

       Marijuana and Penny-Ante Transportation Strategies

       A Thinkpiece by The Last of the Duke Street Kings

                        January 22, 2007


I know there's a lot here, but that's because this is supposed
to be a single distillation of everything I've learned or
observed in nearly a decade and a half of being an unrepentant
fan of cannabis.  Most of these things I've internalized
as habits, and it's entirely possible that there are other
strategies in addition to, or in direct contradiction of,
what I suggest below.  I can only say that these things have
worked for me; they have kept me out of any kind of legal
trouble now for about 15 years, and it seems appropriate that
I ought to pass some of these suggestions on to others.

So much of what you read about drugs or hear from other heads
is utter bullshit.  We know the types:

(1) The guy who roots for marijuana like a sports team.
He wears pot leaves on his clothing, puts legalization bumper
stickers on his car, and tends to always be late, forgets
appointments, and often has trouble completing a sentence.
This guy is convinced that marijuana is a lifestyle, and that
it's the most enlightened possible way to live even though
he embodies every goofy negative stereotype of pot smokers.
He's known to claim that if everyone got together and smoked
pot for one day, there'd be world peace, and that hemp can
end global warming and maybe even cure cancer.  This guy
has read a few brochures but for him facts about hemp and
marijuana are like a hymn he sings to anyone who will listen.
As a stoner myself, I hate to be critical of other stoners,
and when this guy is in his element, he's harmless.  But when
he starts handing out advice or attempting to pitch the
legalization argument, he is a treacherous menace.

(2) The guy who claims to be able to tell the geographical
origin of anything you put in front of him.  "Oh yeah, this
is Columbian, definitely, probably grown at about 6,000 feet.
It looks like some kind of Sativa-Indica hybrid."  This guy
is a bullshit artist.  Don't ever believe anything you hear
from anyone about the origin, cultivar, or genetic makeup of a
particular batch of weed unless he is the grower.  Every few
years some imaginatively-named strain of weed finds its way
to market, and suddenly everyone thinks they're smoking it.
When I was in school, it was Northern Lights, and later,
everyone was smoking White Widow.  These strains do exist
(if High Times and the seed banks are to be believed), but
given the vast differences among the samples people were
holding, it's pretty clear that dealers were telling their
clients what they wanted to hear.  Everyone's entitled to
make a guess about what they're smoking, but such guesses
shouldn't be presented as fact.  I'm sure that sprinkled amid
the small-timers, wannabes, and outright charlatans, there
are Tom Forcade types who know what they're talking about.
I've never met a single individual who I could confidently
place in this category.  Maybe you have, but I haven't.

Meanwhile what we're really talking about is standard seedy
homegrown from a bag of cheap outdoor Mexican that someone
has coaxed into a sad, leafy, improperly cured mess 3 streets
over in some odious dorm closet.

Our "expert" is likely to have the latest and greatest pot
device: $600.00 solar powered vaporizers, induction-powered
electric bongs, and a chillum collection that takes up an
entire drawer.  He often talks about how "when he was young,"
the whole dope scene had more soul and the dope was better.
He makes exaggerated claims like "One time I smoked an ounce
in like 3 hours - It was a triple feature in Manhattan back in
the 70s before Giuliani came and fucked everything up, man.
I smoked my first hit at the beginning of Deep Throat,
and I finished it off during the money shot in Behind the
Green Door.  You have no idea what I'm talking about, do you?
Man you kids don't know nothin'. Shit. I smoked so much,
I smoked myself totally straight.  You ever do that? Shit,
I could probably smoke an ounce in 2 hours, and not feel
anything, man."  He's never actually bought a "lid" of weed
but in his stories he's always using that archaic term because
he thinks it lends him some kind of stoner credibility.

In my opinion, these people, in particular, are the worst.

(3) The guy who earnestly perpetuates every long-debunked
urban legend about drugs:

"If you ask a dude if he's a cop and he says no, but then
he turns out to be an undercover cop, he can't arrest you
because that's entrapment."

"Dude, if you do LSD (x) times, you're LEGALLY INSANE."

"Thomas Jefferson and George Washington were total potheads
man, they smoked every day and hosted the first Cannabis Cup
in a Masonic lodge."

"If you got a piss test coming up, just drink 3 gallons of
vinegar man, it'll clean you right out so you don't test
positive.  I knew this dude who worked for the Department of
Motor Vehicles...what was I talking about again?"

"You gotta be careful about the STRYCHNINE in LSD man.
It's not the acid that gets you but the STRYCHNINE."

I'm trying *real hard* here not to be one of these guys,
so if my tone seems authoritative it's simply because I'm
thinking out loud.  You should think about what I say here -
think for yourself, that is - and adjust to the situation
at hand.  Even if you find this useful, you probably won't
be able to apply all of it, all the time.  You can probably
get more advice from your local dealer, provided he's not one
of these guys who gets busted every ten minutes.  There's a
lot here, and even if you just take some of it to heart,
it ought to reduce some of your chances of having a run-in
with the No Fun Squad in your home town.

I'd like to give a shout out and dedicate this effort to all
of the ethical dope dealers out there who do what they do
not just for the money or the head stash, but because they
enjoy turning people on and spreading a little sunshine in a
darker and darker world.  Politicians and media drag you guys
through the mud.  It may well be that if you consider all
the purveyors of illicit substances, the bad guys outnumber
the good, but in the world of soft drugs, this cannot be the
case if my experience is any indication.

Hug your local dealer, or buy him dinner or something, if
he's like the kindhearted souls I've had the pleasure of
knowing over the years.  He's taking a big risk, and I, for
one, sure appreciate it.  Buy a hooker or something for your
local dealer.  Get him laid and buy him a steak.  The paranoia
he's had to live with alone means he's earned it, and besides,
buying locally means you can be sure your weed is untainted by
the seedier or downright evil aspects of the cartel-controlled
international drug trade.  Your local grower is a hero.

This is a musing which oozed into existence from years of
transporting weed place to place in crowded, dense New Jersey
municipalities as well as rural and semi-rural regions,
including highways, county roads, and city streets.

I've been smoking marijuana now on and off for 15 years now.
Part of being a marijuana smoker involves the transportation
of this illicit plant from one locale to another.  And maybe
like me, you've occasionally dealt out eighths, quarters,
or ounces to pay for your head stash, or just as favors to
friends and associates.

For the purpose of this essay I'm assuming that you don't
consider yourself a regular dope dealer, though God bless you
if you are.  And when I talk about penny-ante quantities I mean
everything from a common dime bag (whatever that means in your
area) up to about a quarter of a pound.  If you transport or
deal in larger quantities than this, there are probably lots
of additional things you've figured out in your paranoia,
although most of what I'm going say here still applies.
Most of this is common sense, and many of you who have
handled, transported, or smoked marijuana for a long time
have probably figured most of this out.  So allow me, then,
to address myself to newcomers to marijuana, in the spirit
of helping you stay out of trouble.

I want to make clear from the outset that, unreservedly,
I think that cannabis should be 100% legal to grow, consume,
transport, and sell.  All of the arguments for legalization
are well-documented and I have little to add.  It is a shame we
need to be so paranoid about so simple and benign a pleasure as
smoking a joint, and so it is in the spirit of the necessity to
avoid The Man(tm) that I write this.  So many of the problems
and dangers associated with marijuana are a direct result of
the fact that it is illegal; so much so that the real risks
of marijuana consumption (to the extent that they exist)
don't even rank in comparison.

The first rule about marijuana usage and transport is to
avoid making it a lifestyle.  Our culture here in the United
States is anal-retentive, hopped up on long workdays, middle
class paranoia, and dangerous government.  As a result, upon
encountering the marijuana experience for the first time,
it is tempting to engage in what might be termed the modern
equivalent of "dropping out," at least for some of us.

The bizarre social attitudes toward marijuana in certain
areas - being a total stinking drunk is fine, but smoking a
little weed is tantamount to raising a demon or something -
often encourages pot smokers to cluster together in groups,
forming their own subculture of sorts.

This insularity is unfortunate, but often necessary.  One of
the problems with this is that as an individual you may be
able to get lost in the crowd, but a parade full of reeking,
tie-dyed stoners (or rave babies, or whatever theme your little
group seems to gravitate toward) tends to be conspicuous.
And just as it's hard to smell marijuana smoke when you've just
cooked a bowl, it's sometimes hard to tell how conspicuous you
are in public.  You shouldn't rely on your own estimations
about this.  Hopefully you have friends outside your clutch
of pot smokers, and hopefully they can offer some perspective
on this.  As a rule, it is ordinarily not a good thing to
stand out as a lawbreaker, however much of a statement you
want to make.  A NORML bumper sticker on your car may well
indicate your willingless to stand up for your beliefs, but to
a cop it just suggests: "Bust me."  In public, and especially
while driving, you want to be as incognito as possible.

Maybe the town in which you live is open and tolerant about
marijuana (So far as that is possible in Bush's America),
but it certainly wasn't back where I was from.  Oh sure,
I could get away with it to some degree in my old college
town, but even college towns tend to have pretty obvious
borders where college ends and uptight middle America begins.
And you will probably travel outside of your little pocket
from time to time, maybe for the purpose of scoring a bag.
You have to adjust your thinking when you do.

So be discreet; don't wear it on your sleeve unless you're one
of those courageous enough to be an activist.  If you're just
starting out as a pot smoker, you are a danger to yourself
and others, because regardless of what you might think, you
cannot handle yourself in public yet.  At very least, I can
always tell when a bunch of teenagers are stoned in the mall,
and you can bet that seasoned, experienced cops can too.

So keep it cool.  The benefits of a Deadhead sticker, Legalize
It sticker, or anything which suggests "Hippie subversive" to a
cop, are minimum compared to the amount of unwanted attention
it brings.  So choose now whether or not you're a 'head or a
full-blown activist.  The in-betweens are the dangerous areas.
Activists tend to be more adept at staying out of trouble,
and are adequately prepared for that task in terms of a special
kind of paranoia the undercover head simply doesn't have.

Everyone else ought to keep it a lot cooler.  It's worth it.
Think about what flags you fly on your bumper, your t-shirt,
your web page.  And if you're one of those white guys with
Dredlocks, I can't do nothin' for yuh man.  That's the ultimate
bust-me haircut.  If you gotta run with it, I hope it at least
gets you laid or something.  Flying flags serves very little
purpose whatsoever.  It's what you *do* in life that counts,
not what you claim to stand for, and not what you look like.
If you really want to make a statement, join a civil liberties
organization and do the ugly, tedious work that needs to be
done to end the War on Drugs That Those Damn Kids Use.

----------------------------------------------------------------

"The weirder you're going to behave, the more normal you
should look. It works in reverse, too. When I see a kid with
three or four rings in his nose, I know there is absolutely
nothing extraordinary about that person."

- P.J. O'Rourke

----------------------------------------------------------------

Alright, let's talk about your vehicle for a minute.  If you've
taken my suggestion and removed the JERRY LIVES bumper
sticker or the THC molecule diagram on your Volkswagen window,
there are a lot of other preparations for transport that you
can make.  None of these is a sure bet, of course.  And if a
cop is convinced you have DEADLY KILLER DRUGS in the car, he's
going to stop you and attempt to ruin your life.  He's a cop;
that's his job after all.  What he wants to do is relive his
glory days as a jock asshole in high school by intimidating
and bullying you.  He gets his sense of satisfaction and
self-esteem this way.  I used to give the benefit of the
doubt to cops; I used to think of them as responsible public
servants who had some crappy laws to enforce.  My personal
experience with police - and I should note here that I've
never been arrested - suggests that while some police fall
in this category, most of them are sons of bitches at heart.
Accordingly you should never feel bad about getting one over
on them.  In the end and in the final analysis when you're
looking at the final tally, they win anyway.

The point here is to subtly massage the subconcious of a
cop who is following you so as not to trigger suspicion.
I can draw on several of my own experiences here but equally
instructive are the masturbatory reality shows about police
on television: Real Stories of the Highway Patrol, Cops, etc.

These are worth watching.  For the law enforcement
establishment, these shows are a form of autoerotic
self-aggrandizement.  It's fun to watch the stilted speech
patterns of barely literate ex-wrestlers trying to sound
sophisticated.  But more to the point, while they're flexing
their muscles on TV, they're also showing how they think,
and what triggers a traffic stop or bust.  Obviously these
shows are very selective and heavily edited, but I think
there are a few obvious lessons that can be learned.

First of all, for Christ's sake, make sure your papers are
in order.  It amazes me that someone would carry something
illegal in their car without proper registration, driver's
license, valid license plates, and an up-to-date insurance
card.  In some cases, the cars used to transport dope are
simply stolen.  In a case such as this, well, you kind of
deserve what you get.

So make sure your license is valid, your car's registration
(and associated sticker) is up to date, and your plates are
visible and attached.  If your license is suspended, have
someone else drive you.  Under no circumstances should you ever
do anything illegal if your papers aren't up to date.  This is
just asking for trouble.  About half of the marijuana busts
on these shows are of people who have papers out of order.
This kind of thing is a pretext for all manner of abuse.
Don't give the bastards the opportunity.

Second, check your lights.  A broken turn signal could ruin
your whole life.

If something is dragging on the ground making purty sparks,
you're going to get to stopped.  If your license plate
is hanging off, invalid, or not visible, you're going to
get stopped.  A broken headlight, windshield, brake light,
or turn signal is also likely to attract unwanted attention.
Some drug users - and you know who you are - tend to be
scatterbrained, and you can tell a fair amount about a person
by their vehicle.  If it's an old piece of shit, keep it in
reasonable repair and street legal.  Don't give a suspicious
cop a lame (yet legally adequate) excuse to pull you over.
In New Jersey, they can pull you over for the slightest crack
in your windshield.  I know; it has happened to me repeatedly.
All of these minor stops are a potential pretext to a search
and bust for something far more significant.  Ideally, to a
cop, you should be *invisible*.

Check your car before transporting dope *always.* It only
takes a minute, and according to most drivers' manuals, you're
supposed to do this every time you get ready to drive anyway.
Make it a habit, so that you do it even when you're 100% legal.
It certainly doesn't hurt.  Even if you're not carrying
anything illegal, it can help you avoid an unncessary traffic
stop and ticket.

Alright, so far, if you've taken my advice:

(1) Your papers are in order
(2) Your car is street legal
(3) There's nothing on your car that screams out "pothead."

You're halfway home.  If you do get stopped and your car
is relatively odor free, probably you'll get a ticket or a
warning and be on your way.  I'm going to talk about avoiding
being stopped in a minute, but first I want to address the
most dangerous aspect of marijuana transportation: Odor.

One of the more pleasurable attributes of good marijuana is
its fragrance.

Good marijuana doesn't necessarily need to have a strong smell,
but in my experience, most good marijuana does.  Even decent
commercial brick can stink up a car something fierce, but
before we even consider your car, we have to consider *you*.

Traditionally, a marijuana deal is "consummated" with a
traditional smoking session.  That is to say, you prove you're
"cool," (not a cop) by smoking with the kind soul selling
you the marijuana.  Beyond the cynical aspect of this, it
bonds the dealer and the purchaser as if to say, "This is
more than a business deal, even if it's just a little extra
pleasant conversation."  I've sometimes found this to be a
little silly, as not all pot dealers are mensches, but most
I have met have been, and I've enjoyed smoking with them and
bullshitting for awhile.

The problem here is that, against all prudent advice,
small-time marijuana dealers often have dwellings that reek
of weed to high heaven.  Often the air is full of smoke when
you walk in.  As you sit there making pleasant (or sometimes
obligatory, depending on the dealer) conversation, the smell
is slowly permeating your clothing and hair.

Just as dangerous, and often neglected, are your hands.
If you hold or roll a joint, expose your hand to a smoke
stream, or pack a bowl, marijuana resin and its distinctive
smell are likely to get all over your hands.  These are the
same hands that will hand a cop your license and registration
through your car window, should you get stopped.  If you
cleaned ash out of a bowl or broke up some hash, you might
even have visible stains on your hands.

Before leaving with your bag of weed, then, you want to wash
your hands vigorously and repeatedly.  Marijuana resin does
not come off easily; it needs to be scrubbed.  Use a lot of
soap and the hottest water that you can stand.

Second, wear an overshirt, jacket, sweatshirt, or sweater when
you go to your friendly neighborhood dealer's pad.  When you
leave with freshly washed hands, remove the overshirt, bunch it
up, and stick it in, say, a garbage bag (and tie the bag shut),
and put in your trunk.  Hopefully the overshirt absorbed the
smoke odor, leaving your shirt underneath unscathed.

It doesn't hurt to have a little Right Guard around.
Spray a little bit over the surface of your undershirt, but
just a little.  It will help mask any remaining odor without
smelling suspicious.  I've read other text files online where
people have suggested Axe body spray.  As to its efficacy in
this situation, I cannot testify, however Axe's television
commercials annoy and insult so much that I cannot, on good
conscience, recommend them, because I would like to see
the company suffer and collapse.  You should never buy any
product that attempts to influence you so nakedly by such
an old, worn-out strategy: Our Product Will Get You Laid.
I find this personally insulting, and maybe this is just
my trip but I am, if nothing else, a judicious consumer,
and I encourage others to be as well.  Fuck Axe, and that
other similar product which slavishly and unoriginally copies
their advertising campaign.  I apologize for this digression,
but I hate advertising that insults my intelligence.

Getting back to the subject at hand...

If your dealer is one of these kinds of people who burns a
lot of incense, then for your purposes, you should consider
this just as suspicious as the smell of pot smoke.  One error
a lot of people make in their thinking, is that they rely too
much on the law to protect them.  The law is full of holes,
some of which benefit you, and some of which benefit the cops.
Never count on your Constitutional Rights to hold up in court.
That is naivete only a complete pothead ought to be capable of.
Assume that you live in a corrupt police state (which is
overstating things a little), and as a result, you'll always
err on the side of caution.

In the case of incense, for example, I've heard people tell
me that "the smell of incense won't stand up in court" in
terms of the threshold for a legal search.  The concept that
the law will protect you - in fact the idea that cops don't
just lie and make shit up entirely - is utterly hilarious to
anyone even vaguely familiar with The System.  A cop smells
incense, figures you're the kind of person who probably gets
high, and claims he smelled marijuana.  Then he searches, and
finds marijuana.  What's your defense?  Are you going to try
to argue that the cop didn't smell marijuana, when there is a
whole bag of it sitting there in the courtroom as evidence?
Even if he finds nothing, he might plant something (I think
most cops are above this, but it does happen).

It's all about working the subconscious.  Smells, t-shirts,
bumper stickers, rad hair -- these are all things that
trigger hunches.  It may not be practical or desirable to
squelch your convictions and interests to the degree that I
suggest, but it certainly is the safest thing to do.

Where we get into diminishing returns (cutting your hair for
instance), is something you have to decide for yourself.
>From my own point of view, I don't want people making
assumptions about me on the basis of something so dumb as a
haircut or tattoo anyway, so for me looking straight has no
disadvantages.  I would rather just blend in appearance-wise,
and keep my anarchy on the inside, so so speak. ;-)

You might feel differently, and that's completely fair.
For many people, flying no flags - my own personal philosophy
- may be nothing more than a badge of conformity.  I prefer
to think of myself as being "undercover," but the opposing
viewpoint is completely fair.

It's up to you.

Alright, so you've dealt with surface odor.  You've washed your
hands and discarded your overshirt, and maybe used a little
spray-on deodorant.  The next thing you have to address is
your pot breath.  Yeah, there is such a thing, and if you're
dumb enough to ask a stoned friend to smell your breath for
evidence of illegal activity, you smoke entirely too much weed.
After smoking, the sense of smell is dulled dramatically.
I guarantee if you can find a straight friend who has had a
lot of fresh air, he'll smell the weed on your breath even
if your completely blitzed friends don't.  Again, I've read
several text files online which claim that pot breath goes
away quickly.

Having been the only straight guy in a gaggle of stoners on
many occasions, I can certainly state with some authority that
this is not the case, especially if a smoker has cottonmouth
and has not consumed anything since he smoked.

Again, we're dealing with oily resin.  As far as I can
tell, the best procedure is to brush your teeth, tongue, and
gums with a nice minty toothpaste (this is a pleasant enough
activity when you're baked anyway), followed by mouthwash with
high alcohol content, such as Listerine.  At least in theory,
the alcohol will aid in the removal of any remaining resin
in your mouth.

After using the mouthwash, you'll want to rinse thoroughly with
a lot of water.  I've read that, due to its alcohol content,
mouthwash can trigger false positives on breathalyzers.
And the irony of being arrested for driving drunk when you're
actually really high is too disturbing to even consider.
If such a thing ever happens to you, you can at least point
to it as solid evidence that, X-Day's events notwithstanding,
the Conspiracy has indeed stolen *all* of your Slack.

It's best to rinse thoroughly with water, and perhaps eat
something after.  If this is not possible, you may want to
wait a little while before driving.  When driving, it is
advisable to keep the windows open if you can.  Should any
odor remain on your clothes, this will at minimum ensure that
it doesn't concentrate the way odor tends to do in enclosed
spaces.  A brisk breeze may even be enough to aerate your
clothes, dispersing the smell into the wind entirely, as a
clothesline does.  If it's cold out, the fresh air will help
keep you alert.  There are a lot of good reasons to keep the
windows open.

So let's review.  Sources of odor include:

(1) Clothes
(2) Hair (not much you can do about this unless
     you can shower)
(3) Hands
(4) Breath

Aside from the big smelly bag of weed, of course, we have
the problem of your big googley bloodshot eyes.  Look at you.
You look like a stoned muppet.

Fortunately the remedy for this is obvious, and that remedy
is Visine, a truly remarkable substance and quality product.
I recommend Visine with moisturizer, personally, but either way
you want to make sure that you select eyedrops that alleviate
redness (not all do - some merely moisturize).

In particular, I have had great success with eyedrops
containing something called tetrahydrozoline hydrochloride
(Sometimes just listed as tetra- hydrozoline).  Standard Visine
has this, so your basic unadorned Visine is always a good bet.
Always have some with you.  I like to keep a vial of it in
my car as well as one in my bathroom, so it's always handy.
Be liberal with this and apply it within 30 minutes or so
(but no sooner than 10 minutes) of leaving.  Visine is magical
stuff; it can completely restore your appearance, especially
if you are one of those people with big googley eyes to begin
with (You know who you are).

Some people have trouble with eyedrops.  Putting eyedrops
in is weird, and can be unpleasant or difficult at first.
Practice, and get used to it (and you will).  You definitely
want to be able to avail yourself of the wonders of Visine
if you want to stay free.

Make sure you stash the Visine somewhere out of view.
The presence of Visine in a car must be a bit of a tip-off to
police, as not only stoners but drunkards often use it as well.
I recommend that you keep it somewhere separate from your
insurance and registration, in case a cop is watching you
closely as you hunt around for your papers (and he will).
I keep Visine in my center console and my papers in my glove
compartment.  This seems to work well.

This seems like a lot, but in reality if you make all of these
things a habit, this will take you five minutes total, and I
think that's a worthwhile investment.  One guy I know called
these habits paranoid, but it's become a basic, dispassionate
habit or ritual for me.  I just do it automatically,
sometimes even when I'm not high or carrying anything as an
ingrained habit.  Even if you just do a few of these things,
you'll reduce the chances of triggering suspicion.

But this leaves us with the biggest liability of all, and that
is the big bag of stinking cannabis that you're carrying with
you and unfortunately there are no easy answers.

Here's an important rule that I think is beyond dispute:
If you can carry all of your weed in a single bag, do it.
If you are buying for friends, it may be tempting to have
your dealer use his cool sci-fi state of the art digital
scale to pre-measure their portions into separate bags.
(Asking a dealer to do this, or even indicating that you are
planning to resell his wares may be bad form, depending on
your relationship with the dealer anyway.  If you're new to
the cannabis black market, it is best not to do this as a
matter of etiquette anyway.)

Alternately, some dealers will keep various quantities
around pre-bagged to save time.  If this situation arises,
ask to combine everything into a single bag, or do it yourself
before you leave.  No dealer will have a problem with this,
though if you're buying two different high quality strains of
marijuana, this will be the equivalent of mixing a fine single
malt scotch with Sprite; it may be considered coarse, jejune,
bouregois, and uncultured by those present.  The reason why
is that you're intermingling both the fragrances and glands
of each strain together.  In this case, you'll have to make a
decision what's most important to you. I'd be lying if I said
I always did the safe thing and combined everything together.

Why should you be concerned about carrying two or more bags
of weed rather than one?

Here's why: When you individually wrap bags of pot and carry
them around, that can escalate any charge from mere possession
to distribution, depending on how laws are structured in
your area.  The convenience is simply not worth it.  If you
decide you're going to be a pot smoker, just bite the bullet
early and pick up a scale.  Scales range from the cheap,
semi-accurate to completely jacked $5.00 spring scales,
to the kind of beam scales you used in science class, which
are a lot more expensive.  Either of them will be cheaper
than getting busted for distribution because you got caught
carrying around a couple of individually wrapped eighths.
A possible middle ground are the general-purpose electronic
scales you can buy online.  Note that some people may object to
buying any bag of weed measured out on a cheap spring scale
due to their notorious lack of accuracy and wildly varying
manufacturing quality.

A side note here is you should understand in your municipality
what quantity (weight) automatically equals (regardless
of how it is bagged) "...with intent to distribute," and
think hard about whether you want to buy quantities which
meet this threshold at all.  In any place I've ever lived,
there is a quantity of marijuana which, when met or exceeded,
will automatically get you prosecuted as a drug dealer.
The NORML website has information on these laws by state.
Every pot smoker should be familiar with these tresholds and
other details of local laws.

Here's a question I still don't have an answer to: Is it
better to do rare buys of large felony quantities so you're
only transporting once in a blue moon, or is it better to
buy small misdemeanor or lesser-felony quantities frequently?
Game theorists, weigh in!

Anyway, as to getting stopped by police...

The first assumption you should make is that if a cop stops and
decides to bring a drug dog with him, you're probably screwed.
The idea is to avoid getting to that point to begin with.
However, I know of a guy who completely avoided a bust by
simply using several Zip-Loc bags.  That is to say, the drug
dog they brought out couldn't find anything at all.  Now in
time, even 8 layers of baggies will leak odor.  It's kind of
amazing, actually.  What we're concerned about is concealing
smell for a finite amount of time.

Alternating Zip-Loc bags with aluminum foil tends to work
fairly well, and if you can manage it (and it will fit),
try a mason jar.  Mason jars are designed to be airtight
and contain odors, and while the rubber seal will leak odors
after awhile, it takes weeks or months before it's noticeable.
Even if it takes one week for it to leak enough smell for a
dog to smell it, you will be safe at home by then.

I recommend at least 3 layers of zip-loc bags (Freezer bags
are the best; they are a lot thicker) alternating with foil,
or, more ideally, the aforementioned mason jar.

If you're just picking up a bag from a local friend, this
might be overkill, but it's the best thing you can do.
The other problem with jars is that concealing a mason jar
may be difficult.  You'll have to think about it.

I do, however, recommend packing with as many layers as
possible.  You might consider bringing your own bags and
double and triple bagging in the bathroom if doing this in
front of your friendly purveyor of forbidden flora makes
you uncomfortable.

Small amounts of marijuana may be "jocked," that is to say,
placed in one's pants between the genitals and one's underwear.
This has a few sanitary consequences which are obvious,
however the benefit of this is that in a "plain feel" search,
there's a good chance it won't be detected, since cops aren't
allowed to wander around too much down there.

The decision to jock a bag is also predicated upon the correct
choice of underwear and clothing - namely, loose pants (loose
jeans are the best), and standard briefs.  The problem with
boxers is they lack the elastic around the testicle area,
and a bag can far more easily fall out.

Even while wearing briefs, I've had baggies fall out, fall
down my pant lag, only to end their journey resting stupidly
and conspicuously on my shoe.  This becomes a problem mainly
after sitting down (such as while driving), when your underwear
gives in parts as a result of the different posture.

Consider a roadside stop when you're asked to get out of the
car, and why this is undesirable.

The other problem is stems.  If you have marijuana with
prominent stems, a jocked bag can be the equivalent of
Opus Dei's cilice.  You may find that the experience brings
you closer to God via pain and suffering, but in my case,
it is simply downright painful.  I would like to go on the
record here as being opposed to stuff poking my junk on a
metaphysical, emotional, spiritual, and physical basis.

In some instances, however, jocking a bag makes sense (if
you tuck your jeans into boots, for instance, it's great).
If you're female, I really have no idea what to tell you,
but I'm sure you have your own considerations about jocking
weed, especially given the elevated sanitation concerns as
well as the concerns regarding the lunar cycle.

If you're not jocking the bag, you want to store it out of
"plain view," and I would extend this to say outside of the
passenger compartment completely, and for two reasons.

The first is that police are allowed to have a peek around the
passenger area without any kind of warrant and as a matter of
personal safety they will do this routinely.  They'll shine
the light in the front seat, back seat, and floors, to make
sure there aren't any guns around (or people dumb enough
to leave drugs openly visible).  The legal threshold for
searching a trunk, however, is higher.  That's one extra
layer of legal protection.

----------------------------------------------------------------

"License and registration and step out of the car "Are you
carryin' a weapon on you? I know a lot of you are..."

'I ain't steppin out of shit; all my papers legit.'

"Well, do you mind if I look 'round the car a little bit?"

'Well my glove compartment is locked... So is the trunk in the
back And I know my rights so you gon' need a warrant for that'

"Aren't you sharp as a tack, you some type of lawyer or
somethin'?  Or somebody important or somethin'?"

'Nah, I ain't pass the bar but i know a little bit - enough
that you won't illegally search my shit'

- Jay-Z, "99 Problems"

----------------------------------------------------------------

(Note: I don't recommend keeping your weed in the glove
compartment because any odor could escalate the situation,
which I'll get to in a minute.)

In most of the cases you see on those reality cop shows,
the cop watches the suspect throw the drugs out the window,
or else sees (or smells) a roach in the ashtray.  Monumental
stupidity on both counts.

Keep the drugs in the trunk, concealed, and well-wrapped.
Keep your passenger area odor-free and contraband-free.
Don't give the sons of bitches probable cause.  When in doubt,
do exactly the opposite of what the suspects on the reality
cop shows do.

The second reason to keep the weed in the trunk is smell.
If smell does leak through the bag, obviously you'd rather
have it in the trunk, than up in the passenger compartment,
where you'll have your window open as you talk to the friendly
policeman.

When stashing your weed in the trunk, keep it out of sight.
Most likely if they bring out a dog or get a search warrant,
they'll find the weed anyway, but I have personal experiences
which are illustrative of the wisdom of stashing your dope
well.

Once, in my younger and dumber days, I was on the way down to
the Jersey Shore on a warm weekend night.  I had thrown a small
baggie of marijuana into my trunk, which was otherwise empty.
At the time I thought it was logical that if they searched
the car with a warrant or dog, they'd find it anyway, so why
bother hiding it.

Somewhere near the shore, my heart stops as I see a red light
go on on the top of an unmarked police car.  The cop pulls me
over and gets out.  He's wearing a suit, and as it turns out,
he's a detective.

Nervous, I keep referring to him as officer, which he corrects
each time: "Not officer; detective."  Shit.  Well as it turns
out, he stopped me because one of my brake lights was out.
The wire leading to the brake light was loose and I knew that
simply wiggling it a bit would often fix it.

I tell him this (which I shouldn't have - I should have just
taken the ticket) and he invites me to open the trunk to
wiggle the wire to see if I can get it back on.

Shit.  Double shit.  The bag is sitting right there in the
middle of a big empty trunk.

He's standing there sort of spacing out, and I'm guessing he
was on his way back from work, so he was a little out of it.
But still, he's standing right next to me, and I'm wiggling the
wire, doing this mental exercise whereby the bag simply *does
not exist* and therefore, why should I be nervous?  I'll get
into these mind-games later because they work.  It's not
about convincing the cop; it's about convincing yourself.

Wouldn't you know that it took me a good 5 minutes to get
the fucking brake light to come back on, as well as several
trips back to the passenger area to pump the brake while the
cop stayed near the trunk watching the light and letting me
know if it was working or not.

Meanwhile the trunk is wide open with this baggie right
in the middle of it.  By this time we were approaching the
tail-end of dusk, but the bag was still fairly resolvable
even in the gloaming.  It was unmistakable.

And wouldn't you know, I got away with it?  Either the cop saw
it and didn't feel like busting me, or else was so focused
on the light, that, such as in the case whereby a magician
distracts the crowd from what the other hand is doing, that
he didn't notice.

No matter - point here is, there are probably a bunch
of reasons a cop might ask you to open your trunk that I
can't even think of (this is one).  Stash your bag well in
case this happens.  You want to avoid invoking the Fourth
Amendment if you can.  That pisses cops off, and should
only be used as a last (ordinarily futile) line of defense.
If you can work things out so you can open your trunk without
exposing yourself, do so.  But, you know, I'm not a lawyer.
I just know what works for me.

This happened a SECOND TIME, as I had not learned my lesson
from the first time (I have no excuse; this was downright
stupid on my part).  I was driving down a long dark county
road with a lot of hills, the only car for miles in the
middle of the night, except for the cop following me about
50 feet behind.

I was so paranoid that I kept braking on these steep hills
to stay within the speed limit.  The cop stopped me because
I was braking so much, he thought there was something wrong
with my brake lights.

Fucking brake lights, man, Jesus.

Same series of events happened, and once again, somehow, I
got away with it.  I didn't know until later that it was my
paranoid breaking to maintain the speed limit exactly that
led to the traffic stop.

Maybe it was the POW/MIA bumper sticker I had on my car and
my straightlaced appearance or something.

I don't know.

What I do know is now I stash my weed.  If it happened twice
to me, it could happen to you.  Keep it out of sight.

Alright, I want to talk now about avoiding getting stopped
entirely, and the odd thing here is it's almost easier to avoid
getting stopped when you're high than when you're straight.
The reason for this is paranoia and the sensitizing effects
of cannabis.  When you're drunk and sloppy, you tend to
overshoot turns, speed, and lose sensitivity to things.
This is why I have never driven drunk; I've been with people
who shouldn't have been driving, and it is always ugly.

Many drunkards have a sense of invincibility which doesn't help
matters.  But pot smokers are well aware of their limitations.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Cop: Tell me, officer, do you have any idea how fast you
were going?

Mike: Well, I got a 426 hemi here, 3/4 cams, nitro
boosters, I can get 'er up to as good as 155! Never do,
though, of course, unless I'm chasing a cute chick in
a Ferrari! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I guess I was goin'
about... 65, tops.

Cop: SEVEN! SEVEN miles an hour! And normally, when I stop
people, they pull onto the *shoulder*!

- Black Sheep

----------------------------------------------------------------

That is a good example of the direction driving habits go
with marijuana smokers.  I don't know whether it's paranoia
about one's driving ability itself or paranoia about getting
pulled over.  Probably a combination of both.  I think it's
a basic fact that marijuana is far less impariring to drivers
than alcohol is, but it is typical to be paranoid about being
impaired nontheless.

Obviously you should never drive high but unfortunately the
way most dope deals are structured, this is not possible,
because you may feel obligated to smoke with your dealer.
An interesting note to fans of authoritarian drug policies is
that there would be less and less reasons to drive stoned if
the drug were legal and you could openly drive down to a 7-11
for a pack of pre-rolled, Raritan-River-watered Rutgers Reds.

Instead there's this whole protocol involved which results
in people having to drive stoned (at least in the specific
circumstances of a small-time deal), unless they are fortunate
enough to live within walking distance of their dealer.

Nevertheless, it is possible to drive safely under the
influence of marijuana should it be necessary, and there is
a single rule to keep in mind, which is easy to follow:

Drive perfectly.

That is to say, dedicate all of your focus on your driving.
Driving can be an almost sensual pleasure if you concentrate
fully on it.  Here are some tips:

(*) Keep a mental map of the cars around you.  Have a visual in
your head of where cars are in your lane, in the next one over,
and how far they are following you.  Try to keep drivers out of
your blind spot by slowing down a little to let them catch up.
I am not sure what possesses drivers to drive in others' blind
spots, but they do.  They give licenses to anyone these days.

(*) In terms of driver safety, take into account the likelihood
that there are other intoxicated drivers on the road,
especially if it's a weekend night.  They can be a safety
menace.

(*) Accordingly, remember the drivers' handbook and live by the
rules therein with no exceptions.  You should follow the car
in front of you one car length (minimum) for every 10 miles
per hour.  If you're on a highway doing 60 MPH on dry pavement,
you should be at least 6 car lengths (preferably more) behind
the car in front of you.  That's 2 car lengths for every 10
miles per hour on wet pavement, and 3 car lengths on anything
frozen (ice, sleet, snow).  Ideally, it's best to be in the
right line doing exactly the speed limit like an old fart.
Let others pass you.  In doing so, they will attract the
attention of cops; not you.

(*) Do the speed limit, exactly.  Don't pad "5 miles per hour"
on top of the speed limit.  I have had people try to sell
me on the idea that doing exactly the speed limit makes
you look suspicious; in fact it doesn't.  Lots of people
(you've been behind them, cursing wildly) do exactly the
speed limit every day, or even slower.  And any cop who pulls
you over for doing "exactly the speed limit" is going to
have a really hard time in court using this as some kind of
legitimate cause for pulling you over - you cannot be legally
pulled over for being in total compliance with the law.
Doing exactly the speed limit is always the best policy.
I have been ticketed for doing 7 MPH over the speed limit
in New Jersey.  If cops have a quota to meet, they're going
to enforce the law to the letter.  If locals are angry about
speeding, cops may have a zero tolerance policy on any kind
of speeding, and even if they're just handing out warnings,
the best policy is to avoid contact with The Man altogether.
I have considerd the alternative carefully (padding 5 MPH on
top) and it just doesn't wash, due to the fascist enforcement
of speed limits in certain municipalities where even a benign
transgression such as this can get you pulled over.

Drive exactly the speed limit; trust me on this.  If you have
to pass, make sure you don't have to go excessively above
the speed limit to do this.  If you're behind someone doing
exactly the speed limit, hang back several car lengths, put
on the cruise control, and relax.  Let the other cars speed
by you and be your "front door" buffer against speed traps.

(*) Stoned or not, cease "California Rolls" through stop signs.
I know more people who have been ticketed or warned about
this than haven't been.  Doing those slow rolls through stop
signs is a learned habit; it can be unlearned, and made into a
new habit which will save you money and time in the long run.
A slow roll as opposed to a complete stop is going to save you,
maybe, five seconds.  It's just not worth it.  It is worth
making complete stops a habit, whether you're legal or not.
Cops can be total douchebags about this.

(*) Turn signals.  Some people think using turn signals makes
them effeminate or something, but I guarantee using your wrist
in this way does not make you some kind of sissy.  Use them,
religiously, always, without fail.  On a personal note,
the inability or unwillingness to use turn signals routinely
pisses me off as a driver completely separate from anything
related to the transportation of weed.

(*) If you are unsure whether or not a turn is allowed at a
certain intersection, take the long way around the block.
Avoid any questionable traffic situations entirely.  Make sure
you can make a right on red where you live (This is almost,
but not quite, universal in the USA and Canada).

(*) Go slow enough so you don't have to make a split second
decision on whether to speed up or stop at a yellow light.
Always assume the light is about to turn yellow, and know
what you're going to do.

Highways are easier to navigate that municipalities.  One day
I had to carry 8 individually wrapped eighths through five
dense municipalities that abutted one another.  It was late
at night and there were very few cars on the road.

(See my previous point about carrying individual bags vs. one
big bag).

I passed 9 cops in 30 minutes, and was, as far as I can tell,
the only car driving around at that hour.  It made me think
a lot about the basic strategy for getting around when all
eyes are on you.

Late night driving makes you conspicuous.  Cops waiting
in speed traps or patrolling do not have to divide their
attention; they can focus exclusively on you and follow you,
waiting for you to give them an excuse to pull you over.

They may also be bored, or resentful at being assigned
that shift.  Late at night, if you can avoid it, take the
highways, which is where most of the traffic is likely to be,
and where you can get in the right lane and lock your cruise
control on the speed limit.

As a rule, suburban cops are the worst.  They tend to have
the most swelled heads, and do the least amount of actual
productive work.  They don't get to rough people up as often.
If you can avoid the suburbs, do so.  The same goes with
rural or semi-rural areas.  Cops in urban environments, by
contrast, tend to have enough actual law enforcement work to
keep them occupied.

When driving through municipalities, the places you are most
likely to encounter problems are on the borders - county
lines, municipality borders, and so on.  Often, speed limits
change suddenly when passing from one town into another,
and police opportunistically use these areas as speed traps.
Be especially vigilant when entering or leaving a town.
If you live near a state line, you can be certain that the
roads are especially heavily patrolled on each side of the
line, especially if maximum speed limits drop.

If you can work it out, and you have the constitution for it,
a good time to drive around with dope is during rush hour.
Cops tend to be really busy then, and their attention is
extremely scattered and divided.  Heavy traffic tends to
limit the speed you can do so there's no pressure to exceed
the speed limit by people behind you.  You can blend into
the crowd, and not attract any attention at all.

Not everyone can manage this for a variety of reasons, but if
you can, there is probably no better time to do your business
than in the middle of the day.

Rural driving has its own problems.  First, many rural
communities can be xenophobic and view visitors as a source
of revenue.  Most traffic enforcement has nothing to do with
safety anyway; mostly, it is about fundraising, and rural
communities with small tax bases and a lot of road to maintain
tend to crave funds.  And if you live near the international
border, you have Border Patrol to contend with (who *will*
stop you if it's late at night, for no reason), and by the time
you read this, possibly the Department of Homeland Security.
Plus park cops, county mounties, and local cops as well.

Best to stay on the highway.

Take special notice of speed limits, which can often change
without warning.  Another insidious situation involves the
placement of speed limit signs, which can be distressingly
rare.  Some municipalities will have artificially slow speed
limits coupled with a conspicuous dearth of speed limit signs.
There's a Big Ugly in the United States right now and the
road to hell starts in your isolated podunk town that has no
reason to exist.  Pay close attention to all speed limit signs,
street signs, and traffic directions.  Always play it safe.

Okay, what if things fall apart?  The first situation I want
to talk about is being closely followed by a police car.

There are three possible scenarios here:

(*) Sometimes, especially late at night when there's no
other traffic on the road, this may be a matter of chance.
The cop is patrolling and just happens to get behind you.

(*) The second situation is "fishing."  The cop is trying to
intimidate you to get you to cut and run, or else is waiting
for an excuse or pretext to pull you over.  Probably you were
merely a target of opportunity.  Maybe you were the only car
around or maybe something about your vehicle or appearance
tipped him off.  Or maybe he's merely suspicious because it's
3:00 AM and you're out driving around.  Whatever the reason,
the cop will be looking for even the most ridiculous reason
to pull you over.  Don't give him one.  The more nervous
he makes you, the greater the chance you'll make a mistake.
He knows this.  If you can get onto a highway, that might be
your best bet in this scenario.

(*) The third situation is that the cop has a specific reason
to pull you over and is waiting for information to come back
on your plate, which he's called in.

I suppose there are a lot of strategies in this situation.
Here's mine:

First, have a story, and have it rehearsed, and if you have
a passenger, make sure you have your story straight *before
you leave*.  Make it plausible, and make it as close to the
actual truth of what you were doing as possible.  A smarter
cop will try to punch holes in your story or question you
and your passenger separately, so the closer to the truth
you make your story, the better.  There are less phony
details to remember in a story which is close to the truth.
If your dealer lives next to a McDonalds, part of your story
could involve the fact that you went out for some burgers.
Of course, if you live 4 towns away, the cop is going to
wonder why you went to *that* McDonalds.  You want to avoid
directly mentioning your dealer's name (as a "friend" you
went to visit or whatever) for several reasons.  One, he may
be a known dealer, or under surveillance, which is going to
raise suspicion.  Two, you always want to avoid involving your
dealer in your own situation, just as you don't want him to
involve you in his.  This is basic drug culture etiquette.

Let me tell you about what it was like for me, growing up
alienated and blue in the Garden State.  New Jersey is the
kind of place you go driving when you've got nowhere to go.
Jamming the gas pedal hard into the floor and blasting up
through the greasy wind of the Turnpike was something I found
myself doing many nights.  Not going anywhere, with no one
to see, I'd just burn gas to fool myself into thinking I was
getting to another place.

So it was normal for me to be driving around, messing around
on the low end of the AM spectrum looking for primes in the
static; seems like all my life has been a search for signal
in a whole lot of oppressive noise.

And I'd get pulled over just for being in the wrong place at
the wrong time, my old piece of shit sedan with the interior
peeling, revealing the plastic molding on the doors, and it's
2:30 in the morning and I'm far from home.  Far is a relative
thing especially in New Jersey, the most densely populated
state in the Union - if you're 25 miles away in North Jersey,
you're pretty far from home.

Cops would ask me what I was doing, and I'd tell them: Just
driving around.  Now when I was legal and had nothing to fear,
this was an easy story to tell because it was the truth, but
the same story seemed tenuous when I was carrying something.
But the more I think about it now, the more I think that
this is one of the more plausible reasons to give for being
anywhere: "Hey man, I was just driving."

And I think it's a good reason because it's so fundamentally
honest-sounding.  There's no elaborate tower-of-cards pretext
you're making up out of thin air, no stories that you might
accidentally contradict through further questioning, and no
other names have to be mentioned.  No street adresses have
to be known.

You can be plausibly lost.  Life for me in New Jersey was
always just that in every sense - plausibly lost.

It also gives you an opening for conversation with the cop.
"Hey what's up this road?  What's the deal with that bridge?
How do I get back to the Parkway?"

I've never noticed any suspicion on the part of law enforcement
personnel when I've told them I was just out for a drive.
This is an American thing, and probably everyone does it
from time to time.  If it's late you can say something like,
"I just got laid off / I have a major exam tomorrow / My
girlfriend just broke up with me, and I needed to get my mind
off of it so I went for a drive."

Anyway, my point is, have a story.  But this is even less
important than paranoia management.

There is only one viable strategy for not giving up a "tell"
- a tick or twitch that experienced cops will be looking for
as an indicator of deception.

You have to believe your own bullshit.  You have to practice
this.  It will not do to act unless you are a talented actor
or an experienced, unrepentant liar.  And while it is fun on
getting one over on The Man, most of us tend to get a little
jittery when it comes time to lay our rap down.

So you have to believe it; you have to fool yourself into
actually believing that you're completely legal and clean,
and that your story is the truth, and that you have nothing
to fear.  You should have been prepared long before the
cop ever got behind you.  The weed is stashed and wrapped
properly, your eyes are clear and there's no odor in the car.
All of your papers are in order.

(Note: Even if your eyes a clear, if a cop waves a flashlight
back and forth and insists that you follow it with your eyes,
he will be able to tell that you are under the influence,
because your eyes will not track smoothly.  Once again,
the object is not to get to that point.)

You must absolutely forget that you have anything illegal in
the car, and you have to interact with the cop accordingly.
For you, this has to be a routine traffic stop.  A friend
of mine calls the appropriate attitude "polite impatience."
This is likely to work best in places like the Northeast, but
rural or suburban cops want total and complete submission.
They'd have you kiss their boots if they could get away
with it.  So in rural areas where a cop is just looking for an
excuse to shake you down, complete politeness and deference
is absolutely key.  In the Northeast, a place people have
come to expect rudeness, polite impatience or annoyance is
probably what cops have come to expect.  If you pour on the
sugar too much, the cop's going to know that something is up.
After all, he's probably going to ticket you, and this does
not ordinarily put a driver in a good mood.

Rural and suburban cops are best dealt with...minimally.
Comply with their requests, and look as if you're disappointed
with yourself, or the situation, like your day has just been
ruined.  They love that shit; they got into the cop business
specifically to do that to people.  Alternately they wanted
to be Batman, and somehow got stuck in some remote town and
are going through an existential or mid-life crisis, and are
taking it out on you.

It's good to keep your eyes focused on where the cop is
writing.  In this way you are not looking him directly in
the eye, which may be hard for people who are either high
or in the process of deception.  But you're also not looking
conspicuously away as if you're wracked with guilt.  You can
communicate either polite impatience or disappointment with
a well placed sigh, perhaps as you turn your head slowly to
wistfully gaze out of your front windshield.

But don't pour it on too thick.

And remember, this is all about being pulled over and ticketed
or having your time wasted.  As far as you're concerned,
there is nothing illegal in your vehicle.

There's a great scene in Reservoir Dogs where an undercover
cop is relating a (made up) story about how he once walked
into a bathroom with a bag full of weed, where a bunch of
Los Angeles County cops and a drug dog were standing around
talking.  In the movie, though he wants nothing more than to
turn around and leave, he very casually puts his bag down,
and takes a leisurely whizz, washes his hands carefully,
and casually walks out.

This is how to manage this kind of crisis, in a nutshell.
The movie is worth renting just for this scene.

This next story I'm going to relate to you sounds so unlikely
that I wouldn't blame you if you didn't believe it, but this
actually happened to me some years ago.

I have a friend who used to be a sort of traveling dope
salesman; he'd drive around New Jersey with what only can
be described as a pillow of marijuana - a pound or more,
dropping in to see his regular customers.  Not a bad deal
for anyone involved, but a significant risk to him.  He was
able to do this for several years without getting busted,
and much mirth was made, and much wisdom about managing tense
situations was gained.

Sometimes it was hard to tell if this friend - We'll call
him Charlie - loved the driving, the dope, or the social
intercourse involved with the marijuana scene the best.

But like I said before, New Jersey is a place where you're
apt to drive if you have decided that you have absolutely no
place to go and one day we were in this situation, kind of
bored and restless, so we decided to take the Garden State
Parkway north until we couldn't drive anymore.  Charlie is
one of these guys who always has to drive; I think being a
passenger in any sense, real or metaphorical, drives him nuts
more than anything else.

So we each took a pipe and Charlie-supplied (thanks Charlie)
salad - bits of chopped up black hash on a nice bed of greens,
and hit the road.  Charlie says to me, "Hey whatever you
do, don't forget to remind me to get gas before we get on
the Parkway."

I took a long slow whiff of the wonderful oily- minty scent
creeping up and over the sides of my well-packed pipe.  Why we
felt the need to bring several pipes and bags with us I do
not know.  Maybe it was the excess of it that we enjoyed.

"Yeah I won't forget to remind you."

Already you can see where this story is going.

We were were soon on the Garden State Parkway, smoking
prodigiously.

Smoking hash and marijuana, no less, in a speeding car on
the Garden State Parkway.

Yes, this was irresponsible.

It was irresponsible to drive while smoking goddamned hash
on the Garden State Parkway.

It was irresponsible to rely on a guy smoking goddamned hash
to remember to stop for gas.

It was irresponsible of me to forget.

This was a fucked up thing to do, but New Jersey, mixed with
youth, mixed with boredom can do this kind of thing to people.
I don't recommend it.

So, anyway we're really wasted on the Parkway and Charlie says,
"We are on empty."

Or something like that.

My other friend, we'll call him Lazlo, was in the back seat
in a tie-dye shirt, spaced out almost to the point of drooling
on himself.

We all know the weird paranoia of an empty gas tank with no
filling stations anywhere nearby, but this is significantly
worse when you're high, and it's even worse than that when
you've got:

(*) What probably amount to felony levels of dope in
your car...

(*) ...Some of which is a black tarry resiny
substance...

(*) ...That you can smell from a light year away...

(*) ...And three googley-eyed stoners...

(*) ...One of whom is wearing a tie-dye shirt...

(*) ...And about to nod off in the back seat.

Up ahead on the side of the road, a cop had pulled over a
car underneath an overpass up in the menacing badlands of
extreme Northern New Jersey (Okay, they're neither menacing
nor are they badlands, but they sure are depressin').

As we approach, the car sputters and dies, and our Giant
Traveling Stoner Circus coasts to a perfect halt right behind
the cop car, completely out of gas.

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"Did you see what God just did to us, man?"

- Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

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Charlie, ace professional that he is, fixes himself in the
rear view mirror and promptly opens the car door and strides
confidently up to the cop car to demand help.  Somewhere in
this is the formula for revolution and how to defeat The System
but I haven't worked it out yet.  Something to do with having
brass balls, though I presume at the time that Charlie saw
this as an unfortunate imperative; his only choice to avoid
complete disaster.

This is quick thinking.  Paranoid dopers don't ordinarily
approach cops, and then there was the hope that by doing
this, the cop wouldn't approach Charlie's stoner-filled,
reeking, fossil-fuel propelled monument to THC and American
Drug Culture.

The risk here, of course, is that I don't think cops like
being approached this way, but since he probably saw us pull
off the highway, this didn't bother him (Charlie probably
had this all figured out).  Even though the cop came up to
the car briefly (looking disinterested), he just as quickly
walked away after giving us a quick look.

This is a New Jersey State Trooper.  And New Jersey State
Troopers are mean.  Military-mean, college educated cops with
crew cuts.  They patrol New Jersey's part of I-95, the Great
American Drug Highway, and are always dealing with drug and
arms smugglers up and down the American East Coast.

Though the cop was there a long time dealing with the car
he'd pulled over, eventually he sped off.

Now, over a decade later, I still can't believe we got away
with this.

We might not have gotten away with it if Charlie hadn't done
some quick thinking about managing the situation.  You cannot
avoid the panic.  It comes, and it will stick with you,
but you have to ignore it the way parents learn to ignore
screaming, bratty children after awhile.  No one enjoys
panic and no one invites it.  The only possible solution,
when it comes to handling panic, is to make it your bitch.
It's an uninvitied guest, and you should treat it as such.

----------------------------------------------------------------

"Well, fear's sort of an odd thing. When I was in residency,
my first solo procedure was a spinal surgery on a 16-year-old
kid. A girl. And at the end, after thirteen hours, I
was closing her up, and I -- I accidentally ripped her
dural sac. Shredded the base of the spine where all the
nerves come together.  Membrane, stenos tissue and ... So
it ripped open. Nerves just spilled out of her like angel
hair pasta. Spinal fluid flowing out of her, and I ... and
the terror was just so ... crazy. So real. And I knew I had
to deal with it. So I just made a choice. I'd let the fear
in. Let it take over. Let it do its thing. But only for
five seconds. That's all I was gonna give it. So I started
to count. One ... two ... three ... four ... five. Then it
was gone. I went back to work, sewed her up, and she was fine."

- Lost

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There is a way to manage these situations, and it all comes
down to preparedness, especially if you're not an exceptionally
fast thinker.  Your strategy for managing the situation must
be executed dispassionately and with precision.  You must
do what you can to win the subconscious battle with cops,
who will scrutinize you for nervousness or any behavior out
of the ordinary.  Don't give them a reason to get a hunch
about you.  And if they have a hunch, don't give them legal
pretext to butt into your life.

Act ordinary, be ordinary.  Blend into the crowd.  There are
some smart police but there's a better than 50/50 chance
you're smarter than the cop who holds your fate in his hands.
The longer I live the more I learn that the System can be
gamed, and there is a special subversive pleasure in this
which exceeds its immediate rewards.  For all of the power that
institutionalized authority wields, by its very nature it is
full of loopholes, blind spots, and exploitable weaknesses.
At least part of what a cop relies on is pattern recognition
- red flags.  If you habitualize your behavior early on,
you can eliminate most of these without any apparent effort.

Lines of Defense ----------------

[Don't do drugs]
  [Don't drive with drugs in the car]
    [Don't drive recklessly with drugs in the car]
      [Don't give a cop a reason to pull you over.]
        [Don't make a cop suspicious about you if he pulls
        you over.]
          [Don't give a cop legal pretext to search you if
          he pulls you over.]
            [Don't make it easy for him to find what he is
            looking for.]

[<-Stronger Defense | Lesser Defense ->]

I would like to end this with some tips about what to do if
you get arrested, but the standard advice is well-documented
elsewhere.  As I've never been arrested, there's not much I
can offer based on my own experience anyway.

I do know people who have been arrested, and they will
humiliate you, and take pleasure in your misfortune.
Our police departments and justice systems like to pretend
they're a public service out to rehabilitate criminals and
serve truth and justice and the American Way.

Sometimes, individuals within these systems do live by this
code, and with this purpose in mind.  Not all cops and judges
are bad, and not all of them take any pleasure in busting you
for something as innocuous as marijuana possession.  There are
places like San Francisco where marijuana enforcement has
been de-emphasized or simply ignored altogether.  I remember
watching some kid roll a joint on a park bench out in the open
in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco with no self consciousness
whatsoever.  Whenever I visit Charlie, who lives there now,
there's always at least one instance where he expresses his
bemusement (or annoyance) at my paranoia.

Similarly, pre-Giuliani, one could get away with a lot in
New York City.  The annual pot parade there every year in
Washington Square Park was quite a spectacle.  You'd walk
into the park and line would form on each side of you, where
dealers would hold out dime-bags of their wares like some kind
of drug smorgasboard.  I recall one year in particular where
everything these dealers were selling ran to the gourmet side
- big round fluffy buds sparkling with resin, clearly grown
indoor, deeply kind...

Meanwhile people would walk around the park with 2 and 3 foot
bongs, doing hits right out in the open.  William Kunstler
showed up one particular year unannounced, exclaiming
something like, "I've been smoking marijuana for 50 years!"
It was the early 90s, the dawn of the internet and that whole
global tribalism groove was going on (the rave scene in the
United States was just peaking right about then), and the
Cold War had ended.  For awhile it looked like things were
getting considerably better, and I was young and in college
and had a lot of hopes for the future.

My how things can change in ten years.

I haven't been back to New York in awhile, but I've heard the
Giuliani has ruined this "one day of freedom" tradition to
some extent.  I'm not sure how its been since Bloomberg took
over. I know that since 9-11-2001, people see Giuliani as some
kind of father figure, and while it is arguable that he has
done a lot of good for New York City, especially in contrast to
his incompetent (though more tolerant) predecessors, he's kind
of a dick, and deep down he is an authoritarian.  But this
is the great dichotomy that I think Americans have had to
live with for a long time when they go to vote - incompetent
but tolerant Aquarians on the Left, and authoritarian but
effective and businesslike suits on the Right.

Perhaps the debacle of the Bush Administration will change
this calculus going forward, but I don't have a lot of hope
right now.

Now is a good time to lay low, with the government
concentrating almost all of its efforts (for some reason)
on marijuana.  Perhaps we'll shoot out the other side of the
the Big Dumb which now stands as a monument to the failure
of American Democracy, but perhaps not.

Best thing to do is stay out of jail.  If there's one idea
in this admittedly long-winded soliloquy helps you do that,
then the effort was worth it.

Appendix: A Banishing Ritual For Those Souls Bearing Weed in
the Night

(1) Make a list of all of the convenience stores on your
daily routes - Wawa, 7-11, whatever.

(2) As soon as you can, represent (*) in each and every
Wawa, 7-11 or other convenience store along any roads you
might drive.

(3) As a secondary but less effective line of defense,
represent at every gas station as well.

(4) Refresh-represent every two years minimum.  One's represent
wears off fairly quickly because hip hop is all about evolution
(**).

* How to Represent

If you have not represented before in the prescribed manner,
first, I must stage a sort of hip hop intervention on your
behalf, as your lame is dragging down the whole Power to the
People thing and giving a sort of aid and comfort to The Man.

Nevertheless, for those who need some education, and since
KRS-One is not here to fully explain how a person without
a performing career could possibly represent, we will here
describe a total fraud, which nonetheless works in terms of a
banishing ritual.  Whether it will you get you into something
like the final scene in Krush Groove, the rap free-for-all
with Shiela E, Run DMC, Kurtis Blow, etc. at the 'Fever is
another matter altogether.

For our purposes, this sort of counterfeit facsimile of
actual Representing, is unlikely to suffice, but stranger
things have happened (The 2000s as a decade - WTF?).

(1) Enter the place to be represented in in firm and
conspicuous possession of a cool hat, like a Kangol if you're
mad stupid old school, and, if possible, a posse. Even the
chess club or LUG you belong to can serve as a posse. Well,
they can in the event that you figure out how to explain to
them how you need their help as a posse to represent at the
Wawa as a banishing ritual against The Man in your secret
life as a pothead.

(2) Once inside the store, approach the beverage machines.
The beverage machines area oscillates wildly on the 145th
jamjam of the Astral Plane.  It is an epicenter of sorts,
and one whose energy is easily manipulated and harnessed by a
dope MC, a DJ with sick devastating turntable skills, or you,
a fraud, along these lines.

That is to say, if a quantum event were to occur - say,
a sudden wormhole were to open up unceremoniously, it
would happen in the beverage section, probably in the nacho
department.  Should you encounter a convenience store with
a beverage machine section which does not also have a nacho
department, this store is what we call a Weak-Ass Quantum
Attractor, and no amount of representing can "charge" it
with energy to any useful end.  Therefore, there is no need
to represent in nacholess stores.  A good rule of thumb is:

*Disdain, always, the nacholess.*

(3) Represent, employing the B-Boy stance (***) of your
choice.  Those of the microphone master DMC, in particular,
are particularly potent and highly recommended by the author.

** Re: Thing about hip hop being all about evolution.

It's not.  I was so sarcastic you couldn't even tell; you
just concluded that I was saying what I meant but that I had
a really deficient personality and conspicuous absence of
aesthetic sophistication.

Hip hop is a sewer.  It doesn't have to be; it wasn't always.
Support your local "alternative rap" MC and DJ.

*** B-Boy Stance for the truly lost.

Imagine how Tony Blair stands.  Now stand in the opposite
manner.

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