cannabisnews.com: Authorities' Marijuana Haul Vanishes Authorities' Marijuana Haul Vanishes Posted by FoM on March 15, 2001 at 10:58:21 PT By Angela Heywood Bible, Raleigh News & Observer Source: News & Observer Chatham County, N.C., sheriff's deputies seized 5,000 pounds of marijuana in an undercover sting last year, stacked it high, called the media and showed it off. But now, the marijuana is missing, the alleged dealers have vanished, the FBI is investigating, and the department can't explain what happened. The big drug bust has turned into a big embarrassment. "It's the sort of situation where it's hard to know whether to laugh or cry," commissioners' chairman Gary Phillips said. "It's really absurd as far as it goes." In September, someone stole 3,000 pounds of the marijuana from a 2 1/2-ton Army truck parked behind the sheriff's department, where it was being stored as evidence. Soon after, deputies buried the rest near an old landfill, but that, too, has disappeared. "What a nightmare!" said Sheriff Ike Gray, who was appointed after an ailing Donald Whitt retired in November.County officials are questioning the department's handling of the $5 million worth of marijuana, saying deputies stored it in an unsecured place and kept it for too long. "That's 5,000 pounds of dope that's loose in our community that was taken off the streets," said commissioner Rick Givens, who has been flooded with calls from disgusted constituents.In an effort involving the FBI and several Chatham County law-enforcement agencies, a narcotics team seized the marijuana Feb. 8, 2000, at a barn. Officers watched a group of men unload 163 plastic-wrapped bundles from a tractor-trailer.Two men were arrested. At least three other men escaped in the tractor-trailer. Officers never apprehended them. Deputies loaded all the marijuana into a surplus Army National Guard truck on loan from the Siler City Police Department, said Chief Lewis Phillips, whose department participated in the operation. From there, deputies drove to Pittsboro, where they parked the truck behind the sheriff's department. "At the time," Gray said, "there wasn't enough space to store it anywhere else."The arrested men were charged with felony trafficking of marijuana. Those charges were dismissed in March 2000 so that the men, both Mexican nationals, could be turned over to the Immigration and Naturalization Service. But INS officials at the district office in Atlanta have no record of the men. And no federal charges have been filed against them, according to the U.S. attorney's office in Greensboro. More than seven months after the marijuana was seized, deputies noticed that most of it was missing. Gray won't comment on how deputies discovered it was gone or whether it was checked regularly. Whitt called the FBI immediately, Gray said. Deputies buried the remaining ton of marijuana. Gray couldn't say why deputies chose an unsecured spot, but he did say they saved samples for court purposes. Gray said he doesn't know when officials discovered that the rest of the marijuana was missing.Last month, Gray said deputies destroyed the remaining marijuana shortly after the first theft was discovered. Last week, however, he acknowledged that the drugs were buried and then stolen.Gray wouldn't comment on why deputies would bury a ton of marijuana rather than burn it. Special Agent Joanne Morley said the FBI could neither confirm nor deny that there is an investigation. But Gray said no one in his department, which has 52 sworn officers, stole the marijuana."The agent in charge has said at this point he has no reason to suspect any of our people," he said.Reached at his home, former sheriff Whitt declined to comment.Source: News & Observer (NC) Author: Angela Heywood Bible, Raleigh News & ObserverPublished: March 15, 2001Address: The People's Forum, P.O. Box 191, Raleigh, N.C. 27602 Copyright: 2001 The News and Observer Publishing Company Fax: (919) 829-4872 Contact: forum nando.com Website http://www.news-observer.com/ CannabisNews - Cannabis Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/cannabis.shtml END SNIP --> Snipped Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help Comment #14 posted by dnfh on March 18, 2001 at 11:15:19 PT edtf I bet the narkkks accidently busted their own smuglin the dope . Said ooops , here we will leave it on this here truck and you can get it when ever you want [ Post Comment ] Comment #13 posted by Mr. 2toes on March 15, 2001 at 23:46:04 PT haha Deputies loaded all the marijuana into a surplus Army National Guard truck on loan from the Siler City Police Department, said Chief Lewis Phillips, whose department participated in the operation. My god! can you imagine the evil of the people who stole it!?!, What kind of evil genius owns a pickup truck and an acetylene torch? [ Post Comment ] Comment #12 posted by NiftySplifty on March 15, 2001 at 23:13:57 PT Oh, there's no way! The cops can locate a gun thrown from a vehicle at night with heat-sensing cameras from a helicopter, but they can't apprehend three guys they watch drive away in a frickin' semi?! What?! Are you kidding me? Yeah, there's no way the narcs weren't involved. Absolutely no way. I defy you to sneak off with 5,000 pounds of anything!Oh, you guys were right: the stash got burned all right!Nifty... [ Post Comment ] Comment #11 posted by MikeEEEEE on March 15, 2001 at 16:02:41 PT Can't Contain Myself Prohibition really works, HA HA HA, HA HA. [ Post Comment ] Comment #10 posted by CongressmanSuet on March 15, 2001 at 15:02:07 PT: Mount Airy?... Craven you might be right. I broke down in my RV there once coming back from Florida, and it too 2 days to get my fuel pump replaced, they kept putting it on the wrong way! [ Post Comment ] Comment #9 posted by Charlie on March 15, 2001 at 13:26:12 PT: There is a God... ...and God is pro-hemp!Thanks for the hardy laugh. If I had read this stoned I would have died laughing and I wouldn't have wanted that and give the antis a new propaganda line...;-) [ Post Comment ] Comment #8 posted by jAHn on March 15, 2001 at 12:29:04 PT Hey!!! Remember: For the Sake of the Children...? Amazing how a Police Dept. can't keep track of the Grass they've Inhumanely Bullied and Confiscated. Stupidity should be Prohibited, before the stupid "druggies." When do we get a Soapbox for Comments and INjustice Claims for this ever-failing War on SOME drugs? In a free society, deny it not, When a question arises with concerns for 150,000 plus, it's time to clean the ol' ears out to try make and some Progress. No-one wants this Drug-War to end, though. It's working just as planned. Ethnic Cleansing is working! How many Hippies do you see around you? How many Jamaicans? Why aren't there any Rastafarians/Jamaicans on CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, or any of those other "news" networks? mmmmRacism? Because they'd show up any one of those damned WHITE PEOPLE that their talent is dead! White People have little talent, yet their Heralded as the Supreme beings!? All that they did is establish Nascar, Major League Baseball, NBA, NFL, perpetuate Lies in their "science" and use Racist ideology! How do you think Cannabis was Prohibited? There was No Vote!!! "For all we know, the suspects were DEA, and they have recovered their booty and have beat it on down the line. Someone is selling or using the rest. This scenario is frequently repeated around the country, though less often with such quantities. When the LEO's cannot keep track of the stash, nor keep contraband out of jail, then there can be no justification for continuing the War on Drugs." I agree with this Doctor!!! Stop making Excuses for a 70 year+ failure. (Not counting the years that Alcohol Prohibition was perpetuated for existence.)You Prohibitionists are the ones who do THE MOST damage to society. Your "greatest scientist" should be able to conduct the study, once and for all, that the proportion of people in jail is hurting, badly, this American workforce. All of you Business owners' should be against this prohibition too! If you run a snack shop in Haight-Ashbury, I feel sorry as hell for the amount of business that's being lost! This Ideology should pertain to All States. All continents for this matter, a matter of following well-rounded, Humane Equations for Pro-Life Scenarios. What's the sense of paying Thousands of bucks/year on someone who uses a substance less Toxic than Liquor, Oxycontin, Viagra, some AIDS drugs, chemo-relieving Rx's, Bad fuel, rotten food, faulty-produced clothing or products, the list goes on and on...If we boycotted everything, we wouldn't be able to survive(Icould be wrong though, there might be a way to boycott all of the shit that's worse than Pot, and still have legit means of survival.) This is the kind of action we need to organize the Hemp lovers of the earth into. Voluntarily, as a matter of free-thought, of course!!! You're not going to Prohibit Pot Forever!!! [ Post Comment ] Comment #7 posted by FoM on March 15, 2001 at 12:28:42 PT 5000 Pounds Oh My!!!! This article made Herbie smile! LOL!http://homepages.go.com/~marthag1/herbie.gif [ Post Comment ] Comment #6 posted by kaptinemo on March 15, 2001 at 12:13:09 PT: My face hurts from smiling, my gut from laughing "That's 5,000 pounds of dope that's loose in our community that was taken off the streets," said commissioner Rick Givens, who has been flooded with calls from disgusted constituents.Ah yes, the fearful specter of 2.5 tons of ferociously dangerous giggleweed at large in the 'burbs. According to the antis, we can soon expect massive numbers of myocardial infarctions. Rampant lung and other forms of cancer blooming overnight within the populace. And not to forget the Anslingerian bit of 'criminality, insanity and death!'Kevin is right; this does look like a Cheech & Chong movie script. I mean, they left it unguarded on a truck for months? My, how convenient. And the rest they buried at a landfill? An effin' landfill? Unbelievable. I hurt too much from laughing, I can't write anymore... :) [ Post Comment ] Comment #5 posted by craven on March 15, 2001 at 12:00:28 PT haha! That was funny... but what gets me "At least three other men escaped in the tractor-trailer. Officers never apprehended them." I suppose the enormous tractor-trailer was just too quick and nimble for their squad cars to keep up? Was this in Mount Airy (the real life town "Mayberry" was taken from in Andy Griffith).. hehe [ Post Comment ] Comment #4 posted by Imprint on March 15, 2001 at 11:53:17 PT: What a Joke Just another story of why the war on drugs is a joke. One big joke. There is plenty of room for corruption to show up here. Someone on the inside had to at least give information for all this to happen. What a waste of tax payer money, police and FBI agents. [ Post Comment ] Comment #3 posted by Rainbow on March 15, 2001 at 11:42:50 PT Burn it?? Ah yes but someone did burn it. [ Post Comment ] Comment #2 posted by Ethan Russo, MD on March 15, 2001 at 11:41:30 PT: Submit Your Screenplay, It's an Oscar Contender If you made this up, no one would believe it, but this nonsense occurs every day. It would make a most entertaining movie.For all we know, the suspects were DEA, and they have recovered their booty and have beat it on down the line. Someone is selling or using the rest. This scenario is frequently repeated around the country, though less often with such quantities. When the LEO's cannot keep track of the stash, nor keep contraband out of jail, then there can be no justification for continuing the War on Drugs. [ Post Comment ] Comment #1 posted by Kevin Hebert on March 15, 2001 at 11:30:32 PT: You know what this calls for? A big: Ha, HA! Too bad."Gray wouldn't comment on why deputies would bury a ton of marijuana rather than burn it."That was my question, too. Why would they bury a ton of marijuana rather than let people burn it? Makes no sense to me.This story sounds like a Cheech and Chong plotline, but I have to say it put a smile on my face today. [ Post Comment ] Post Comment Name: Optional Password: E-Mail: Subject: Comment: [Please refrain from using profanity in your message] Link URL: Link Title: