By Stephen C. Webster
The fact that this weed looks nothing at all like marijuana, even in the dark, makes this all the more hilarious. I am sure the residents of Texas feel much safer knowing these intrepid cops are working hard to clean up the parks!
Thank you Texas for another great laugh!
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Like the old song goes, one of these things is not like the other...
However,
remind a police officer in Corpus Christi, Texas of those famed Cookie
Monster lyrics and they're likely to give you an annoyed look.
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Note- though this plant has been identified by the officials as 'horsemint'- it isn't horsemint anymore than it is pot. |
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That's because a recently discovered cache of plants, initially pegged by officials speaking to local news
as "one of the largest marijuana plant seizures in the police
department's history," turned out to be a relatively common prairie
flower of little significance.
Texas officers ultimately spent
hours laboring to tag and remove up to 400 plants from a city park,
discovering only after a battery of tests that they had been sweating
over mere Horse Mint, a member of the mint family -- effectively
turning their ambitious drug bust into mere yard work.
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Actual marijuana, distinguishable by it's ethereal beauty and it's seductively heady scent. |
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The
plants, which bear very few aesthetic similarities to cannabis, were
reported by an unnamed youth who came across them while riding a bike
in the park around 8 p.m. on Thursday. Upon visual inspection, police
apparently agreed that the inoffensive plants had to go.
Ultimately, officers were reduced to conducting chemical tests to learn their "weed" was really just that: an actual weed.
"That shows exactly the caliber of police work that is done in
Corpus christi, Tx," commenter Derick Sillers opined in a local NBC
affiliate's comments section.
"The residents of Corpus and Nueces
county should seriously be concerned with how their tax dollars are
spent," he continued. "[This] is the same police department that
serves, protects and investigates you.... does it really take that long
to find out you don't have marijuana."
"Officers did not explain
how their big 'drug haul' will be disposed of, now that they’ve spent
untold hours and plenty of taxpayer money clearing weeds of the the
city park," writer Steve Elliott summarized for News Junkie Post.
The tale is, at very least, a compelling argument for accurate, non-fear-based drug education in public schools, which advocacy groups say is sorely lacking.
Raw Story