mayko
International Hazard
Posts: 1218
Registered: 17-1-2013
Location: Carrboro, NC
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Mood: anomalous (Euclid class)
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On the co-risk of amateur science and illegal activities
Our tale begins when I moved into an apartment in Durham, NC, in early 2012. Those were heady days, let me tell you: stormtroopers menacing my friends
in Oakland; the internet going on strike against SOPA. I had been in and out of homelessness for some time, sat down, finally happy to have a trickle
of income from a friend and a bed with a door.
The person I was subletting from had been organizing with me through a community organization called Occupy Durham. Our goal was to provide mutual aid
to the people in our community in hard times. So, when D. showed up facing eviction and homelessness, we were sympathetic.
We worked pretty hard to try to help D, putting him in a hotel and helping with his groceries, but these weren't sustainable solutions. Ultimately, my
friend and I agreed that he could stay at the same place as me until he got his situation straightened out.
A few days turned into weeks, and then into a month or two. I didn't terribly mind; we didn't have a lot in common and I was keeping to myself a lot,
but we seemed to get along.
Fast forward to early June. I sit on the front porch, reading and writing. My back is to the road so I don't notice the cop car driving up until I
hear the car doors slamming. (doh)
Police 'smell marijuana', search me without my consent, and find a pipe. (DOH) They want to search the apartment. I tell them to get a warrant. They
handcuff me, take me to the magistrate, get a warrant, come back, and trash my room. D. is there, and it's late. I feel bad for him... until I begin
reading the paperwork.
Turns out the dude called them on me. (DOH!!)
Turns out, they find a considerable quantity (3.2 oz) of cannabis in my room. (... wait, what?)
Yeah, so I went to jail, got put on suicide watch because I was trolling the guards too hard. My buddies coughed up bail - $2500. (Contrast this with
the Assault and Battery charge above me on the roster, bail $2k, and the Drunk Driver below me, $500. Having known people splattered by drunk drivers,
the latter is especially insulting.)
I sat through the court system, watched people who didn't have the privileges that I have flounder - people who couldn't muster a good lawyer, people
who didn't have cars and showed up late to their court dates when public transit broke down, a man in a wheelchair harassed for tardiness in a
building with a broken elevator, poor mothers arrested for stealing food from supermarkets.
I had never been in trouble before, and I had organized, and I think that was what got me off light. I had to take DARE again (because it worked so
well the first time). I completed the course and left. I could expunge my record, but I haven't. I have nothing to apologize for.
As an afternote, D. found himself evicted again. He would later try to send a racist rant to my lover, in which he confessed, among other things, to
being a serial informant for the police. He accidentally cc'd the Occupy Durham listserve. Oh, and the dude was stealing money from me the whole time.
I bring this up here because of a facet of the search and seizure which I find fascinating to this day, and which I think has relevance to the home
scientist who may or may not always follow the letter of the law.
Not only did the police seize the pipe and the plant matter, they seized my scale and my plastic baggies, which they called paraphernalia, and charged
me with operating a drug house. This is ironic because, whatever I may have been doing, neither the scale (which had no batteries) nor the baggies
(which were in my naturalist kit with a magnifying glass, notebook, and pen) was involved in any drug activity. In other words, the few scientific
instruments I owned at the time.
As my lawyer explained, in the eyes of the law, drugs exert a magickal force on their surroundings, which necessarily involve nearby objects,
locations, and people in their drug-ness. Thus, practically anything, from a pill bottle to a roll of aluminum foil to a bicycle or a room, can become
suspicious just by the presence of a plant or chemical.
I guess I bring this up as a cautionary tale: If I had been caught with weed AND a bubbling laboratory, things could easily have been worse, even if
the chemistry I happened to be doing was perfectly legal. "You can beat the rap, but you never beat the ride", as they say.
Stay safe!
al-khemie is not a terrorist organization
"Chemicals, chemicals... I need chemicals!" - George Hayduke
"Wubbalubba dub-dub!" - Rick Sanchez
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Bot0nist
International Hazard
Posts: 1559
Registered: 15-2-2011
Location: Right behind you.
Member Is Offline
Mood: Streching my cotyledons.
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Thanks for the personal story. Seemed a bit off topic though. Yes, I agree that having a lab and any illegal drugs in the house is a bad combination.
Either one by themselves are hard enough to explain, let alone together.
Once upon a time, an amatuer chemist caught his wife cheating on him and during the following nastey seperation, the cops were called by her and told
that the chemist was operating a meth lab and making explosives. The police took this very seriously and multiple federal agencies showed up.
Evacuations and searching followed. All of the glassware and reagents were tested and sampled, and the chemist was questioned heavily. He was honest
and had never manufactred methamphetamine, and the inly explosive made was small amounts of flash powder and such. His claims were confirmed by the
DEA and ATF chemists, and his possessions were returned except a small bottle of piperine because it was unlabled. The soon to be ex wife was
threatened for making false reports. No charges were pressed against either person. This tale goes agianst most tales of interaction with the law on
this board, so the chemist considers himself lucky. Despite its unbelievable nature, I can assure you th is tale is true...
[Edited on 22-12-2013 by Bot0nist]
U.T.F.S.E. and learn the joys of autodidacticism!
Don't judge each day only by the harvest you reap, but also by the seeds you sow.
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learningChem
Hazard to Others
Posts: 182
Registered: 21-7-2011
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
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| Quote: | | , I can assure you th is tale is true... |
Sounds hardly true. Sounds like you're licking the boots of cops and related vermin.
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Random
International Hazard
Posts: 1018
Registered: 7-5-2010
Location: In ur closet
Member Is Offline
Mood: Energetic
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Lesson learned: Don't be too generous, you could end up in jail for it.
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IrC
International Hazard
Posts: 2710
Registered: 7-3-2005
Location: Eureka
Member Is Offline
Mood: Discovering
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Quote: Originally posted by learningChem  | | Quote: | | , I can assure you th is tale is true... |
Sounds hardly true. Sounds like you're licking the boots of cops and related vermin.
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I am getting very tired of your malignant attitude towards everyone. Especially after going through all 112 of your posts and seeing the general trend
of your attitude and treatment of members here. Calling Bromic Acid a troll in another thread? He is one of the largest contributors through posts and
a book project of real science on SCM ever, over many years. He is also one of the finest chemists and true amateur scientists (in the beginning in
his back yard - now gone pro) in SCM's history.
STFU and get a life. Hopefully somewhere else. I do not like your comments about LEO either. One of them one day may well put themselves at risk to
pull your stupid ass out of your botched experiments.
What a waste. Speaking of waste in lieu of yet another stupid squabble with the likes of you on this site I think I will end it by swiping Bromics pic
and posting it yet again.
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts" Richard Feynman
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learningChem
Hazard to Others
Posts: 182
Registered: 21-7-2011
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
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Poor little fascist IrC whining. I'm sooo impressed.
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elementcollector1
International Hazard
Posts: 2684
Registered: 28-12-2011
Location: The Known Universe
Member Is Offline
Mood: Molten
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Welp, this has degenerated into childish insults quickly. I suppose I'll be the one to request that the above two posts get moved to Detritus so we
can keep the thread itself clean?
I found a neat infographic on how to behave towards police in the event of a confrontation. Allow me to see if I can dig it up.
Elements Collected:52/87
Latest Acquired: Cl
Next in Line: Nd
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learningChem
Hazard to Others
Posts: 182
Registered: 21-7-2011
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
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I only see insults coming from IrC. To state the fact that he's a fascist is not an insult, merely a label for his political preference.
Oh and speaking of cops...
http://www.wwaytv3.com/2014/01/05/father-says-18-year-old-so...
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bfesser
Resident Wikipedian
Posts: 2114
Registered: 29-1-2008
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
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Moderator Warning
learningChem, IrC is entirely right about you. Consider this a warning; curb the attitude and the spam.
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