On this dreary Edinburgh day, I felt that it might be prudent to inject some frivolity into your cannabis-based reading material. Though some of the subject matter may be more upsetting than laugh-worthy it is always interesting to read about some of the bizarre cannabis-based police blunders. Please enjoy these tales of incompetence and I hope you get at least a little something out of them.
Drug Dog Trial Gone Wrong
Some of you may have already heard of this story, but I just couldn’t help but share it with those of you who haven’t. Of course, dogs have been used for a long time to find drugs in airports. To train the dogs, the officials in charge of them will sometimes put them through little tests. Such a test was performed in Japan’s Narita airport in 2008 and unfortunately for the police, it went quite spectacularly wrong. In fact, I think about every aspect of this test that possibly could go wrong did, and it is just lucky that the passenger wasn’t the type to say yes to free drugs. Those PSA videos about peer pressure at school must have had an effect.
A few officers at Narita National Airport felt that their drug dogs may not be performing at maximum capacity. For the safety of the public, of course, they decided that there was only one way to test the efficiency of their canine drug detection force. This was to hide almost 1 million Yen worth of cannabis on a random unsuspecting customer. In fact, they had been pulling this training stunt for about a month before the inevitable happened.
They put the large case of cannabis resin into the outer pocket of a travellers bag and then left it up to the police dog to find it. After searching the airport the dog came up with nothing. Not only could the pup not procure the prohibited package, the police completely forgot which bag and which customer had the weed. This, of course, meant that the poor traveller left the airport with an enormous amount of illegal drugs on their person.
Luckily for the people responsible this good citizen, on discovering the package in his bag at his hotel, immediately informed his superiors. The drugs were returned and those responsible were punished. They were suspended for three months and no comment was made on how the officers got ahold of 1 million yen worth of resin.
Seizing Grass
You know you’re in for a good time when a story starts with the Australian police. This is a particularly funny tale that shows us how little some police forces actually know about drugs, even those as long-standing and common as cannabis. In 2018 the Bruce Rock police posted an image of their latest drug bust. They proudly displayed the large seethrough bags on Twitter with the stunning caption “Our work does not end when the sun goes down. While you slept we seized these items and the holder booked himself a trip to court. #stayingupandhangingouttonight? #don’tworrywe’llwaitupforyou” I genuinely think that they could not have written a better post. It was boasting, obnoxious and oddly implied that the members of the public were being lazy for not donning a cape and stalking the rooftops at night looking for drug smugglers.
In fact, it may have been better for members of the public to take to the streets for drug justice, because it was them that pointed out to the police that these were large bags of lawn clippings. Needless to say, Twitter enjoyed the mistake for some time after, posting large bags of flour with titles like “You should see all the cocaine I just found on the street.” As I say, their cocky Tweet made that one all the funnier.
Highbiscus
Another fun example of the police mistaking common garden plants for cannabis happened in Pennsylvania in 2017. It really is astonishing how often this sort of thing happens, you’d think identifying drugs correctly would be an important part of police training.
An elderly couple were harassed by the police following a visit to their home following a property damage claim. As this took place in America you may not be shocked to hear that the 60 something-year-old woman had twelve police point guns at her in reaction to what they thought were cannabis plants.
After the police had been to the house and spotted the offending plants they returned two days later with a warrant to search the premises. This was the point at which a number of cops pointed guns at an old woman, who was allegedly in her underwear at the time. The couple were placed into the van while their home was searched for marijuana.
The offending plants were in fact hibiscus plants, which the elderly man tried to point out to the arresting officers as they aggressively detained him. Good to know that the war on drugs is marching ahead as always.
Disrespecting the Dead
This last story is just plain shocking rather than amusing. Once again the American cops are coming into their own harassing the public for no reason. A man was pulled over for alleged speeding in Springfield, unfortunately for the driver, he also happened to be black which we all know is a bit triggering for American police. They removed the man from the car and handcuffed him before finding an urn in the centre console of the vehicle. Of course, the police leapt upon the urn and informed the driver that it had tested positive for meth or ecstasy. During the testing, they of course opened the container and spilt out a good deal of the contents. The urn contained the ashes of the driver’s infant daughter. The ashes were seized and the driver had to fight tooth and nail to even request their return.
These stories, funny or heartbreaking, are all good examples of the excessive and ignorant nature of the war against cannabis. Of course, we are not encouraging any illegal activity or taking a stance on the police, but these news reports do somewhat speak for themselves.
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Great stories typical us cops