The Downside of Marijuana: Getting Busted
Need a Good Marijuana Lawyer? Getting Busted For Marijuana Possession from CannabisNet on Vimeo.
For decades now the government and their ilk have tried to dissuade people from using marijuana by attempting to find the “downside to weed”, however, they discovered more benefits than anything else. Regardless of their insistence that cannabis should not be consumed, people know that marijuana isn’t bad and that any potential “downside” of cannabis is truly minor in nature.
The only real downside with marijuana is getting caught with it in an environment where consumption isn’t condoned. Whether you are a teen sneaking around the house getting high, or an adult in a backward prohibition state…the act of getting caught is a total buzz kill.
When I was a teenager and first started smoking marijuana, I did not have the permission of my parents. As a result, I was caught with pot more than 18 times and eventually my folks simply said, “Smoke Weed Damnit, you’re old enough now!”
I have smoked weed since then and now have more than twenty years under my belt. These days I’m quite a moderate smoker and no longer consider myself an outright “stoner”, but during my younger days I was quite the stoner.
Typically getting caught by your parents isn’t the end of the world, but there are moments when getting caught with weed can go sour real fast!
A couple of Uzis and Corrupt Cops
As mentioned, I have been on the ‘wrong side of the law’ a few times now for marijuana and each instance was as horrific as the next. This first story happened to me when I was backpacking through Mexico. My time in Jalisco was spent with the “underworld” as we found cheap lodging in one of the “ghetto-est” parts of the town.
“El Caloso”, the name of the neighborhood, was riddled with drug dealers, users, thieves and other shady faces. While I wasn’t ‘involved’ within the activities, I did learn a great deal on how the underworld works in those parts of Mexico.
I had a morning routine where I would go to the river which ran close by, make some breakfast and smoke a joint before going for a jog. For weeks this ritual was sacred, until one day we heard a whistle from afar.
Telling us to “stay put”, a cop was crawling down the river bank and heading towards us. In his hand…an Uzi. Moments later, another cop swung around with the car and jumped out carrying some sort of hand cannon that would blow half of my body to smithereens.
We (a friend and I) were searched, questioned and then were liberated from our money in order to preserve our liberty. That is one benefit of traveling through a country with a corrupt police force, if you have money you can almost always dodge the jail bullet.
That particular instance did cost us our entire budget (which wasn’t big to begin with) and forced us to maneuver through the city without money. Fortunately, I survived that scenario, but there are many foreigners sitting in a Mexican jail right now for less than what we had on us. Since I’m fluent in Spanish and understand the culture, I managed to talk/bribe my way out of a jail cell. Nonetheless, this scenario can be a “downside” of marijuana. Especially if you’re smoking weed on a river bank next to the ghetto in one of the most hostile locations in Puerto Vallarta…but how we got there is an entirely different story.
Getting Trolled by Texas Border Patrol
On another occasion I had the misfortune of running into Texas Border Patrol while smoking a bowl. My aforementioned buddy and I were traveling for months. We stayed in California a few months and acquired a van to help us with our future travels.
Before we left California we decided to buy a few grams of killer Cali Bud…you know…for the road. Once we hit the highway it was a long desert road to Texas.
Why were we going to Texas? We weren’t, just passing through.
The highway was very uneventful and the weed helped us stay focused on our journey ahead. We passed through Arizona and New Mexico without a hitch, but once we hit the border of Texas things took a turn for the worst.
Enough time had gone by where my friend and I decided another bowl was in order. I was sitting shotgun and packing the bowl. I took a hit and suddenly I saw a dog barking at the window. Looking up, we saw “Texas Border Patrol” and a check point.
My friend panicked and couldn’t act cool no matter how hard he tried. I did everything in my power to conceal my miniscule bud (which was less than a gram at that point) in an under pocket along with the pipe.
Shortly after we were told to “pull off to the side”, my friend was surrounded by at least eight officers while one quickly ran to my side. I simply lifted up my hands and said to the officer, “No Pockets” referring to the pants I was wearing. Well, I wouldn’t call them pants, more like beach wear. Nonetheless, my pockets were in my swimming shorts underneath my beach wrap-around, but that was enough to get the cop off me.
My friend, unfortunately had no shirt on when he was pulled out of the van. Being groped and harassed by an army of buffed up steroid looking super cops, I felt sad watching the spectacle unfold.
Eventually, a superior officer I suppose came over to me and said, “Alright, where’s the bud and the pipe?”
Not knowing what my friend said or did not say, I eventually reached into my “under pocket” and pulled it out. For the amount of weed, lying to the cops would have been far worse for me than simply giving them the weed and since I didn’t know if my friend blurted out about the weed and the pipe…I complied.
Fortunately, the gods smiled upon us that day and they sent off high and dry, but not to jail. I guess they found us to be more an entertaining distraction than actual criminals.
Getting busted sucks
Nonetheless, the worst part of marijuana is being harassed by law enforcement. It’s something that in many cases has ruined the lives of many individuals over the past decades. It’s something that would go away the moment we embrace legalization and do away with the cancerous War on Marijuana.
If you wan't noticed, we have recently updated our Cannabis.net map to include lawyers who may of service to those of us who have had run ins with the law. To try out lawyer service, or if you are a lawyer and would like to be listed on our map, just click this link.
https://cannabis.net/find/lawyer
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