Ton of Marijuana Seized From Cloned UPS Truck in Arizona

FoxNews ^ | 12/9/08

[Sammy67]

MYFOXPhoenix.com/Arizona Dept. of Public Safety

Arizona Department of Public Safety Detectives have confiscated about 2,118 pounds of marijuana from a truck that appeared identical to a United Parcel Service truck.

A suspect fled the scene when an officer and narcotics canine attempted to stop the vehicle, according to MYFOXPhoenix.com.

A search of the truck yielded nearly $1.2 million worth of marijuana bundles typically transported by

[MaxMax]

Gah, you've uncovered my plot! Now I'll have to use the Ice cream truck.

[Eye of Unk]

Tom Clancy wrote a novel about a group inside the US that was using a concrete mixer full of ANFO, the OK city truck had an estimated 6,000lbs. of it though I think thats a stretch because it was only a 1 ton chassis but getting to the point I absolutely do know what a mixer can haul, I’ve been driving them for 13 years, my latest truck has a max capacity of 12 cubic yards or about 48,000 pounds, 8 times what McVeigh had.

[MaxMax]

I would think the density would be the major factor of weight.

[Eye of Unk]

Thats true, if the material is dryer you can load more, there is provisions to add chemicals or water to a load while in transit, it would be a no brainer to have a load of ammonium phosphate dry and have one or two water tanks filled with diesel fuel, just prior to the target the diesel can be introduced into the turning drum while on the hiway, it would take less than 5 minutes to mix it, all that would be left is a detonator charge.

I routinely have to add water to a load to slump it, I do not know the exact formula of AMFO though I do know about thermite, aluminum powder and iron powder or rust.

[ComeUpHigher]

The societal costs from alcohol consumption/intoxication/addiction are astronomical. How many dollars are expended just on efforts to treat alcohol addiction. Then there is the money spent to prosecute drunk drivers who are arrested without accident. If they are a repeat offender, we have the incarceration costs. Then, if they are involved in a single car accident which injures themselves, we have the medical bills associated with their injuries. When the injuries are permanent and debilitating, we have lost productivity from the injured drunk driver. We have the property damage cost associated with repair of the vehicle and whatever object they struck. If it was a multiple vehicle accident, we have multiple injuries with the medical costs for treatment. These injuries will temporarily result in lost productivity and if permanent, debilitating injuries will result in long-term lost productivity. There are the property costs associated with repairing multiple vehicles. The people who are injured because of the drunk driver will litigate their claims. Their will be the litigation costs associated with the the lawsuit—not only in terms of the burden on the court, but also the costs associated with either a settlement or judgment. All of the foregoing analysis is equally applicable when an innocent passenger or driver of another vehicle dies rather than simply suffers physical injury.

Of course we haven't even touched on the emotional/economic costs associated with immediate family members who live in the same household with a drunk. Child neglect, child abuse. Emotional trauma requiring counseling. Physical trauma from abuse requiring medical treatment. And then there is the emotional/economic cost to the victims of the drunk driver. Children left fatherless or motherless. Spouses without emotional or financial support.

The list of economic and societal costs could go on and on and on.

Knowing the consequences of alcohol consumption, now some want to legalize marijuana? When people advocate the legalization of marijuana as good public policy, I have only one question: “What have you been smoking?”

[fanfan]

A 2004 observational case control study published in the journal Accident, Analysis and Prevention reported that only drivers under the influence of alcohol or benzodiazepines experience an increased crash risk compared to drug-free controls. Investigators did observe increased risks – though they were not statistically significant – among drivers using amphetamines, cocaine and opiates, but found, “No increased risk for road trauma was found for drivers exposed to cannabis.”24

Link

[SmallGovRepub]

You are assuming use would go up a lot if marijuana was legalized. According to government statistics already more than half of all adults under 60 have tried it. I sincerely doubt there are a lot of people out there just waiting for marijuana to be legal before they'll finally smoke it. And those that are that responsible and law abiding aren't likely to be that much of a problem for us because they are responsible and have self control. I bet most everyone who wants to smoke pot already smokes it, and those that don't smoke pot don't smoke it mostly because of all the good reasons not to smoke pot that have nothing to do with its legal status. Look at a country like the Netherlands where they allow retail sales of marijuana from shops that have permits. According to government numbers American adults are about twice as twice as likely as Dutch adults to have even tried marijuana. If legal possession and retail sales would make so many start smoking pot, why aren't the Dutch all stoned out of their gourds all the time? If our laws are really stopping so many from smoking pot, why do we consistently have about the highest per capita marijuana use rates in the world when there are so many other countries where they decriminalized it, don't bother people that possess it, let people get away with growing a little, and in the case of the Netherlands even allow retail sales and have for over thirty years? Most people in this country who want to smoke pot already smoke it, especially when it comes to those most likely to be problem users.

[Axenolith]

That Freedom’s a bitch ain’t it?

The costs you cite are primarily due to societies weak kneed approach to punishment and personal responsibility.

A libtard could substitute “guns” or “trans-fats” or “cigarettes” etc... for alcohol in your arguement and be flying high...

[ComeUpHigher]

I have a friend who traveled through Europe after graduating law school. Prior to his trip, he didn’t use illegal drugs because of the criminal risks. However, on his trip through Europe when he visited the Netherlands, he went to several of their legal shops and “enjoyed.” When he returned home, he knew of the criminal risks and has never used again. He told me if it were legalized here, he would use it. Once the criminal penalities are removed, risk, casual usage of marijuana will swell.

You made the statement: “And those that are that responsible and law abiding aren’t likely to be that much of a problem for us because they are responsible and have self control.”

Really? Don’t current alcohol users fit that description? How are they doing on being responsible and having self control? All the economic/societal costs I detailed are just associated with alcohol. You’re living in a dream world if you don’t think legalization of marijuana is going to increase the same problems that exist from alcohol.

Just my two cents.

[ComeUpHigher]

Wrong my FRiend. I have no trouble throwing the book at these people. However, what is your response to all the victims? “Freedom’s a bitch ain’t it?” Great public policy.

[ComeUpHigher]

Thanks for the link. I found it noteworthy that your link is to a site advocating legalization of marijuana. More importantly, this was not a scientific article supporting the position you asserted. It was simply the expressing his own opinions of the data. What I found was interesting from his article was the following statement of fact and then his effort to explain it away. This is the statement:

“Epidemiological research also indicates that cannabis is the most prevalent illicit drug detected in fatally injured drivers and motor vehicle crash victims.11 Reasons for this are twofold. One, pot is by far the most widely used illicit drug among the US population, with nearly one out of two Americans admitting having tried it.12 Two, marijuana is the most readily detectable illicit drug in toxicological tests. Marijuana’s primary psychoactive compound, THC, may be detected in blood for several hours, and in some extreme cases days after past use,13 long after any impairing effects have worn off.

So what we know from the studies the author cited is that marijuana is the most prevalent substance found in traffic fatalities. And you think this supports your position of legalizing marijuana? Granted he tries to explain it away because of marijuana's residual presence in the blood for several hours. But that is just his guess that the driver's who caused that accident just had THC in their blood, but weren't impaired. Notice there is no reference to any study to support his claim. What we can fairly conclude is that in fatalities involving illicit drugs, marijuana is the most common illegal drug in the system of the driver. Not only doesn't this support your position, it completely undermines it.

Try again.

[mysterio]

If you feel that way about alcohol, why aren’t you fighting to make it illegal?

[fanfan]

And you think this supports your position of legalizing marijuana?

Please don't assign to me a position I haven't taken.

[ComeUpHigher]

And you know that I'm not? Do you think the imprimatur of government legalization equals good public policy? If you do, then I guess if you live in Massachusetts you believe gay marriage is good public policy.

Just because the government legalizes something doesn't make it good public policy. He is a link to a study showing the economic and societal costs of alcohol and drug abuse. http://www.nida.nih.gov/EconomicCosts/Index.html If after reading the link, you think its still GOOD public policy to legalize marijuana, let me know why other than a generic "we can make better use of resources."

[mysterio]

Well, at least you're consistent.

The benefits of the failed drug war have been far outweighed by the oppressive government dismantling of our Constitution. Personally, I don't care what plant my neighbor has. Neither should anyone else.

[SmallGovRepub]

Your’e friend who only smoked pot while in the Netherlands is not the norm. There really aren't a lot of people out there who don't smoke pot just because it is illegal. You talked about risks involved in marijuana being illegal. Is there really that much risk involved? Most pot smokers never get caught. They can smoke it thousands of times and never get caught. Those that do get caught are generally going to be the idiots who do things like driving around in their car and smoking it, or the ones who get in other trouble or hang around with trouble makers. Most will never get caught. Most pot smoking goes on away from the public view and law enforcement never even know it happened.

I just read an article a couple of days ago about homicide clearance rates. Close to 60% of them are solved which is lower than it used to be. In rural areas, small towns and suburbs the percentage solved is much higher because there aren't all the gang killings where they never catch the perpetrator. Anyway, a pretty darned high percentage of these crimes result in an arrest. What percentage of “pot smokings” result in an arrest? It has to be one in several thousand.

And what happens if someone does get arrested for simple possession of pot? In a lot of states it's basically like a traffic ticket. They just pay a fine and they're done. In most states it is a misdemeanor crime, but hardly anywhere are they actually giving people a jail sentence for a first time possession charge. Often they'll just go into some sort of diversion program where they pay some money, take some anti-pot class and end up keeping the thing off their records. Some people end up with misdemeanor records, but again the punishments are not that severe and the chance of getting caught in the first place is minuscule. The risk is almost nonexistent. We aren't deterring many people with the extremely remote possibility of getting caught and getting slapped on the wrist.

As for your comment about how alcohol users are as responsible as those who won't smoke pot just because it is illegal, I don't quite get what you were saying there. What I was trying to say is that those rare people who don't smoke pot just because of the fact that it is illegal, and not because of all the other good reasons not to smoke pot, have proven that they are fairly responsible law abiding people who possess a certain measure of self control. Just about everybody else who wants to smoke pot smokes it. If they all the other good reasons not to smoke pot are not enough to deter them, the extremely remote possibility of getting caught and getting a slap on the wrist isn't likely to deter them either. Your losers with no respect for the law and no self control who want to smoke pot are already smoking it. So I'm saying those very few people out there who won't smoke pot just because it is illegal aren't likely to be a problem for us if they do smoke pot.

We have about the highest per capita marijuana use rates ion the world. Usually we're number one in that regard, and when we're not the countries with higher per capita use aren't beating us by that much. There are several countries in the world where pot smoking is not a criminal offense, many where they don't even mess with pot smokers. And of course there's the Netherlands where they allow retail sales. If the ban on marijuana really worked, per capita use in these other countries should be way higher than it is here. It's not, anywhere, not even in countries where they basically allow it, or where they actually allow it. What makes you think that we Americans are so different than everybody else that if we allowed it we'd all start smoking it? That just doesn't make sense. Most people don't smoke pot because there are plenty of good reasons not to smoke pot, and almost all of these reasons would still exist even if pot was legal.

As for the comparisons to alcohol, if you want to go there all I have to say is that alcohol use causes way more societal problems than pot use and it always will. It's a hard drug, almost as bad as meth and all that stuff in my opinion. I'm in court all the time and I can tell you that a good 75% of all the domestic batteries filed are cases where drunks we're beating up on each other or on innocent people. It contributes to an awful lot of crime, far more than marijuana ever could. And as for drinking and driving, it's a lot more dangerous than smoking pot and driving. It can impair people a lot more than pot can. It leads to risk taking behaviors a lot more than pot does. I don't think at all that it should be legal to smoke pot and drive, but people on the road who have just been smoking pot are a lot less of a threat to us than people driving while drunk.

Pot is not good for people. People should leave it alone. We should always encourage people to leave it alone, especially children. Keeping it illegal though is pointless. We're just wasting a fortune trying to keep up the ban, helping organized crime make billions of dollars a year and making it easier for them to move the hard stuff because the existing distribution networks for marijuana are massive and reach every corner of America and thus make perfect conduits through which organized crime can move their cocaine, meth, etc. There are so many good reasons to legalize it and regulate it similar to alcohol, and I really can't think of any good reasons to maintain the status quo. You think use would go way up. I don't think it could go up that darned much because most people under sixty have already tried it and I don't think there are that many people out there just waiting for it to be legal so they can finally smoke it. Use probably would go up some especially at first, but when the novelty wore off we might even see use dropping like we've seen for decades with tobacco, a legal drug. Pot just isn't that great and most people don't want to have anything to do with it.

[calex59]

Yeah, we don’t have enough drunk drivers on the road killing and maiming people each day. Let’s add a bunch more stoned ones. That’ll show the government not to waste taxpayer resources.

If you think there aren't a sh** load of MJ stoned drivers running around now, you are very naive. Drunk driving actually increased under prohibition, it didn't decrease. When will people learn, you can't get rid of something by outlawing it, it doesn't work.

It doesn't work for firearms, it didn't work for booze and it doesn't work for drugs.

People who want it/them will get it/them. All outlawing MJ does is make an illegal market for it and the money that comes from it bankrolls gangs. Add to that the money made from all other illegal drugs and the gangs are rolling in money, gangs were nothing before the "war on drugs" and now are very powerful due to illegal drug money.

[Axenolith]

I don’t waste my time thinking about “victims” who have no remote relation to me, my family, or immediate community.

Being sold on the concept of intimately worrying about what happens to people whom you’ll never meet or know is the number one way government sells you on more BS. Sure, bad things happen to good people, and it sucks, but I’m not about to give away any of my freedom, or anyone elses freedom over some nebulous promise that it’s going to prevent something from happening to a few out of 280,000,000 fellow citizens.

Now, I’ll grant you that in general I’ve always been pretty against decriminalizing or legalizing most drugs, but purely from the standpoint of the fact that the government won’t give me or others more leeway in physically defending myself from the irresponsible users and will absolutely want us to step up and provide all means of care for the irresponsible users.

That said, I won’t agree to an arguement that begs sympathy for hypotheticals or possibilities. The exact same arguement, if allowed success, can be repeatedly utilized to further subjugate the Republic.

You’ve got to see that. You could go on and on about people losing loved ones early from eating trans fat, or smoking, or driving faster than 25 miles per hour. It’s just not a viable angle to defend your point.

As an aside, making industrial Hemp legal to grow is an entirely separate issue from smokeable “dope”. Industrial Hemp is about as effective at getting one high as lawn clippings...

[Axenolith]

You wrote:

So what we know from the studies the author cited is that marijuana is the most prevalent substance found in traffic fatalities.

No, the statement was:

Epidemiological research also indicates that cannabis is the most prevalent illicit drug detected in fatally injured drivers and motor vehicle crash victims.

Leaving out alcohol and prescription medications. Additionally, it doesn't state whether it's the contributor, merely that it was present, which it can be for days after smoking at detectable but physiologically ineffective levels...

But that is just his guess that the driver's who caused that accident just had THC in their blood, but weren't impaired.

You're assuming that the victim caused the accident, which is unsupported, for all you know the majority of the fatalities are victims of drunk, or merely lousy, drivers.

[ComeUpHigher]

I suggest you read the information at the following link: http://www.nida.nih.gov/EconomicCosts/Index.html It discusses the economic and societal costs from alcohol and drug use.

It is apparent you are working with some false assumptions. In 1992, 132,000 people died as a result of alcohol/drug abuse. I don't think that constitutes a “few” fellow citizens being victims of drug and alcohol abuse. Some of those 132,000 may have been victims of their own indulgence; however, I willing to wager that the majority of them were innocent victims killed in accidents or as the result of violence commited upon them.

In 1995, the economic costs to our country of alcohol and drug abuse were over $300 billion. After you've read the analysis at the link above, please justify why legalization of marijuana constitutes good public policy. I submit you won't because you can't.