The Sierra Blanca border patrol checkpoint is, at this point, the stuff of legend: If you’re a musician and you pass through there, you’re going to get popped for pot possession. You just are. Snoop Dogg, Fiona Apple, Willie Nelson — all of them drove on Interstate 10, found themselves in that tiny West Texas border town and paid what we can safely dub the Dankness Tax: search, seizure, arrest, brief imprisonment, unflattering stripe-clad portrait.
But as the ACLU recently discovered, the war on pot doesn’t limit itself to Sierra Blanca. It’s more like the entire state of Texas. According to a new national report they’ve just released, Texas is near the top of the list on the numbers of people arrested for pot possession and the amount of money taxpayers spend to keep them locked up. Dallas Observer has the rest.
