Wow another Bank Holiday and sadly the weather isn’t up to much.
But at least we don’t find ourselves in the trouble that befell two couples in different parts of the world.
First off today we heard about the elderly Australian couple who were more than a little surprised when they received a package out of the blue containing £5m worth of methamphetamine.
The unwitting pair called police after signing for, and then opening a parcel to find a white substance later found to be 20 kilograms of the drug also known as crystal meth or “ice”, according to Australian media reports.
Investigations revealed that the Chinese sender, who has since been apprehended and charged with trafficking and importing an illegal substance, made a simple error over the address.
How careless can you get!
On the other side of the world spare a thought for the American woman who spent more than 3 months behind bars after police mistook congealed cotton candy as crystal meth.
Dasha Fincher and her boyfriend were driving home on New Year’s Eve when she was pulled over by Monroe County sheriff deputies who tested a bag containing a blue crystal-like substance found on the floor of the vehicle and declared it to be the illegal substance.
Dasha’s claims that it was most likely two-day-old cotton candy discarded by the children of her friend, from whom she’d borrowed the car, cut no ice with the police officers in attendance, and the next thing she knew, she was being carted off in handcuffs.
“I knew it was cotton candy, and for him to come back and say it was meth, I really didn’t know what to say,” she said.
“I kept thinking, ‘This is crazy, I’ll get out tomorrow. Then when I wasn’t out by Sunday, I said, ‘It’s a holiday weekend, I’ll be home Monday.’ Then every day turned into ‘I’ll be out tomorrow.’”
Ms Fincher joins a list of others who have been arrested after innocuous objects such as chocolate chip cookies, tortilla dough and breath mints have tested positive for drugs.
Indeed a 2016 investigation found that field test kits – the kind officers use during traffic stops – are often unreliable, yet many prosecutors accept guilty pleas based solely on evidence from these kits.
Dasha was arrested at around 7pm on New Year’s Eve and could not afford the $1m bail amount that was set.
During the most of her time in jail she had no legal representation.
Although a state crime lab found that there was no meth in the bag on 22nd March, she was not released until 4th April and although charges were eventually dropped on 18th April, the arrest remains on her record.
Well that’s American justice in action for you.
I’ll see you again tomorrow – unless I have a run in with the law, that is!
Scott
