News Weed and Seed
Every now and then you pick up the paper and read about the police doing a flyover, searching local rural areas and farms for pot plants. Can’t have that marijuana growin’ round here! Gotta keep demand for and the price of BC Bud high! When pot plants are spotted, the police get a warrant, storm on to the property, and arrest the person or persons suspected of growing pot—if they can find them. Most people who grow outside are smart enough to grow on public land. Or someone else’s land.
Flyovers are just one hugely expensive aspect of our hugely ineffective drug war. Somehow despite the never-ending flyovers and busts, no serious dent is ever made in the availability of pot.
But if the police want to waste their time searching for pot, perhaps we should make it easier and cheaper for them to find it? The Duluth News Tribune reports today that sprinkled pot seeds into a planter outside the front doors of the West Duluth police substation.
During law enforcement’s briefing on how they were going to conduct the ATV [pot] sting Saturday, [reporter Janna] Goerdt heard two members of a rival news team talking about “something interesting” in front of the police station at 5315 Grand Ave.Eavesdropping like a good reporter, Goerdt filed the comment away in her memory bank and accompanied law enforcement on the ATV crackdown.
When that assignment was over, Goerdt returned to the police station and took a walk around the building. She found the marijuana plants. Although she said she didn’t know that they were marijuana plants.
She plucked one of the leaves and brought it back to the newspaper. “I needed some evidence,” she said. “I didn’t know if anyone would believe me….”
Duluth City Gardner Tom Kasper was given the leaf for inspection Monday and confirmed that it came from a marijuana plant.
Kasper immediately traveled to the West Duluth police substation to inform neighborhood supervising police Lt. John Beyer of the pot growing in the front-yard planter.
Beyer pointed out that he, his police officers and the public use the backdoor entrance to the police station. The front door just off busy Grand Avenue is usually locked and not used.
“The only thing I can say is somebody has a sense of humor,” Beyer said. “Now they’ll read about it in the paper and say, ‘Yeah, that was me.’ “
Goerdt provided the scoop and Kasper did the scooping.
The gardener dug out the 12 marijuana plants by their roots and presented them to Beyer. They were 4 to 6 inches high and Kasper estimated they had been growing about three weeks.
Beyer said the plants will be placed in a paper bag and destroyed when the next batch of police-confiscated drugs are gotten rid of.
Congrats to the person who seeded the planters outside the police station in Duluth. But I see this as something more than a practical joke. Sure, it shows a sense of humor, but seeding a city with pot is also be a wonderful form of civil disobedience. Just like they call it “dope” for a reason (an anti-pot PSA that was popular when I was in grade school), they call it “weed” for a reason too. It grows like one—it grows wild all over the world. We can’t eradicate pot anymore than we could eradicate dandelions.
It seems to me that if the police want to waste time searching for pot, well, why not make it easier for them to find? Let’s seed the whole city—public parks, every last concrete planter downtown, the “green” roof at city hall, Discovery Park, Freeway Park, Cal Anderson Park, the Zoo, along roads and highways. If we keep the police busy pulling up pot plants in the city, perhaps they’ll have less time on their hands to harass serious grow operations in the boonies.
Some will say that it’s a waste of good pot seeds, but pot seeds are plentiful and cheap. And it won’t be a waste if spreading a few bushels of pot seeds all over town draws attention to just how wasteful the drug war is. Or if it eats up so much police time that they don’t have time to go after all the pot growing in rural areas.
So what do you say, Stoners? Shall we seed the city? Not now, of course, but in early spring?
As usual, Dan is so brilliant. I LOVE this idea.
The pessimist in me says this won't make any difference. If they haven't realized how wasteful and pointless the drug war by now, they never will.
But I will do my part in St. Louis anyway!