Fifteen Hundred Plants Seized During "Biggest Outdoor Marijuana Bust" In Town's History Are Actually Just Daisies
American drug cops may be exceptionally savage, careless, and contemptuous of the law, but Canadian drug cops have them beat in the stupidity department:
[P]olice still won't admit the plants they seized in what was supposedly the biggest outdoor marijuana bust in Lethbridge history are plain old flowers — daisies, to be precise.
All police will concede at this point is the 1,624 plants torn from a suburban Lethbridge garden on July 30 isn't marijuana, as first claimed after a phalanx of police marched in and starting plucking.
"This is a significant bust, given the size of this operation," is how a senior officer put it at the time, while proudly displaying garbage bags full of the dastardly daises.
That same officer, Staff Sergeant Wes Houston, now admits the plant haul was a mistake.
"In any investigation, police count public safety as our top priority — our decision to seize the plants was made with the best information we had at the time," said Houston, leader of CFSEU-Lethbridge.
Police were certainly convinced they had a huge haul of pot — and this was not the opinion of some lone rookie, frisky at the prospect of a big drug raid.
This was the judgment of veteran officers from the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit of the Alberta Law Enforcement Response Team — supposedly the best drug squad this province has to offer.
Hat tip to Instapundit.
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Were any dogs shot? Children terrified? Women brutalized?
No, they got confused when they overheard their botanist using outdated slang to describe how good the plants were. "They're really dope!"
The daisies were a code violation! The property owner was letting them spread out of control, creating a public safety nuisance. They will be receiving a bill for the cleanup. Go Calgary!
Prohibitionists doing stupid shit and making retarded mistakes? TOTALLY SHOCKING.
Daisies? I've seen lots of plants that make you look twice, but . . . . daisies?
Maybe they thought they were poppies?
"To be fair, they do look very similar. You have to look close to see the difference," said Cartwright-Poulits.
They really don't look that similar, and wouldn't they look close before tearing up thousand of flowers?
They both have green leaves. That's similar, right?
They're both plants. At least they're in the same taxonomological phylum (eudicots, not technically a phylum, but whatever). It's an easy enough mistake to make. It's like when the cops mean to arrest a Caucasian male and accidentally arrest a salamander instead.
It was all my fault, I am embarrassed to say. Several years ago I played a practical joke on the CFSEU by switching out slides in their identification training material. You should be expecting stories any week now about a big lingonberry bust...
"To be fair, they do look very similar. You have to look close to see the difference," said Cartwright-Poulits.
Agreed. They are both green and plants and grow in the fucking dirt. But when you get really close, say 45 feet away, you can tell the difference.
What a stupid bitch.
Almost as disgustingly stupid as the writer of the story:
It's a funny story, and one that's bound to make the rounds as an example of sloppy police work ? but long-term damage to the reputation of Alberta's crack drug squad is no laughing matter.
Sounds like the drug squad was smoking crack. *rimshot*
Don't you know that Daisies are a gateway plant for Marijuana!!!!
Bets on whether the prosecutor decides to go ahead with charges against the grower anyway?
Deceptive growing practices? Interfering with a drug investigation? Obstruction of public relations?
Clearly the grower intended to make wine from the daisies and give it to children so that he could molest them. There is no other possible explaination as to why someone would need to grow so many daisies.
Yeah, nobody could possibly need more than 5 daisies in a flower bed. Just like nobody needs more than 5 blades of grass in their lawn. =P
Lookalike/imitation controlled substance, maybe.
"Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit of the Alberta Law Enforcement Response Team ? supposedly the best drug squad this province has to offer"
Nothing about this article surprised or shocked me, even the tidbit above. It is difficult though for me to comprehend how people can read crap like this daya after day after day and still want us to put our full faith into our governments and send them all our money to solve all our problems. I mean I know most people are uninformed morons but seriously. ser-i-ous-ly.
"[The daisy] is an herbaceous perennial plant with short creeping rhizomes and small rounded or spoon-shaped rosetted of leaves that are from 3/4 to 2 inches (approx. 2?5 cm) long and grow flat to the ground."
Whereas pot is a tall plant with distinctively NOT spoon-shaped leaves.
There are a few weeds and maybe even some garden plants that look similar to pot at a distance, but daisies definitely not one of them. The fact that they actually took the plants and still didn't know the difference is indisputable proof that they are morons.
I used to have a couple of plants (no idea what they were) that had very pottish leaves, were nice and tall, etc.
Watching some people do a double-take was always good for a chuckle. I figured anyone who looked twice was probably pretty familiar (knowutimean?) with the plant.
Japanese maple?
Given the canadian policing's reputation, I'm starting to think that Snidely Whiplash was more anti-hero than villian and am wondering what Nell and Dudley did to him to drive him into a rambo-esque revenge scheme.
rambo-esque in the sense that all of Rambo's violence in the first movie is a direct result of an overbearing and violently dickish sherrif's department.
Don't be so hard on the poor peoples of Canuckistan. They have endured endless cycles of brain freeze. I mean, they can't tell daisies from pot, I think they deserve our pity. I didn't even realize that you could grow MJ to maturity on the tundra. Not outside anyway.
Well, we must ban Daisies! Because, uh, our officers can't tell them from marijuana and that is putting our officers at risk! Oh, WTH, let's just ban everything like they are doing in the US and then we can shoot family pets without discretion, and uh, it will create jobs!
At the end of the day, all the officers involved went home to their families safe, able to hand their wives bouquets, and at the end of the day isn't that what's really important? At the end of the day?
At the end of the day, all of these officers were still morons, that is the one thing that is certain. Not one of them knows what a Daisy looks like? They actually have wives?
What's really important is officer safety. Sure, the LEO could have investigated, could have been diligent and assessed what they were doing with some sort of professionalism, but at the end of the day that kind of hesitation costs lives. Important, badged lives.
It's not hard to get a wife, man. There are plenty of women just as stupid as stupid cops.
Well, they were close. If you're going to throw people in jail over growing perennial flowering vegetables, why not daisies?
Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit of the Alberta Law Enforcement enforces! Rawr! With force!
Last year I was at a concert where afterwards in the parking lot people were selling/buying/consuming nitrous ("laughing gas") balloons. I'm standing next to a group of cops and I overhear one say "there they go again with their helium balloons." I just laughed. Yeah, tripping hippies are shelling out cash so that they can sound like Alvin the Chipmunk.
Yeah, cops are stupid. It's a feature of the system, not a bug.
Although they make up for it by being obnoxius, overbearing, imperious, unethical and violent.
The government can't tell the difference between pot and daisies, yet people want them to run the economy, health care, have the power to kill/detain with no due process, etc?
I'm sure this was an isolated instance. Reality always is.
Dudley Doofus
American taxpayers are being forced to pay $40 Billion a year for a prohibition that causes 10,000 brutal murders 800,000 needless arrests each year, but which doesn't even stop CHILDREN getting marijuana.
After seventy-five years of prohibition, it's obvious that the federal marijuana prohibition causes FAR more harm than good and must END! Drug Dealers Don't Card, Supermarkets Do.
Be careful if you like to plant Lupin...the seeds look completely like pot seeds. You'll send the Mounties into a zealous frenzy.
No less stupid that pulling out actual marijuana.
Are the police going to pay for the damage caused to his property?