Arrest over herbs leads to lawsuit By JO ANN ZUNIGA Copyright 2002 Houston Chronicle A Houston man is suing the Houston Police Department for wrongful arrest when he and his 12-year-old daughter were handcuffed at their home after receiving a package of herbs from Africa. Johnson Egiebor said in a lawsuit filed Wednesday that the package was delivered to his home April 12 from Amsterdam by "a gentleman claiming that it had been delivered to the wrong address and, instead of sending it back through the postal system, the gentleman decided to deliver it" to Egiebor. A few minutes after getting the package, Egiebor said he answered another knock on the door and was confronted by several officers aiming weapons at him and his children and ordering them to the floor. According to the lawsuit, he was quite surprised and assumed his daughter had gotten into trouble at school that day. When he attempted to question his daughter, he was told to "shut up" by the officers while he and the 12-year-old were handcuffed in front of Egiebor's three other children. His wife told police "the package was from a family member of a friend in Africa" but it had inadvertently been delivered to a friend in Amsterdam. The friend then supposedly forwarded the package to Houston. Egiebor claimed his house was "thoroughly torn apart and searched." He was taken to the Houston city jail and released, without charges, at 1 p.m. the next day. When he inquired about the package, he was told "that the crime lab ran over 50 tests on it and that they all turned up negative for narcotics," the lawsuit stated. The items were concluded to be "some African herbs," the suit stated. Egiebor is requesting damages of at least $1 million. HPD spokeswoman Sylvia Trevino said no information on the case was available.
</style> </head> </style> </head> <body lang=EN-US style='tab-interval:.5in'> <div class=Section1> <ul style='margin-top:0in' type=disc> <li class=MsoNormal style='mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1;tab-stops:list .5in'><span >"a gentleman claiming that it had been delivered to the wrong address and, instead of sending it back through the postal system, the gentleman decided to deliver it"</span></li> <li class=MsoNormal style='mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1;tab-stops:list .5in'><span >"the package was from a family member of a friend in Africa" but it had inadvertently been delivered to a friend in Amsterdam. The friend then supposedly forwarded the package to Houston.”</span></li> <li class=MsoNormal style='mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1;tab-stops:list .5in'><span >"that the crime lab ran over 50 tests on it and that they all turned up negative for narcotics," the lawsuit stated. The items were concluded to be "some African herbs," </span><b><span style='font-size:14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana'>the suit stated</span></b><span >.</span></li> </ul> </div> </body> </html> None of these points raise any eyebrows?
any mind altering substance should be illegal... or they could make a special little island for crackheads and drunks.
Just to play devil's advocate, this statement is way too general. Caffeine is considered a mind and/or mood altering drug, as are alcohol and nicotine. What about oysters or other alleged aphrodisiacs? Heck, there is some evidence that chocolate can trigger the release of hormones that contribute to the pleasurable feeling one gets while eating it.
Sugar is a drug. It was in such high demand in Europe 500 years ago that slaves were used to cultivate it in the Caribbean.
Because we have police dedicating their time and effort to ferreting out reefer addicts. Even if the guy just got a wad of pot from his buddy in Africa, how exactly is keeping him from sparking a few in his back yard keeping the peace? I get illegal drugs like crack, PCP, heroin, etc. I can even see a case against alcohol due to the drunk driving issues but I'm not crazy enough to think prohibition would work a second time. However, no one has proven anywhere that smoking weed is bad for anyone other than yourself. It is a waste of tax dollars to send cops out after a bag of hash when they could be doing something more productive, like busting guys who speed through school zones or something like that.
Hmmm, sugar? ...I feel better after ice cream...uh oh. Or exercise, that releases some mind-altering chemicals. Protein? sorry...contains precursors to various neurochemicals.
Finally somebody who agrees with me. Jeff, I have argued so many times before with different people on why mar1juana should be legal, I even did a report in my freshman English class several years ago. I believe that if it were leagalized the crime rate in many places would drop due to it's popularity among users. The governement could also make a huge wad of money as well off taxing the stuff just like they do with tobacco, alcohol, and income. Also, according to a recent commercial if you buy drugs you might be supporting terrorism so why not limit there income that much more.
Jeff is my new write-in in 2004 Lil Pun for VP! rockHEAD for Secretary of Horticulture & Information RR (after all these past 33 years, still fan of the sweet leaf)
This is definitely a major f* up on the part of the cops, and the victim should be given reparations, but... $1 million??? One million dollars for a single night's inconvenience??? Goddammit, at that rate, if we all had a penny for every minute that the government wasted our time... we'd ALL be friggen millionaires!!! This is one example of a corrupt governing system - only in this one, the defense lawyers have too mych say. Give the guy $150 and send him on his way. Or send him to jail for wasting the taxpayers' money - we're paying for the government's defense, you know...
One thing I should point out is that I've never smoked weed and I don't ever plan to. I've spent many a night around friends (musicians mostly) who do though and I found that they were always better off when they smoked than when they drank. Being stoned, in some cases, made them better but they were, at the very least, not worse. I never worried about them driving home. However, when they were drunk, they were horrible musicians and it scared the hell out of me to think of myself on the same road as them. I understand the need to keep hard drugs illegal but mar1juana is less addictive than alcohol and less dangerous (for both the user and the general public) than it as well, yet alcohol is perfectly legal and mar1juana is not. Wierd.
Inconvenience?? You must be kidding. Imagine if this happened to you while you were at home with your family. While having numerous guns being pointed at you and your family all because the police fugged up. You're name as well as that of your family is then splashed through the papers. A million dollars may be alot of money, but this is no mere inconvenience.
