As most (if not all) of you know, I'm going through a lot of legal bullshit right now (as explained in previous blogs), but I wanted to explain in detail what I've been through previously here in the 'sunshine' state.
I guess the best place to start is the beginning (derp). When I was 19 I had just moved back to the states from a little island in the pacific (really little...20 kids in my graduating class little). I hadn't even been in the state for a year before I got to meet some of "Florida's finest." Apparently 'protecting and serving' includes wasting your time bothering the local youth when they try to congregate at a private household, while not even playing music or being loud in any way (though we did have the audacity to sit on the front porch).
My 'crime'? I happened to be at a place where they had alcohol. That's it. Not that they caught me with a beer, not that I was drunk in any way. Simply that I was at a residence that had alcohol. I shit you not. That is a CRIME in Florida...IF they want it to be. The wonderful thing about our laws are that they can be interpreted by any asshole with a badge, and are written to give that asshole to power to either help you out or fuck you over. I could have easily fought this case, but after dragging me through the local PD, then hauling me off to the other end of the county to 'hold' me, they shipped me back to the county jail and put me with a bunch of real criminals before releasing me with a court date and eventually fining me...wait for it...$50. Who the fuck is going to fight a $50 fine with days and days if not weeks of court dates? Not me, that's who.
So after that I was fine for about a year before "Florida's finest" assholes decided it was time to fuck with me again. My friend drove me to another friend's house to hang out for a while, and on the way home he got pulled over. He happened to have weed in his pocket and got nabbed for that, and then the cops searched his van. After cuffing me and sitting me in the mud in front of a main intersection for an hour, they stood me up to let me go. i grabbed my wallet and my backpack, and they grabbed me and cuffed me again. Turns out I apparently had an unused old piece of shit metal pipe in my bag somehwere, and they were going to charge me with possession of drug paraphernalia because my friend had weed on him. Again I got to go through the local PD, across the county to be 'held' for hours before being trasported back across county to the county jail in order to be bonded out. After I was bonded out, I had a court date where they fined me about $600, and I was on my way.
About a year or 2 after that, I was driving and encountered a DUI checkpoint. I was (yet again) completely sober, but the cop told me that my car would be searched by a K9 after it was done with the van in front of me. At the time I had 2 small bags of weed in the car, and figured it would be better to tell them where one of them was and hope that they didn't find the other. My plan worked, but I was obvioulsy still arrested for the bag I admitted to. After going to the county jain AGAIN, I was bailed out and had to get my vehicle out of impound. After paying some crazy amount of money, I got my car (and the bag that was left in it) and had a way to get to court (yay!). This time I was sentenced to serve 6 months of probation to go along with my fines and court costs. If any of you have ever had to go through probation, you know how terrible it is. You have to report to your probation officer constantly while at the same time getting piss tested all the time AND having to attend drug counseling (where they also do piss tests). As a victim of the state of Florida, you are required to pay for every single one of these meetings (piss tests included), while at the same time missing work in order to be there. After paying out the ass for all of this, I eventually completed my probation with the completion of my counseling outstanding (meaning I had to complete the counselling before I was actually off of probation). Of course towards the end of my counselling they told me that I needed even more counselling (17 weeks wasn't enough for a tiny bag of pot), and I knew the reason they were doing that was that they got paid per session, so the longer they make you attend, the more money they make. I told my counsellor that I would not be attending additional meetings simply because they felt like I needed it (and they needed more money). She immediately piss tested me and said that she would send a letter to my probation officer saying that I had failed if I didn't come back for more classes. By this time I was fed up with the whole thing and basically said fuck it. I got a carbon copy of the letter sent to my probation officer saying that I failed to complete their counselling, and figured the next time I got pulled over I would be going to jail. Somehow I got lucky and the next time I did get pulled over I had no warrants or anything. I figure either they fucked up the paperwork or they were helpless to fuck me over again because I had technically finished the state's version of the probation.
And then I had this latest charge, which was once again a victimless crime that I had committed against the state of Florida that they were bound and determined to get their money out of me for. Maybe that's the problem...that they can't tax something that is illegal, so instead they charge you for it and force you to pay huge fines so they can still make their buck off of you. At least if the legalized it and taxed it they could save their police force and jails the trouble of having to book potheads and be able to spend more time trying to catch murderers, theives, and rapists.
It seems like the priorities of the state (and the country) are all backwards. We legalize cigarettes and alcohol which kill millions, but then outlaw marijuana which has never killed anybody. They choose to treat someone in possession of cannabis as if they are some kind of threat, when that person is in fact LESS of a threat because they are more likely to be non-violent and just trying to snack on some tacos. Its almost like they trump up stupid shit like pot to try and justify themselves, but the only people they're fooling are the ignorant and misinformed. They tell me that I'm living in a "free" country, and then tell me that at the age of 30 I can't make a decision as to how I would like to relax or medicate myself. If the government wants to punish people for victimless crimes, and in turn make the person charged a victim of the state, this is not a free country at all. It is a complete fake that only fools those that are too fucking stupid to simply take 2 minutes and look behind the curtain they been duped into staring at their entire lives.
I am not a criminal. They have tried to make me feel as though I am, and they did a good job, but I know that I am a good person and have never been in trouble for anything like theft or any kind of violence. In the end they failed to do anything but make me lose faith in their system, which I didn't have much in the first place. I'm just about ready to move, which is saying a lot because I actually pay a mortgage and would have to go through some serious bullshit to sell this house, plus I have a family who live and go to school here.
So in the end, here I am. A rock. A hardplace. woo-hoo. I know that many will say that I put myself in this position, and they are partially correct, but ONLY because the laws on cannabis are retarded in the first place. Nobody has ever suffered because of me smoking a joint, and I'm pretty sure potheads are what keeps places like Denny's and Taco Bell in business.
until next time, cheers
-C0c
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