Mar 16, 2012
California, drug war, George Hotz, law enforcement, marijuana, Medical Marijuana, Sierra Blanca, Snoop Dogg, Texas, Willie Nelson
Apple, a company with more cash on hand than the U.S. Treasury, couldn’t stop him from jail breaking the iPhone’s iOS software. He cracked Sony’s PlayStation 3 software, at the time thought to be the most secure video game platform available. But George Hotz seems to have met his match in Texas. According to AboveTheLaw.com, Hotz, who has a medical marijuana card from his home state of California, was stopped at the border patrol checkpoint in Sierra Blanca while on his way to the SXSW conference where he was scheduled to speak. If the location sounds familiar, it’s because it happens to be the same checkpoint where Willie Nelson and Snoop Dogg were busted for marijuana possession.
Hotz was arrested for possession of a quarter ounce of marijuana and chocolate edibles containing less than an eighth ounce of marijuana. Rather than being issued a citation and released, as Snoop Dogg was, the local sheriff charged Hotz with a felony, using the weight of the chocolate (rather than the amount of marijuana it contained) as a “correct” indication of how much he possessed.
Who is being served by Texas law enforcement’s focus on arresting individuals for marijuana possession? Certainly not the taxpayers, who end up carrying the financial burden of the misguided war on marijuana users. Last year, Texas cut over $31 billion in spending to close their budget deficit, including cuts to public education, health and human services, and ending financial aid for nearly 60,000 college students. Yet, these senseless arrests and prosecutions continue. Hotz is just the latest victim of the Sierra Blanca checkpoint and of a war that results in 750,000 arrests like this one, with billions of dollars wasted each year.