New NY State License Plate Revealed—And Required On All Cars
Access-A-Ride Renders Bike Lane Inaccessible
Cops: Fort Greene Violence Sparked By Chicken Wing Promotion
The UWS Gets Its Very Own Apple Store
64 Things Restaurant Patrons Must NEVER Do
Some police officers' routine patrolling became a big pot bust yesterday. Cops from the 105th Precinct smelled a pungent odor coming from a home on 269th Street in Floral Park and, once they got a search warrant, found a bumper crop of marijuana. There were more than 300 marijuana plants, growing lights, and 10 lawn bags of marijuana in the process of being dried. Three men, ages 23 to 48, were arrested and face drug possession charges.
Our favorite detail: The illegal botanists split their neighbors' power line, thereby stealing electricity. The neighbor, Ed Arzooman, told the Daily News that his bill had gone up from $300/month to $800/month: "Those [plants] are huge. Now I know why my bill is so high." Also, did the NYPD transport the plants out in the open?
Some of other pot-bust stories: Pot found growing in Floyd Bennett Field, the car that ran a stop sign, a Washington Heights pot farm growing plants as big as Christmas trees, the leak that led the FDNY to a hydroponic farm, using bookshelves to hide a grow room, and Whitestone Bridge bust.
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
Wasn't the neighbor suspicious or wondering why his bill was so high all of sudden? If he had a bill for $5,000 he probably would have just paid it without any questions.
If people would stop being retarded hypocrites and admit that pot is a fraction as bad as alcohol and should thus be legal, this kind of stuff would stop. People would be able to grow it, and companies would be able to slap it into packs on store shelves, and the government would be able to tax the shit out of it like they do with cigarettes.
Instead we have nearly a century of prosecuting people for enjoying a naturally-occurring plant that requires no processing, is not addictive, and has several documented medical benefits, simply because paper companies were terrified by the growing strength of the hemp industry at the turn of the twentieth century. Way to go, America. This is valuable use of our police officers' time!
And no, I'm not a pot-smoker, for the record.
*weeps*
Well said CW, but you forgot to mention the overwhelming amount of poor folk in prison and eventually disenfranchised from the rest of society over a simple plant!
Yes, legalize it, etc. But these guys weren't growing (just) because they wanted to blow some b's. They're dealers that support a criminal infrastructure that is not healthy for society (I would guess they're facing much more than possession charges, btw). I have less sympathy for that than the average hydroponic hobbyist.
And the officers noticed a pungent odor on the street AND they were siphoning the neighbor's juice? How did these guys think they weren't going to get caught?
While I am not anti-weed by any means, nor do i think it should be illegal necessarily, you simply cannot positively make the claim that weed is less dangerous than alcohol since it's never been legal in our culture. You can speculate all you want, but until it's legal and readily available to any dick and jane, then we won't know how "bad" it may or may not be.
I think if you really put the research into it you'd find that marijuana is in fact addictive.
Also, these guys? Perhaps they were hitting up a little too much of their inventory.
Sorry, let me edit a few things. Addiction can be a number of different things not just the puking your brains out from withdrawal kind of addiction.
Also, I am not pro booze or anti pot. I have to reiterate that. But the problem always happens when people abuse a drug. And we all know that a drink every night is not something that will cause a huge problem. It's when you binge drink and then go and drive, that's where the problem arises. I think the same would happen with pot if they made it legal. That's not to say that it shouldn't be.
I get the feeling I'm about to be attacked for my comment above.
Hits post fast!
Marijuana may not be physically addictive in that hard-core users will get the shakes or whatever if they have none, but it's definitely psychologically habit forming. Without a doubt. I've seen it in friends.
Monster Mash -
I'm not saying these guys don't deserve some kind of punishment. I'm saying that if what they were growing wasn't illegal, they'd be guilty of illegally siphoning power, instead of supporting a criminal underground. And since there's no real reason for it to be illegal except for a combination of grandfathered laws and general paranoid puritanism on the part of this country ... *shrug*. It's just a dumb situation.
Yes, the guys who are growing bales of it when they know it's illegal and they know the kind of punishments they're facing pretty much deserve what they get when they get caught.
Mihow -
Oh, sure. I meant chemically addictive in the way that drugs like valium, heroin, and other narcotics are. People get addicted to booze, certainly, and it's not chemically addictive either. I agree with you that the total number of pot-related accidents and such would increase if it were legalized and more readily available. I just think they would still be dwarfed by the number of alcohol-related incidents because of the specific effects the two chemicals have on your brain.
Pot is already VERY available now (the number of people I've met in my life who haven't smoked it at least once or twice is definitely the minority), and it's just not responsible for many large-scale accidents, nor is it as brutally harmful to the human system as alcohol is.
if my electric bill went from its average $300 a month to $800 i would surely be on the phone with the electric company in an instant... wtf?
Good point about alcohol being really bad for the body. Imagine if cancer patients were using booze to "feel better" and up their appetite? The next morning would suck.
How do they get "rid" of the plants? Do they just burn them all? That seems a little risky for the NYPD's sobriety, which is questionable. I wonder if they compost it or just throw it out? Maybe they tie it upside down, dry it in their offices, and keep them as evidence in ball jars like basil.
This is all coming from a gardener's perspective, by the by.