"Cowardice asks the question...is it safe? Expediency asks the question...is it politic? Vanity asks the question...is it popular? But conscience asks the question...is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because it is right." ~Dr. Martin Luther King

Saturday 14 September 2013

Truth or Fiction

Truth is stranger  than fiction. Never a truer word was spoken.

I watched York Region Police harvesting a  pot crop on television all day yesterday. It was a methodical team.  I listened to the news account several times. 

It seems the field was  detected  by a  helicopter with special equipment.  

It looked like  a large field. 

The crop was well over policeman height. 

It must have been growing for a while.

Long  enough to have been detected before it was due to be harvested.

I've watched police hauling out a crop of  before. They just stuffed it into plastic bags and hurled it into the back of a truck

Not this time though. This stuff was being treated with tender care.

Tarps were used; long plants  carefully laid out straight, leaves at one end  and roots at the other. Stems  were neither bent nor broken. 

When the load was  sufficient, the tarp was hauled by several officers . holding up the corners .along the ground and carefully loaded on to the truck.

Well, ye know. if ever there was a trial, the stuff would be evidence. 

I've often  wondered what the product would be after being stored in plastic bags for a while.

We know hash can be baked in brownies. Smoked in pipes. Puffed through a Hubble. And ,as grass, rolled into a doobie.

But we don't  know how any of that could be offered in evidence of a crop growing in a field.

Always providing of course ,you've caught the culprit responsible for planting in the first place.

The Canadian Association of Police Chiefs are now on record that a person caught with pot for personal use should not be indicted for a criminal offense. 

There are just not enough  jails to hold them all.

The Premier of the Province has acknowledged she has puffed on pot. As has the Leader of the Federal Liberals. The have both denied having adopted the habit.

There appears to be acceptance there is medical benefit from a toke or two. 

Now the question that has to be asked is how  illegal can it be to grow a plant in a field?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

There was an enormous crop being grown in a warehouse near Bradford. Police raided with great fanfare. The cases that evolved were in court for years as individuals were tried. One guy got 7 years, I think.
In the meantime, police claimed the warehouse. Just recently a Newmarket judge [ which one ? No name was given ] decided that the police could not have that warehouse. It reverts to the owner who ' knew nothing ' despite horrendous power bills.
Pot brings out the stupid factor in terms of the law.

Anonymous said...

That warehouse was closer to Barrie than to Bradford.
Must of cost the owner a bundle in lost revenue. Maybe he'll sue ?

Anonymous said...

Why didn't the police wait until harvesting time? They might actually have arrested these terribly dangerous farmers,.

Anonymous said...

Get it off the streets. Legalize it. Tax it. Get off the pot.

Anonymous said...

The recent court case was related to the bust in the old Molson plant south of Barrie.

The place was empty, sold for the land that it sat on. Some enterprising individuals decided to use the vats to grow the stuff. Large stainless steel tanks the size of tanker trucks. Heat was retained inside, lights gave the "sunlight" that they needed. The new owner knew nothing of this - that was his case. The police wanted to make a cash grab, luckily the judge had some sense.

YRP spends an enormous amount of money with their chopper fitted with infra-red scanners looking for houses that emit more heat than normal. Many times, I see it orbiting neighbourhoods during the night, it's like a bad movie.

I wonder if the average YRP cop thinks that they are making a difference with this when there are alot other things that they could be doing.