I used to grow watermelon and cantelopes in my backyard.

-sigh-

this is depressing.

Whoever called the cops on this guy deserves a leaky boom boom down...

As I stated in another thread:

1) If you buy gas, you're supporting terrorism.
2) The government supports terrorism by keeping pot illegal, thereby forcing the citizenry unwilling to be strongarmed into buying only government-approved drugs into dealing with criminal elements to obtain what the citizenry is going to buy, whether the gov't likes it or not.

It almost all sounds made up.

sheesh

Goddam dope smoking hippies. Why, I aughta........hey, you gonna eat that twinkie?

discussing whether red and gold bamboo growing in his window might be marijuana

THis is excellent fodder for the citizen's lawsuit. While the police usually have wide protection in the legitimate performance of their duties, once it is revealed that the "Organized Crime and Narcotics Task Force" is wholly-- and unnecessarily-- ignorant of its subject area, the cash register will ring.

They also asked what he did with the watermelons and cantaloupes growing in his back yard.

"What would I do with them?" Davis said.

------------

He could shove it up their a**es for one !

cha cha cha cha chaa cha Cue the farks
cha cha cha cha chaa cha Who defend the cops

I might have to look into getting one of these...

Imagine, a hibiscus (wink) in every window!

//doesn't even smoke

War on Drugs .NE, Big Pharma controling us.

get real.

When I see soembody at an NA meeting talking about his long journey away from lipitrol, I'll start to think maybe the pharmaceutical industry is behind the war on drugs.

What I really hate is the mentality that once they realize they've made a mistake, they don't just appologize and leave, they keep looking for stuff to bust him on. I've seen this so many times, a lot of cops really hate being wrong, so they'll try their hardest to find something, anything, to bust you on.

And who is the idiot that called that in? I was going to say something about how no one would ever grow pot in their front yard, but I realized my cousin did exactly that for several years. Of course, he lived in a log cabin way upstate in NY, and if a cop came to the house he would only get a ticket because it was just 2 plants.

I think the cops must have smoked pot, better still, the ignoramus who reported this to cops must be high...

/oh well

So here's a question. What if they had found something else illegal in the house? For example, he had a little baggie in the house. Would that be admissible as evidence even though it was an idiotic search? If so, it sounds to me like anyone can search any time for whatever reason they can make up.

mason55 since they had the warrant to search the entire house I think it would be used to nail him. If the paperwork on the warrent had a problem he might be able to fight it, but I doubt a bad tip invalidates the warrant process.

mason55

Welcome to Crazyland.

i've seen this before johnson! just sprinkle some crack on him.

It depends what's on the warrant as far as if the guy could get arrested for something else while the police are there. I assume it was just a warrant for entering the premises, and was probably left fairly broad. Plus there's the whole "plain sight" argument. If the cops came in looking for drugs and found illegal weapons laying on the kitchen table, then yeah, he can get arrested for that. If the same weapons were behind the couch, under the floorboards, then maybe not.

One day ignorant American officials will wise up and realize that their war on drugs is futile and impractical. The billions of tax dollars spent on fighting it will then be used to feed the homeless. And by this time I'll be rotting in the ground having died long ago as an old bitter man.

/sigh

Growing up in Houston, my parents have one of those plants growing in the backyard. We always used to joke about it (the leaves look like a pot leaf, but with one extra "finger"--see below). Wow. How strange....

Time to write my parents an "I told you so" e-mail...

I'm sad to say it, but it looks like Houston deserves it's own FARK tag....

Mason55

Good point. Not only did they bust in his door without even verifying some Joe's tip, but once they found out that the plants out front weren't pot, their search should have ended. I'd like to know the probable cause they had to search the premesis. That dude seemed a lot more good natured about the situation than I would be.

This is why we have the second and fourth amendments to the Constitution. The right to be secure in your house and bear arms is a GOD GIVEN right, not a "Constitutional" right. As we long as we sit by and let this happen, it will continue to happen.

"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain control." -- Thomas Jefferson

"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed." -- Alexander Hamilton

"There ought to be limits to freedom." -- George W. Bush

"The purpose of government is to rein in the rights of the people." -- William Jefferson Clinton

God help the poor soul who comes busting through my front door, warrant or not.

As long as marijuana is criminalized, only criminals will have marijuana...

/was that really necessary

It's understandable that the police mess up sometimes. But they should really fess up to their mistakes and apologize. For some reason they think that they always have to keep the "tough guy" image, even when they're wrong (hence the comment about the melons).

i hate farking all cops and busybody asswipe neighbors

/retreats to unibomber shack

My town had this one Mr. Hand cop ("Are you all on dope?!") who tried to bust everybody. He nearly cuffed my brother for admitting he had grass (yep, the stuff you mow) on his shoe.

I encountered him when my friend's car broke down. The cop questioned us for 15 minutes about pot before he even addressed the fact we needed AAA, not the PD.

Sidi

Interesting. Can warrants be issued based on anonymous tips? If so, that makes it just way too easy to bullshiat.

On another note, I wonder how much the taxpayers are paying to 'train' this 'task force'? Cause I'd be willing to teach a class or something for the right fee. We'll call it Weed/Not Weed 101. The test would look something like this...

Is this marijuana?



Yes/No

Well hell if you havn't done anything wrong you don't got noth'n to worry about. Just go on here folks ain't noth'n ta worry about. Just be glad he didn't have that devilweed.

God knows all the coke and heroin is just a myth. Keep on nabbing those potheads that are such a danger. You never know they might run over a kid in the drive through(that could happen I'll admit) or blow their buddies head of while playing with dad's gun, or (gasp) get knocked up.

dbaggins, how about xanax, vicodin, ritilin, prozac, paxil or any of the dozens of other drugs that doctors hand out like Skittles these days?

Prescription drug abuse is a huge problem, masked by pusher-MD's and big Pharmaceutical marketing campaigns that make people feel Cheney'd up for having a normal human range of feelings. The artifical barrier of legal/good drug vs. illegal bad drug that keeps a good number of people let's the legal druggies secure in their state-approved drugged out haze.

The local dealer isn't pushing any of his products as part of a healthy lifestyle. Neither is the local bartender.

niroth

I agree, it could happen as well. But the key difference is that it could happen if you are eating a banana, smoking a cigarette, or driking RC Cola. I'm not so sure they even have a valid argument there. Maybe the kids parents shouldn't let her ride her bike in front of a busy drive thru?

niroth

And it makes baby's drown. Dont forget that.

-

Actually, I once saw that bit before a movie in a theater. Theres a line where it says "you were getting high, what are you going to tell their parents?" I shouted out "THAT I WAS DRUNK!"

It got a good reaction from the crowd.

Obviously, it wasn't these guys. They can tell the freakin' difference.

I'm not a bit surprised that this shiat happened in Houston. HPD is like the keystone Cops nowadays.

El Mariaski

Again, back in the suburbs of Houston, we had a cop like that. Just about all of my friends got pulled over by him when we were in high school (just got our licenses, still driving Mom and Dad's cars). He was a real jerk. He'd search your back seat, trunk, etc. We didn't know better, so we let him. He'd find things and go nuts--not drugs or alcohol, just things (one guy's Dad was a chemical engineer and had plastic pellets in his trunk--the kind you melt and pour into molds at a plant--the cop swore it was drugs). Well, long story short, quite a few of these kids had parents who were lawyers (suburbs, remember). Got the cop kicked off the force when the complaints piled up.