Students Face 10 to 20-Year Jail Sentences For Pot Pastry Prank:
DALLAS — The honor student who delivered marijuana-spiked muffins to the teachers lounge at a friend's high school said Friday that it was all just a senior prank, one he never imagined would trigger an FBI and terrorism investigation.TEN YEARS!?!?! For giving people the munchies?
However, authorities and some of the 18 people hospitalized after snacking on the drugged pastries say the crime is no laughing matter. The two teens arrested in the case face felony charges that carry up to 10 years in prison.
Now, of course, it's a bad idea to drug ANYONE without their consent. It was clearly a stupid stunt that shouldn't be repeated by anyone. But... come on! Spiking the punch at the high school dance has been an age-old prank that I'm sure has never landed a student behind bars for a decade. And injesting alcohol actually presents a real risk of injury or death, while the biggest risk presented here was that Ms. Mitchell would start playing Bob Marley for her history class or Mr. Stern would take his biology class on a spontaneous field trip to the woods.As expected, the district attorney's office is working long hours to ensure that these hardened criminals will be wearing orange jumpsuits for a long time.
Because of the presence of illegal drugs, the Dallas County district attorney's office is seeking to upgrade the charges to second-degree felonies, which could mean up to 20 years in prison, spokeswoman Rachel Raya said.Twenty years. For marijuana muffins. The justification?
Jeffrey Ian Ross, a criminologist and terrorism expert at the University of Baltimore, said the serious approach is a sign of the times.
"A decade ago, chances are these kids would be probably charged with mischief or something," he said. "What is happening right now is, the public is very scared about the possibility of bioterrorism."
Right. So... muffins laced with a substance that has never killed anyone is equated with BIOTERRORISM. Meanwhile, our favorite Congresscritter is pushing for the government to release a malignant fungus on other countries where coca is grown.*sigh*
2 comments:
Hey 800 pg-
I noticed in your blog post about your book that you are in Oregon. Eugene perhaps?
Who be you? I'm in Eugene and know most of the dpr folks around...
Only one teacher spent the night in the hospital. She was 86 years old. Make the students pay for her hospital bill, apologize, end of story. At least it should be. Four years of high school and making honors should not be thrown away for making a stupid decisision involving a plant. A plant was made illegal not based on science or it's threat to society. Maybe some teachers should show The Learning Channel's special and begin to comprehend how insane it would be for these students to spend 10-20 years in a prison cell.
Like Micah said, it is obviously wrong to drug someone without their consent. I do think the students realize this now, and probably would have realized it without and FBI investigation.
It needs to be taken into consideraton that it was marijuana that was used in the muffins. Not opiates or meth, or pharmacuetical drugs. Marijuana. No one was in any real danger aside from experiencing the unwanted/unexpected effects of THC. No danger of overdose here.
And what if they had put muffins laced with X-Lax and all the teachers spent the day in the can instead of the classrooms or maybe a few even went to the hospital for dehydration? Think and FBI investigation would have gone down? I don't.
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