Safer Stoner Networking

Cyber-narcs are prowling social networking web sites to find and capture closet growers, tokers, dealers, and junior stoners

Finding potheads on the Internet is a growing priority, according to the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP). Few folks blatantly advertise themselves online as rapists, pedophiles or terrorists, but the police discovered social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook contain plenty of people promoting their love of herb. Unable to catch true cyber-criminals, police forces are bolstering their online sleuthing skills and arrest-rate by bagging bong-hitters.

As millions more potheads publicly out themselves, a greater reefer resistance to prohibition builds. Potheads united, even virtually as added “friends”, dampens The Man’s fear-mongering divide-and-conquer tactic. Threatened by the growing public display of harmless cannabis use on social networking sites, narcs have begun to fight back, complete with virtual “friendly stranger” statements.

“150 million people are on MySpace, many of them are drug dealers,” Florida’s Punta Gurda Police Department Detective Thomas Lewis told local media. His awesome stoner slander caught the attention of the ONDCP, police forces, and media across America. MySpace’s search engine turns up a little over 200,000 pages using various marijuana terms, but narcs and the White House quickly sprung into action to make their own MySpace marijuana-bust news.

Charlotte County, Florida police pulled off seven MySpace-initiated marijuana busts in one night, all involving amounts of no more than 20 grams. Robert James Alden, 21, was arrested after he was convinced by Charlotte County narcs to set up two of his MySpace friends. Alden arranged to make a buy and police arrested the two marijuana MySpacers on their way to the meeting point. Then these two doobie dorks threw two of their friends into the cop net! After that evening of nickel-and-dime busts, police called MySpace “the new street corner”.

Remember, cops are the people who were social misfits in school, who were never cool and seethed with envy and inadequacy at all the stoners, rockers, hipsters, and other cliques who eschewed these junior fascists. This is their revenge.

Choose Your Weed Friends Wisely

Friend collecting is an awesome game to play when baked. With plenty of bud-babes and stoner studs working their marijuana mojos online it’s a virtual session for the lone stoner. There are countless ganja gal groups where beautiful bong-hitting babes in bikinis get their stone on in delicious poses. But after the Alden experience, it might be best to choose wisely who you hook up with.

The most annoying stoner is the one who sends messages, publicly posts comments, or makes a group (or bulletin) posting asking “where to buy some weed, man.” For straight-up safety reasons, this stupid stoner should be avoided! Even if the dim-bulb isn’t a narc, their stupidity will ultimately land them – and possibly you – in jail. And like Alden, the narc won’t just rat you out, but may set you up too.

Undercover officers are creating pothead profiles to build a network where he or she can engage in the buying and selling of grass. While I’ve yet to come across a major sting operation on MySpace where a narc builds a friend list then offers cannabis to buy, it’s a very probable scenario. With small busts grabbing national media attention, it’s only a matter of time before the DEA becomes seriously involved in patrolling social networking sites. Finding local enthusiasts is as easy as inputting the city’s name and cannabis into the search engine. Befriending – or “adding” to your friend list – one local stoner ultimately leads to more local stoners via friend collecting.

Marijuana Advertising Upsets The Man

District Attorney Joe DeCecco in Sheboygan, Washington, when arresting 18 year-old Moua Yang, claimed “When someone is going to advertise their drug use on a web site, we’re going to find it and this is what is going to happen.”

Moua Yang is clearly no Dr. Greenthumb, as he posted a photo of three terrible-looking plants on his MySpace page with the heading, “My Mary Jane Growing In My Closet Right Now.” Like most social networking stoners, Yang’s bong shot photo was tagged “My Baby” and his headline screamed “I Need That Cali Chronic”. When cops arrested Yang they found “My Baby” and the three-plant setup exactly as pictured. He was identified by his high school “police resource officer”, a position apparently ensconced in schools across America. District Attorney DeCecco admits Yang isn’t a big dealer, but could receive a maximum sentence of three years for the plants and $21,000 bong fine – all for what is becoming a fairly common fuck-up amongst potheads: too much marketing!

When discussing dealer Miles Murphy’s MySpace profile, Rex Osborn of the Manteca, California Police Department stated, “It’s a marketing strategy, to sell his marijuana.” Murphy, 20, was jolted awake at 7:00am in June of 2006 by a “flash-bang” invasion. After several explosive flash grenades were launched inside the home to take down this pot dealer, an eight-member SWAT team burst in, searching for guns and drugs. Police found four small baggies of weed and $10,000 they attributed to brisk weekend pot sales.

Manteca officer Sam Gallego said Murphy was seen on his MySpace website holding marijuana and guns. This was one element in deciding to use the SWAT team to serve the warrant, he said. Punta Gorda Detective Lewis informed media that his cyber-sleuthing skills involve finding marijuana enthusiasts who “post weed on their profile.”

Want Some Candy, Li’l Bong-Hitter?

Detective Lewis in Florida began his social networking investigating when he spent time with his daughters surfing MySpace. Lewis immediately became horrified by what he found, and quickly forbid his two offspring from using the website. However, he would become a social network addict himself, claiming he required months and months to learn MySpace. The detective credits his daughters with teaching him how to surf the site, master the lingo and friend-collect like a teen. Like a pedophile honing in on a victim, Det. Lewis targeted a young man for marijuana, and wouldn’t accept “No Means No”.

Lewis continued to harass his teenage victim with increasingly larger amounts of money despite the young man’s initial refusal to sell weed to the officer. The teenage victim’s mother argues the officer enticed her son into a real-life meeting by offering greater and greater rewards, and soon Det. Lewis’ come-ons were just too great to resist.

In West Sacramento, California, police claim they were protecting children at Westmore Oaks Elementary School when they arrested Rajneel Kumar, whose MySpace profile showed that he lived a block from the school. Surveillance was set up and police noted plenty of people coming and going from the apartment complex. Police raided his home shortly after.

High school student Daniel Blanchard learned the hard way what assholes Placer County, California cops can be. The high school student posted bong hit photos on his MySpace page, which caught the attention of the school’s resource police officer. Calling the teen into his office to question him about the profile, the deputy sheriff performed a search of Blanchard’s backpack and discovered cannabis. The search continued into the school parking lot where the deputy sheriff uncovered bongs, weed and scales in Blanchard’s car. After getting a warrant for Blanchard’s home, cops found The Anarchist Cookbook and claimed the teen had instructions on how to make bombs.

When Virtual Becomes Reality

Prowling on pothead teens, then luring them to jail, is a favorite pastime for the Nazi scum that form the ranks of modern day police in the USA. Though police have been in classrooms since the 1970s in America, Canadian narcs have just recently started targeting schools. Operation School Yard, a police sting in Montreal, Quebec, nabbed twenty-five area high school stoners. Many students received harsh trafficking charges, and eighty officers were involved in the bust, which took five months to investigate.

Operation 21 Jump Street (for the television show that made Johnny Depp a household name) has cops send a fairly young uber-hottie undercover officer into schools. The female officer, portraying herself as a bud-babe, basically flirts marijuana sales out of guys hoping to impress her with their “cool” connections to weed. Beware the transfer student who is overly eager to please!

Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) officers concluded after two weeks that forty-three high school stoners in Pictou County, Nova Scotia were guilty of cannabis crimes. Students were photographed and filmed toking and hitting bongs at a popular hangout spot during lunch. “We were surprised after the video surveillance of the first few days how brazen they were,” RCMP Cpl. Al Affleck told media.

Again, fuzz hate when potheads openly out themselves. Anything brazen is a slap in the face to the narc, thus, when the RCMP conducted their massive stoner sweep of the popular hangout spot in Pictou County, they used their helicopter. Cpl. Affleck explained, “We had the RCMP helicopter for show, we wanted to shock and awe.” The now-popular term was first coined by the US military regarding their missile offensive in Iraq, and basically means “bomb them back to the stone-age”.

High School Rights 101

Getting popped at school is too harsh a risk for even a gram, but it happens to students on a daily basis, ruining their lives! Keep the weed out of the school locker, parking lot, and your backpack. Interestingly, school civic or law classes don’t teach students the basic rights they
need to know when encountering cops. Despite your age, you have the same rights as anyone else – though on school grounds your rights are greatly diminished.

Given their responsibility role, teachers are more akin to parents than cops. A principal can shake you down on suspicion and, if marijuana is found, determine whether to call your parents or the cops. During a police drug sweep, students do have the right to remain silent and the right to not consent to unreasonable search and seizure. A principal can crack the lock on your locker regardless but they will ask permission first; do not say “Yeah, whatever,” or “You’re going to do it anyways,” as this is construed as consent. Instead proffer, “I do not consent to this search.” At this point, remain silent. Maintaining silence and not consenting are your rights – use them. It’s patriotic.

Safer Stoner Socializing

There’s a false sense of security when it comes to online social networking sites that has bong-hitters making blunders. Using toking terms and your real location easily creates a target list for local fuzz. Instead, input something like Garden City, 420 Town, Green Land, or Bud Bay. If you aren’t specific as to your actual city or town, you can easily push the envelope by posting bong-hitting photos or pot plants. Don’t post the school you go to! It’s easy for alumni and friends to find you that way, but just as easy for cops to visit your classroom.

While it’s easy to post photos, think for a brief moment if the picture could bring unwanted consequences. Joint-smoking photos are simply evidence you inhaled at some point – so don’t worry, you’ll still be able to seek political office! However, posing with pot plants is rather risqué. Well-known cannabis activists have no worries, as photos are just more evidence of “weed wrong-doing” on top of a marijuana mountain of other supposed evidence. This has encouraged other proud potheads to post shots of their grows, unintentionally creating the potential for conflict with the law. Maybe your mom doesn’t care that you’ve posted a stoned photo of yourself in a grow room, but police do! Grow room photos demonstrate brazen disobedience which may ultimately lead to surveillance and a warrant to search your residence. So keep the plants behind the curtain unless you’re prepared to take the heat!

Lastly, if a pothead pesters you online and you’re sure they want to trip you up, use the “block user” function instead of engaging them. Replying only encourages the potential narc or stupid stoner to continue. A narc’s goal is too hunt you down and send you to jail – blocking is the best way to avoid this outcome. By being a smart stoner, you can enjoy safer social networking!