Drug case dismissed against teacher (pot in garage "botany experiment")

[rainbow4321]

http://www.mysanantonio.com/sharedcontent/APStories/stories/D87SI9300.html


Prosecutors have dismissed the drug case against a high school science teacher after determining police lacked probable cause to enter his garage where marijuana was found.

Philip Blake Sills, 45, has been on paid leave since his November felony arrest after Fort Worth police entered his unlocked garage while chasing a truancy suspect.

After finding "large green leafy plants hanging from the rafters," police obtained a search warrant and found more marijuana in the garage and house, an amount totaling about a pound, according to the police report.

Sills, who has been with the school district 19 years, then arrived home and said he was a science teacher doing a botany experiment, according to the report. When asked about the smell, Sills said he had been growing the marijuana for about eight months "so I could save myself some money instead of buying it off the street," the report said.

[livinginphotographs]

1. Let me start of by saying:

I think pot should be 100% legal and in a perfect world, this man would not have been hassled for it, regardless of the purpose of his growing it.

With that said, that was pretty fucking stupid on his part. That's as bad as a stoner trying to convince the police that his pot is "medicinal."

[izzie]

2. Kids gave me a plant once and I kept on my kitchen table.

A friend and her husband stopped in one day and he said to put it some place else. Yar you guessed it.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

3. HAHAhahaha!

Was this an end of the schoolyear appreciation gift?

[rainbow4321]

5. Our HS kids grew it in the school's back yard....

They had a garden for it right behind the school building til the school found out...what made it funnier was that the school was right next to the district's administration building...

[catmandu57]

6. You mean that wild parsley?

Sanford and son episode where marijuana is growing out front, Grady and Ester think it's wild parsley.

[sherilocks]

21. I had a friend who also grew a single plant

on her dining room table. One day her husband, unaware or oblivious to the plant, had to call the police over an unrelated emergency. He was arrested and charged with possession and the flower pot was used in determining the weight of the marijuana.

[Tace]

4. I Wonder If He'll Get His Job Back?

You'll note that he got off on a technnicality, not on the merits of his claim that it was a botany experiment.

[Piperay]

7. "Botany experiment"???

yeah, sure...NOT. :silly:

[sweetheart]

8. I hope they let him keep the pound

Imagine, if the teacher stats are anything like the students, say
1/4th... it means 1 out of 8 high school teachers gets stone every
day.... so the only thing that's suprising is that they are such
bad dressers. ;-)

A pound of weed'd last me a year... geez. I gots ta get me a high
school bottany job so i can grow a pound for posterity. :-)

Better yet, they should legallize it and stop with the illegal searches.

[indigobusiness]

9. What are the laws like

in Scotland?

[sweetheart]

10. Oh, they're silly and badly considered

Basically, the home office (read: department of justice) made an edict
for all of the UK that cannabis was to be considered a class "C" drug
which puts it on a par with steroids and a whole lotta basically not
to serious drugs. Well the impotent government north of the border
gets it in to their head to show how big their penis is, by dissenting
with the home office... so they inform their police departments to keep
arresting and IMPRISONING! people for posession of cannabis, even though
1/3 scottish teenagers have smoked it. The problem is that highland
culture is very nazi-hateful-prodestant and judgemental and nasty.
They would rather kill their own child and eat the flesh than admit that
drugs war is the problem and not the drugs... so in a society of
cannibals... one must accept the stupidity.

That said, scotland is theoretically governed by the home office, and
must accept that cannabis is not classified as a rather trivial drug.
Any common sense will show an objectitve observer that alcohol is the
primary drug of problems in the highlands... but as the place is small
towns, very judgemental... you know the types that read the bible using
it as ammunition to hate and destroy others.... not to love jesus....

Well that hate culture rules the scottish parliament and it makes laws
so that people can be arrested and imprisoned for possession of
cannabis and never get a decent job ever again in their life with
the criminal record stigma. This does not in the least prevent peopel
from smoking cannabis... rather there are 2 cultures in the highlands
the "cannabis" culture and the asshole culture. In the former, are
professionals of all sorts, from police officers, MSP's to head teachers... and in the second as well... just the second does not
realize, nor will it accept the possibility that a good 40% of the
highlands smokes weed. Its the same culture of institutional denial
that runs the washington war on drugs users and the massive prison
industrial complex to take away voting rights.... just imported
to scotland to fuck over the locals.

Sadly, the official scots are not very bright in holy rood and the
newspapers, so they think that by controlling propaganda and being
nazi's about drugs, that they have repressed cannabis usage... rather
they are the stupid assholes responsible for the drugs probem to
start with, as they've willingly divided their society rather than
be realistic to the reality that people are in difficult times, and
need some lovin.

Basically, its much better to smoke weed in england (better in a
city) as the rural areas are nazis as well (read "torys")... and
the whole of british law is inconsistent, and applied differently
based on which country busts you... very similar to US states, except
by county in britain. The law will tell you that its illegal, and
as well the law will tell you you can pick and take any sort of
halucingenic mushroom you want in britain without breaking a single
law.... so they basically don't know what they're doing with drugs
laws... and would rather poison their kids with street unknown
drugs than provide a safe environment for their kids to experiment
and learn from drugs as a process in life.

:-)

[indigobusiness]

11. That's remarkable and familiar. When will they ever learn?

I'm sort of surprised. How long did it take you to feel accepted by the locals? Do you feel at home? Is it your wife's home town? You sound rather happy and well-adjusted. A good woman alone will do that, but paranoia can strike deep.

Someday I'm going to drive around Scotland and have a good look. I have too much Scottish blood not to.

[Rush1184]

15. I find them notr as bad as when I lived in NY...

[sweetheart]

16. cuz you're in the central belt

Drive north a coupla hours and it changes.

I agree generally, compared to new york, NYC is worse... there is the
looming presence of the police state, and the drugs trade is much more
criminally connected.

As well one can't discount, that as a foreign person, arresting americans
in britain is only gonna shine spotlights that are not politically
desireable in the international relationship. You get some leeway
on that account.

I so much wish scotland would go the other way, and become a model for
european drugs re-thinking of appraoch, not to use a punative appraoch
at all, but a harm reduction path via legallization. One way would be
to only authorize its sale on the web, so that casually buying drugs
in a shop would not be possible that it not be seen to be proliferating
so much... and as well, web customers would ensure cultural discretion
and reduce overt flashing of what many are concerned about.

Scotland would double its economy if it legallized cannabis, and like
the whiskey trade, it would benefit the outer regions as well, given
that cannabis can be grown in rural crofts and whatnot.

What upsets me the most, is seeing the potential, and rahter that
people willingly choose to squander an opportunity for more of the
same punative, judgemental, and foolish criminalization... as once
you have a criminal record, scottish society will block you from
most all professional careers.... and cannabis posession is such
a record.

[indigobusiness]

19. Seen this? --'Britain 'sliding into police state'

Britain 'sliding into police state'

Alan Travis, Clare Dyer and Michael White
Friday January 28, 2005
The Guardian

The home secretary, Charles Clarke, is transforming Britain into a police state, one of the country's former leading anti-terrorist police chiefs said yesterday.
George Churchill-Coleman, who headed Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist squad as they worked to counter the IRA during their mainland attacks in the late 1980s and early 1990s, said Mr Clarke's proposals to extend powers, such as indefinite house arrest, were "not practical" and threatened to further marginalise minority communities.

Mr Churchill-Coleman told the Guardian: "I have a horrible feeling that we are sinking into a police state, and that's not good for anybody. We live in a democracy and we should police on those standards.

He added: "I have serious worries and concerns about these ideas on both ethical and practical terms. You cannot lock people up just because someone says they are terrorists. Internment didn't work in Northern Ireland, it won't work now. You need evidence."

--more--

http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,12780,1400584,00.html

[sweetheart]

20. We'll see what he "does"

The words are one thing, but lets see what he actually does with
house arrest. Certainly it is an improvement over indefinite internment
in belmarsh prison... that if someone really is perceived as being that
much of a threat, they can live in their own home at least and not
go bonker onkers in a maximun security prison without having done any
crime.

Same same with the folks in the guantanamo... if they are, as our
untrustworthy authorities say, just gonna go back to a life of war and
terrorism, then perhaps house arrest is more civil than permanent
torture in an american concentration camp.

I have a feeling that Mr. Clark will use his powers sparingly and i'll
wait until i hear about a case where he's been outrageously bad to
judge... as it stands, he still looks like santa clause. :-)

[shadowknows69]

18. I used to sell hash to my high school chem teacher

oops did I say that out loud. I meant to say a friend of mine used to..... :hippie:

[jayctravis]

12. They were "chasing a truancy suspect"?

Since when do police chase kids playing hooky? Did they have the tasers out?

[neohippie]

14. hmmm truancy suspect runs into a garage full of pot

and it is owned by a teacher, what are the odds of that? Talking about having a bad day!

[VegasWolf]

13. He is just making science enjoyable. n/t

[htuttle]

17. Damn, I tried that explanation on my parents when they found my plants

...and they didn't buy it.

I suppose it would have been more convincing if I had been a science teacher instead of a high school student at the time.