| Hudspeth County Sheriff’s Office |
| Fiona Apple’s mugshut |
(Except the Jonas Brothers… That’s Your Punishment, Sheriff West)
By Angela Bacca
Special to Toke of the Town
Last week, singer-songwriter Fiona Apple’s tour bus passed through west Texas’s Hudspeth County, where it was stopped by local law enforcement and searched for narcotics. The search turned up about an ounce and a half each of marijuana and hashish. Apple was taken to jail where she spent a night before being released on $10,000 bail.
Now, according to Alternet, she faces a minimum of two years — and a maximum of 10 — in federal prison for the offense.
Blatantly pro-marijuana musicians Snoop Lion (formerly Snoop Dogg) and Willie Nelson both got away with a hand slap — but not until after Willie Nelson was pressured to perform “Blue Eyes Cryin’ in he Rain,” for a judge to have his charges dismissed.
No one is surprised when they find marijuana in a tour bus; in fact it’s practically a guarantee of both the Willie Nelson and Snoop Lion brands. Police and civilians alike would sooner be surprised if they didn’t find pot.
| AEIOUYYYY |
| Rapper Snoop Lion (formerly Snoop Dogg) and country music legend Willie Nelson share a smoke |
What is surprising, however, is the economic persecution and discouragement by small-town law enforcement when big city celebrities attempt to bring money and joy into such hot, desolate and miserable places as West Texas.
Apple is facing a steeper sentence because she not only had marijuana; she had hashish, which is commonly misconstrued by willfully ignorant police and media as “stronger marijuana.” Hashish (or hash, kief, etc.) is NOT a stronger marijuana, it IS marijuana.
Hashish refers to the trichomes, which are gelatinous caps growing off of the marijuana plants, which contain the majority of the plants’ supply of THC. They are what make good buds so sparkly. They are removed in a variety of ways, commonly cold-water extraction.
Chemically, they are no different than the trichomes on the outside of the marijuana bud, just no green (or in Texas’s case, brown) plant material. But how would you expect a cop to know something like that?
These are the same cops who claim that drug dogs, over the scent of gas fumes, smelled the marijuana buried in a backpack in the bus, when the most likely scenario was they saw a big fancy tour bus coming from the west and relied on an educated guess that a juicy celebrity drug bust lay inside it.
These cops also work for
the State of Texas, which biochemically redefined hash to categorize it with K2, aka fake marijuana, a newly banned drug in the Lone Star State with harsher violation penalties than actual marijuana. Hudspeth County Sheriff Arvin West has no reservations about playing the old-West stereotype of the outlaw-law enforcement terrorizing his own people for fame and profit.
the State of Texas, which biochemically redefined hash to categorize it with K2, aka fake marijuana, a newly banned drug in the Lone Star State with harsher violation penalties than actual marijuana. Hudspeth County Sheriff Arvin West has no reservations about playing the old-West stereotype of the outlaw-law enforcement terrorizing his own people for fame and profit.
| AEIOUYYYY |
| Beautiful Hudspeth County, Texas |
While there is no clear and present danger of that violence spilling into the small county of Hudspeth, there is the clear and present danger of Fiona Apple smoking hash in the back of a tour bus and jamming with her band.
| AEIOUYYYY |
| Hudspeth County Sheriff Arvin West spends time harrasing pot-smoking musicians instead of trying to solve actual crimes |
South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin (albeit nearly 500 miles away) brought in almost $167 million last year for the city — about 70 percent of its yearly revenue. What if the entire SXSW lineup this March stood in solidarity with Fiona, Snoop and Willie and decided to boycott all concerts and appearances in the entire State of Texas until Hudspeth agreed to pursue the crime actually occurring in its hell-desert instead of celebrities and musicians who bring buckets of joy and money into the State?
What if there was no South by Southwest this March? How long would it take for the City of Austin to come down hard on Hudspeth?
Perhaps they can sue the small county of Hudspeth for lost revenues if, in fact, no musicians decide to play SXSW out of principle next year.
Maybe you should tell Hudspeth County Sheriff Arvin West why you support a Texas State Boycott — and that it’s all his fault.
HUDSPETH SHERIFF’S OFFICE
PO BOX 39
SIERRA BLANCA, TX 79851