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Saturday, April 07, 2007

It'd be funny if, you know, it wasn't a sign of diminishing civil rights and increasing police state paranoia.



Reason Magazine - Hit & Run > If You Aren't Growing Tomatoes, You Have Nothing to Worry About:
"A Pullman landlord notified police about a grow lamp in a closet, and police got a search warrant for a drug raid.

Eight officers with guns drawn surprised three roommates in the apartment last weekend and discovered they were growing tomatoes.

So a growth lamp (which can be used to grow just about anything indoors), "appearing nervous," and a secondhand claim of smelling burnt marijuana is enough for the police to storm into your house with their guns drawn.

I feel like a broken record on this stuff. But this isn't the first time people have had their homes raided over misidentified plants. Hell, it's not even the first time it's happened with tomatoes. I've also found several home invasion raids after a citizen or police officer mistook hibiscus plants for marijuana. There was the time that police in Bel Aire, Kansas raided the home of the town's former mayor after mistaking a sunflower plant for marijuana (the sunflower is also the state flower of Kansas). In 2002, police in Travis County, Texas brought a helicopter to raid the home of Sandra Smith, during which they awoke her and her roommates to the sight of guns pointed at their heads. The marijuana they were after turned out to be ragweed. And there's Ed and Jan Carden, an Orlando couple raided when police mistook elderberry bushes for marijuana."

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