Fiona Apple arrested in drug war

Fiona Apple was a bigger star when I was younger, back in the 1990s. Not so big now. In fact, for those under 25, many of them probably never even heard of her. Well, she is still singing professionally and she was arrested on September 19th. She was arrested at a so called border stop near El Paso, Texas called Sierra Blanco.

The problem with this so called border stop is that the highway, Interstate Highway 10, that goes through the town and checkpoint does not actually go through to Mexico. In fact, the town is over 10 miles from Mexico. The interstate never actually touches the border of Mexico. This town, as much of Texas, is not really under the U.S. Constitution.

See, the federal government has stated that your Constitutional rights against unreasonable search and seizures, only kind of apply within 100 miles of a border. This also includes, within 100 miles of coastlines. That includes people in Los Angeles, Miami, Seattle, Houston and New York City, who all have limited 4th Amendment rights. So, the tour bus of Ms. Apple was stopped and the feds stated they smelled marijuana, which it did.

Other celebrities who have been arrested at this checkpoint include Willie, Nelson, Snoop Dogg and some guy named Armie Hammer. Ms. Apple should be lucky though that Oklahoma is not on the border of Mexico. If she was, she might get a life prison sentence for the hashish, which is just basically a more concentrated form of THC, the active substance in marijuana.

Yes, Oklahoma law lists that as the maxiumum penalty for cooking marijuana to convert it to hashish. Also, because the wording of the law is so bad, just making pot brownies can potentially put you in prison for life. So making hashish has a higher maximum penalty under the law in Oklahoma, than molesting a small child. It's nice to know they have their priorities in order.

If you want to help end our stupid war on marijuana, please visit the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws or NORML or the Marijuana Policy Project or MPP. Thanks.