12/29/2009 10:00:00 PM Traffic stop on I-17 nets 275 pounds of marijuana
Courtesy the Yavapai County Sheriff's Office
Yavapai County Sheriff's deputies found several bundles of marijuana that weighed slightly less than 275 pounds during a traffic stop.
Deputies arrested a man they stopped for swerving across I-17 after they found nearly 275 pounds of marijuana in the back of his van, the Yavapai County Sheriff's Office spokesman said.
At 9:15 a.m. Thursday, a Sheriff's K9 deputy saw a Dodge van with a Florida license plate repeatedly swerve in traffic on Interstate 17 and stopped it in Cordes Lakes, said Dwight D'Evelyn, media and crime prevention coordinator for the Yavapai County Sheriff's Office. The deputy also noticed an obstruction on the windshield that was an equipment violation, D'Evelyn said.
When another deputy arrived, the deputies spoke with the driver and his passenger separately, D'Evelyn said. The driver, Charley Taylor, 47, of Texas, told a deputy they were driving from Dallas to Los Angeles to see their kids. The passenger, Theressa Mills, 37, of Texas, told the other deputy they were driving from Phoenix to Dallas to visit their kids, D'Evelyn said.
"They were extremely nervous, their stories didn't match and, like a lot of folks who transport drugs, they had something in the vehicle to mask the odor, like air freshener," D'Evelyn said.
Deputies asked Taylor if they had anything illegal with them after their stories didn't match and deputies noticed indicators of narcotics involvement, D'Evelyn said. Taylor told deputies he had a "little" marijuana in the back of the van and consented to a search, D'Evelyn said. Deputies found several bundles of marijuana inside some large travel bags and suitcases, which weighed just slightly less than 275 pounds total, D'Evelyn said. Taylor and Mills then told deputies the marijuana was headed to Dallas, D'Evelyn said. "This is one of the largest hauls in the past couple of years involving marijuana," D'Evelyn said.
Deputies booked Taylor and Mills into the Camp Verde jail on charges of transportation of marijuana for sale.
Reader Comments
Posted: Thursday, December 31, 2009
Article comment by:
Srsly.
Oh thank you YSCO. This means that possibly hundreds of dangerous criminals will have to purchase marijuana from someone else before rolling a joint and smoking it in the privacy of their own home. Thank god you fine officers are out there keeping my kids safe from all these dangerous people! I honestly can think of no better use for my tax dollars!
Posted: Thursday, December 31, 2009
Article comment by:
Ed.
I don't know what's best........making marijuana legal or........criminalizing alcohol. Maintaining alcohols legal status while it remains a leading cause of car accidents, violence, disease and all sorts of other problems while people are still going to prison for marijuana is so stupid...........and so typical of this country. Everything the law makers of this country have to say about marijuana is so "Reefer Madness" circa 1930's. I would love to look at side-by-side, user for user statistics of alcohol and marijuana since the 1930's.....causes of death, disease and violence. Marijuana could never hold a candle to the outrageous problems that alcohol has caused throughout history.
The other thing that kind of floors me when I read these types of articles are the reasons that these people get pulled over to begin with. We all know that the police will and can find any cause to pull someone over. Either smugglers are always the worst drivers in the world or people are being targeted and profiled. And it seems like the police always have drug-sniffing dogs with them when they pull someone over for not using there turn signals. In a time when we are slashing funding for education and other very important social programs because of the economy...we still continue to throw millions of dollars into prisons that are full with drug busts. I think we should fill prisons with murderers, rapists and other violent people and let the people with marijuana be on their way with a ticket. This is all so ridiculous.
Posted: Thursday, December 31, 2009
Article comment by:
Brevity is a Virtue
jsknow - Does the word brevity mean anything to you?? You lost me, bro. Put down the joint and get to the point...
Posted: Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Article comment by:
No name provided
How can man make something GOD put on the earth illegal? Just another case of america NOT being the land of the free, but the home of the regulated.
Posted: Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Article comment by:
There's a Reason They Call it Dope
Americans are way too immature and irresponsible to handle another legal intoxicating substance. Period. To continue to promote such a ridiculous idea is an absurd waste of time.
Posted: Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Article comment by:
Christopher
Dumb, show us the stats. JSknow, you are right on with the 'growth industry' of prisons and the immoral private prison system and the real corruption in the justice system that it brings. Dangerous drugs kill, but so does a prison kill the family and the society warehousing the problem to avoid admitting the failure of both the 'war on drugs' and the economic system to produce education and jobs and ending systematic racism and neglect of and in fact tax encouragement for business and industry to leave the intercity for the suburbs. This could have been a revenue enhancement opportunity, instead of a long term obligation to house offenders.
Posted: Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Article comment by:
No name provided
Good lord. Thank you for getting this off the streets.
Posted: Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Article comment by:
No name provided
Freedom Writer... I will always vote against anything that involves legalizing drugs.
Posted: Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Article comment by:
Really Dumb
Really,Dumb! Just what are the stats? If you know what they are than why did you not include that in your inciteful (full of intent to incite) commentary? Do tell.
Posted: Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Article comment by:
Groovy Grass
Excellent way to break-in the new evidence storage building!! Let's hope it was built large enough!
Posted: Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Article comment by:
Wondering
I just wish we'd use the same type of "profiling" to catch terrorists from Africa and the Middle East. We can profile these domestic drug runners all day long: vehicle driving down the Interstate, out-of-state plates, vehicle might look "loaded down", no kids in the car...well, I'll stop there even though there are clearly a few more profiling criteria that are used. But anyway, it doesn't take much to get pulled over for the fantom "improper lane change" or "following too close". Then it's just a matter of dealing with the dumb people who didn't even figure out there "story" together as to who they are and where they are traveling. Again, it's cool if law enforcement wants to pretend that they're just stopping such vehicles like they would any other. There are a lot of heavy drug shipments happening and that can be dangerous. But WHY can't we do similar profiling with potential terrorists from abroad when the cost of their actions can generally have a more sudden and devastating impact? Are we more concerned about offending people from known terrorist-sponsoring countries or American citizens?
Posted: Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Article comment by:
jsknow
Right now we are installing 900 new prison beds and hiring 150 new correction officers every 2 weeks. Here in the “land of the free” for the first time in history, more than one of every 100 adults is in jail or prison. 2,319,258 Americans were incarcerated at the start of 2008. The United States now incarcerates more people than any other nation on earth, far more than even much more populous communist China. Each prisoner costs the taxpayers an average of about $35,000.00 to $40,000.00 per year to incarcerate. Over half of our federal prisoners are serving time for a drug offense. Largely because of the drug war, arresting Americans is becoming big business. We now have companies attempting to privatize our penal systems. These companies are huge supporters of drug prohibition and any other laws that cause Americans to be incarcerated. The more Americans behind bars, the more money they get from the government. This policy goes against EVERYTHING this Country was founded on!
Marijuana is not a “gateway” drug, there is absolutely no evidence that using marijuana CAUSES people to use any other drug. In fact the vast majority of marijuana users never use any other illegal drug. Marijuana which accounts for roughly half of all drug arrests, never was a serious threat to society, families, or individuals and it never will be. Because of that bad law being implemented based on lies by a few people that stood to gain financially from marijuana’s prohibition and them intentionally deceiving lawmakers, literally millions of Americans that choose to use that plant for ANY purpose are criminalized needlessly. NO ONE, IN THE ENTIRE WORLD, OF ANY AGE, IN ALL OF RECORDED HISTORY, HAS EVER DIED FROM THE INGREDIENTS IN MARIJUANA. MANY HAVE DIED FROM ITS PROHIBITION. In the US we arrest someone on marijuana charges every 38 seconds.
Many big corporations that see marijuana as competition contribute heavily to promoting marijuana prohibition. Alcohol, tobacco, petroleum, cotton, timber, chemical and pharmaceutical companies, just to name a few all see marijuana as unwanted competition and of course the government contributes billions every year to keep their unnecessarily harmful and wasteful, oppressive prohibition cash cow alive and well. I’ve seen estimates that contributions toward drug prohibition may be as much as 1 million dollars per day. However, once people learn the truth about drugs and drug prohibition they overwhelmingly favor of rationally regulating rather than prohibiting drugs. That’s partly why 13 states have bucked the federal government and passed medical marijuana laws already and several have decriminalized. The federal government recently revised its policy about prosecuting medical marijuana patients that are in compliance with state laws. That’s a huge step in the right direction. It proves when enough voters take action rational progress toward regulation and away from prohibition is being made.
On March 22, 1972 the Richard Nixon-appointed, 13-member National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse recommended the decriminalization of marijuana, concluding, "[Marijuana's] relative potential for harm to the vast majority of individual users and its actual impact on society does not justify a social policy designed to seek out and firmly punish those who use it."
In 1988, after reviewing all evidence brought forth in a lawsuit against the government's prohibition of medical marijuana, the DEA's own administrative law judge (Judge Francis Young) wrote:
"The evidence in this record clearly shows that marijuana has been accepted as capable of relieving the distress of great numbers of very ill people, and doing so with safety under medical supervision. It would be unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious for the Drug Enforcement Administration to continue to stand between those sufferers and the benefits of this substance in light of the evidence." Judge Young went on to say: "MARIJUANA, IN ITS NATURAL FORM, IS ONE OF THE SAFEST THERAPEUTICALLY ACTIVE SUBSTANCES KNOWN. IN STRICT MEDICAL TERMS, MARIJUANA IS SAFER THAN MANY FOODS WE COMMONLY CONSUME." Judge Young recommended that the DEA allow marijuana to be prescribed as medicine, but the DEA has refused. It’s far past time for the voters in this country to DEMAND rational marijuana policy based in SCIENCE and FACTS rather than reefer madness and unsubstantiated ridiculous untruthful drug war propaganda and scare tactics.
More information about drugs and drug policy from Just Say Know:
Using Internet Explorer web browser: http://jsknow.angelfire.com/home
With All Other Browsers: http://jsknow.angelfire.com/index.html
Watch this video: “Irvin Rosenfeld Medical Marijuana Testimony”, then get back to me about what you think of medical marijuana and heavy long term marijuana use.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1NggzEkltM
Posted: Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Article comment by:
freedom writer
"State budget cuts affect school districts" -- but let's not consider legalizing and taxing the multi-billion dollar drug trade. No, let's just keep throwing good money after bad in a campaign that has succeeded only in making the US the world's largest jailer. After all, why educate children just to put them in prison?
Posted: Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Article comment by:
The Devil Guy
At least they won't have to go back to where ever they came from; Florence is waiting...
Posted: Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Article comment by:
Dumb!
Here we go, come on all you pot heads, start writting about how we should legalize this stuff be cause it's not as dangerous as Alcohol. I'm waiting! Just so all of you know, marajuana is worse then alcohol and causes just as many collision related deaths as alcohol if not more! Read the states before you comment, because I know what they are. Good Job YCSO!
Posted: Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Article comment by:
Deputy Dawg
I'm amazed at what those K9s can do! I wonder how long it takes to train a K9 to drive and identify traffic violations?
