Counting tips after a show, I think back – gone days – I remember counting stacks of cash in a half- zany-daze. Cleaning grease from my hand, real hard working for the man – I remember peeling resin from fresh harvest hands. What’s it all become; I miss that thousand-watt sun. It’s tough to look back and remember the fun, but what’s it all matter; I can tell no one…
I wake up! The damn landscapers are buzzing at my lawn. I mean really, 7:30 am! I’d been up all night taking clones. I go back to sleep…
Bang, bang, bang!!! More like thump, thump, thump… I wake up again, made frantic by the knocking. The landscapers had fallen silent, I wonder if there is an emergency. Has a landscaper been hurt? Thump, thump, thump… I go to the door.
“I have movement! I have movement!” I hear yelled from the porch. I see the silhouette of a handgun. The front door blasts open and police high on adrenaline burst in: I’m busted…
Lying on my face, cuffed, the frenzied cops move through the house clearing each room like SEAL Team 6 (the spoof version at least). They throw questions at me faster than Mayweather throws punches: “Are there guns in the house? Are there pit bulls? We saw the beware of dog sign! Do you know why we’re here? Collectives aren’t legal! Is that thing used to make hash? Where’s the money!?!”
“It’s a Jack Russell Terrier, don’t worry!” I answered, “and collectives ARE legal, so why are you all here,” I continued.
“Clear,” they yelled to each other and nodded as they concluded their SEAL Team 6 routine. One of the officers pulled out a chair and sat me in it, still cuffed, now moving into his Detective McNulty/Eliot Ness skit. He read me my rights and began to tell me about the events that lead to the raid of the house, the gardens.
I later determined that the officer’s story was a lie intended to lure me into incriminating myself. It turns out that it’s perfectly legal for police to lie. The officer’s intention was to connect me to as much ‘indicia’ as possible – indicia of illegal sale or criminal enterprise. This must be established in order to prosecute medical cannabis patients.
Looking back, it’s rather odd that they would openly lie while asking for the truth. I guess, for some police, it’s just another day at the office. In fact, when it comes to medical providers in California, it sure seems like we are guilty till proven innocent, as opposed to ei incumbit probatio qui dicit non qui negat (innocent till proven guilty): the foundation of the U.S. justice system.
Knowing that the gardens were legal, I told them I worked within the confines of the law, quoting Prop 215 and at times SB 420. I had a binder of documents… yet, not all up to date (note-to-self: always keep an up-to-date binder of your documents! They asked me about money and I said it wasn’t about money. They gave me the “what about this” routine – presenting a roll of cash from my room and a photo of myself in the Virgin Islands.
Their ire was palatable yet they seemed confused, they didn’t find expensive trucks, quads, dirt bikes, wave runners, boats, or even much cash, or very many plants. Instead they found shelves of books and all types of tools, seeing that we were fixing up the house and going to grad school. The only thing they found to pin me to their stereotype was that photo of myself in St. John. Anxious, they shifted to questions regarding the owner of the land. That’s when I started the “I don’t know” routine; eventually falling altogether silent, as I probably should have done from the start.
But the uncertainty of the officers made me feel as though I could talk my way out of arrest. If I just said the right thing maybe they would just go, half of them already seemed bored, ready to leave, no big score. At one point I heard them whispering over my recommendation, one of them lobbying to let me go.
In the end the bull headed cop with a goatee and a bone-to-pick prevailed. Yelling, “It all gets weighed,” as I watched him cut down my prized, and still missed Kali-Mist, Blue Dream, Super Silver Haze, Purple Urkle, Girl Scout Cookie, and OG Kush – over seven years of collecting premium strains: hacked down. My heart was heavy… My years of hard work were gone… My pride was in ruins… My proud peaceful gardens were in the back of a police half-ton.
As I was paraded to Humboldt County jail, congrats-a-plenty for my arresting officers, I felt alone without the peace of my plants and I felt nervous that the feds might pick up my case…
Turns out the owner of the land was pulled over and found with a large sum of cash and a hefty PG&E pay stub, his car purportedly smelled of cannabis, although none was found. With this, police were able to obtain a search warrant leading to arrest. This case is still being fought today, over two years later…
This story was anonymously provided by The Humboldt Underground: www.humboldtunderground.com
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