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Student Busted For MySpace Bong Photo
cbs4denver.com | 05/15/06

(CBS) PLACER COUNTY, Calif. A photo posted on MySpace.com showing a Placer County high school student smoking marijuana has led to his arrest on numerous felony charges including intention to make destructive devices.

Placer County Sheriff's deputies arrested Del Oro High student Daniel Blanchard, 18, on May 5, according to KOVR-TV.

The investigation into Blanchard started after the Placer County Deputy Sheriff Ryan Berry saw a picture of Blanchard smoking a "bong" on MySpace.com.

Berry is the School Resource Officer assigned to Del Oro High. The Placer County Sheriff's department says when Berry question Blanchard about the photo, Blanchard admitted to smoking pot.

Berry then searched Blanchard's backpack and found marijuana, hashish and a marijuana pipe, according to police.

Police said their search of Blanchard's car revealed more hashish and marijuana, compact digital scales, packaging materials, bongs, four knives, more than a dozen hypodermic syringes, gun powder and potassium nitrate.

When deputies searched Blanchard's bedroom they say they found more chemicals used in bomb making and several printed materials on making bombs, including the Anarchist's Cookbook.

Blanchard was arrested on four felony and one misdemeanor charge and booked at the Placer County Jail. Blanchard's $150,000 bail was posted and he was released on May 6. Blanchard's arraignment is scheduled for May 24.

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dedbr

what he said to his dad when he called him.......

"Hello, dad? I'm in jail, and I like it here. I really do, cause I advertised on the internet so they could find me easier......"


Somewhere in Ded Land......

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TheNewGuy

At first I was like "man, someone was arrested because of a picture?? What has the world come to", knee-jerk reaction style. Then I read about the bomb making devices, and honestly I don't think this sounds like the kind of guy I want running around free.

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Sec

So, are you saying the end justifies the means? Just because they found more sinister things during the subsequent investigation, does that mean that you would feel the same way if the kid only posessed a bong and an ounce of weed?

For the record, I agree with your statement about not wanting this kid to be running around free. I believe that if he is so stupid as to post a photo of himself smoking a bong over the internet, then he is too stupid to be loose in society.

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RL in IL

There is nothing illegal about just smoking a bong over the internet. Whatever is being smoked in the bong determines if it is illegal. Right? It seems nearly impossible to prove. The suspect in this case confessed to the police when asked, that it was not legal, prompting the other searches.

Is there a lesson here for those on both sides of the argument?

 

Sec

Is possessing a bong (paraphernalia) legal? I always thought that they could confiscate pipes, bongs, whatever constitutes paraphernalia.

RL in IL

I don't think that possessing a bong is illegal. Where I live, you can buy smoking paraphenalia in Walgreens, and it isn't behind any counter. You can buy glass pipes and bongs down the street at the Smoke Shop. Just possessing one of these pieces of paraphenalia is not illegal. Using it to smoke out of in public is not illegal, either, where ever smoking is allowed.

They can't confiscate them either, as long as the resin inside tests positive for anything legal. Some municipalities probably ban certain types of paraphenalia, resin or not, just for the way the pipe looks, which sounds wrong, but if there was nothing illegal stuck to the pipe how could there be any case?

KWhite

This demonstrates the slippery slope upon which we find ourselves.

I agree, the young man should have his freedoms denied him as long as he has a desire to build bombs. It was a lucky find, but let's be careful of it. Law enforcement is already using the excuse that they find other crimes while investigating drug crimes, even when the drug suspicions turn out to be groundless. Let us consider what that can mean for us.

It won't stay with him and it won't stop there, people will look at this and do just as you did. Kneejerk.

Most will think, if they think on it at all at this late stage in the drug war, "Okay, well, if they are finding bombs and weapons...".

And these searches will become more commonplace, arrests for anything and everything will become allowed on mere suspoicion, and sadly, again, people will not be outraged.

They won't say anything about it, that would be wrong, to speak your mind, they will tell themselves, a good citizen does as he or she is told and the police, the government MUST have our welfare at heart.

"It's for our own good..." They will become accustomed to thinking.

At least until they are being searched by drug dogs on the side of a busy highway just because they have a tail light out or are under a certain age or decide, in this free nation, to wear a pin or earrings shaped like a pot leaf, stick the wrong bumper sticker on their vehicle or have long hair or like to rave or.... You get the picture.

Oh, yes, we have all of that already.

If we don't fight for our rights, they will go away, and they won't even have to stage a war or a massive round up of citizens to take them from us.

Those who think outside of the acceptable lines in any way will be in jail or about to be, there will be so many reasons allowed for a search by the courts, so many programs bent on teaching the children to be snitches, that they WILL get most people who don't bleat when the others do.

Count on it, we have seen it happen too many times before.

The only tools against this slow spread of rot are critical thought, outrage and action.

VOTE! Be vocal about your views, you are a free citizen, and free people speak their minds! Bring up the law in discussion and if you deal with the police, to do that, you have to know it! My gods, people, get the constitutions that govern you, State and Federal, and read them, wherever you are.

Read all the laws you can, read the newspaper and don't be afraid to have your say, rights not used are like limbs, they atrophy and die.

In our silence lies THEIR victory.

If I am a paranoiac and the future shows me to be so, well then, you will be able to sit back and enjoy the freedoms that won't have gone away, thinking, perhaps, about those "Whacko Police State Theorists of the early millennium, boy were they funny..." because I was wrong. Let us hope so, I would love to be proven wrong.

If I'm not, make no mistake, you WILL be in the hoosegow if you don't knuckle under and be a GOOD citizen.

Are you willing to take that risk?

Think about it.

Kelly.

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kfon420

I agree. As long as there is no prohibited resin, whatever the device used,bong, pipe, rolling papers,it should be an open and shut case. Admitting to consumption isn't illigal either, as long as you're not impaired. In my state, u can buy bongs, pipes, etc. also. Openly. Catch me if u can.

TheNewGuy

I've purchased two on Ebay, so I'm going to go out on a limb and say it isn't.

I've also smoked sheesha (or shisha, whatever) out of a hookah in the back of a truck in a college parking lot. Teachers just walked right on by like they didn't even see anything. Worst that happened was some dumb beotch yelling at us as he drove by (prohibitionist student). Which is weird considering we weren't smoking anything but tobbacco, so he was just yelling at a bunch of guys for no reason...

Anyways, this is my official take on the whole situation:
It was wrong (and a huge waste of money and time) to try and bust someone just because they looked like they were doing something illegal in a picture. He could have been smoking something legal in that pipe. I'm glad he's behind bars, but I don't believe they should have gone though with all that stuff over just a picture.

EDIT: I'd also like to note that I don't want him in jail simply because he had bomb making instructions (my friends and I used to make pipe bombs for fun back in the day, which we detonated in a huge field with nobody else around) but because he was obviously a dealer who might use such instructions to "get rid of the competition".