Harmandeep Singh Boparai
NEW YORK — Danielle Bradford was raised in state custody because of her parent’s abuse and drug dependencies.
When she was 18 she moved out, found work at a local waffle shop and got her first apartment in Nashville, Tenn. Her estranged father helped by co-signing on the lease.
One evening she was at home with her neighbors when three police officers knocked on the door. They said they had received a report that there was a portable meth lab on her property. “I allowed them to look, and obviously they did not find anything,” she said. What the police did find was that her neighbor had some marijuana and a bowl that she had prepared for him.
Two officers cornered her inside her room as three others continued the search outside. Bradford was in tears, and a volley of questions followed.
“Where’s the drugs?”
“I know you know where the acid and ecstasy are!”
“Who makes the meth around here?” they demanded.
“At this point I was crying and very scared. I had been working almost 60 hours a week and I was trying to save up money to go to school. I had never done anything … besides smoke pot,” she said.
The officer found a few grams of marijuana in a box beside her bed. She said she was using it for pain management, along with Advil. “They both laughed in my face and proceeded to tell me I was under arrest. At this point I was in a full blown panic attack,” she said. When she went to her living room her neighbor was being arrested for simple possession and possession of paraphernalia.
Full Article:
http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/20130522/america-whats-more-harmful-pot-use-or-incarceration