It can happen at any moment.

        Winding through spacetime, traveling the path you've chosen in life, and all of the sudden an unexpected event shifts your course drastically without any forewarning. At times, these moments seem like a stroke of luck as fortune shines upon you, while at other moments they may be perceived as disadvantageous or ruinous. We all know life isn't fair from the cliche saying; you just have to deal with these things as they come up and survive through it. Even when times are tough, through strife one can become stronger. So instead of vapid complaints, I've found it's better to "embrace the suck", as some would put it. Going to jail is a shitty experience. Yet, when one is able to observe firsthand, from their own perspective the injustices of the world, it means you can speak to it not only passively but with your own primary source of experience to draw upon.

Sniffed out by a patrolman like a hog to truffles

        Well, back midway through 2013 one of these moments occurred in my life when I was charged with two victimless crimes: one for possession of marijuana, AND another for possession of drug paraphernalia. I had just finished bombing down some hills with a friend (lets call him Chuck) on our downhill boards, and probably getting up to about 20-25 MPH. We took some falls and were pretty beat up and bloody, and wanted to toke up and watch a movie for the next couple of hours. So we drove back to Chuck's apartment complex (in a wealthier suburb of Detroit Metro area) and determined that it would be best to smoke outside, because his roommates didn't smoke and we didn't want to stink up the building. As veteran tokers by this point living in Flint, MI (Chuck and I were roommates at college for some time), smoking outside was a liberty we took for granted in a city where possession of cannabis is decriminalized. Police in Flint have much better things to do than harass people who aren't harming anyone else, after all. It was dark out too, so what was the worse that could happen? We started to spark up a glass "hammer" water piece, in the parked car that was turned off, this glass that was larger than I would personally carry around on my person (Chuck loved his doodads), and were approached within less than a minute by LEO. The gig was up. We spoke with this man for a while, who was open enough to tell us that apparently he was having some trouble at home with his significant other (shit), he wrote us some citations to show up in court, and we went on our merry way. I later found out in the police report that the cop decided to arbitrarily follow us for about half of a mile, into the apartment complex. He didn't follow us long enough for it to be considered entrapment, but it was basically the same idea.

Probation Awaits... That'll be $7,500 and days of your time

        Little did Chuck and I realize until about an hour or two later what would become of us in court. We showed up in court at different times a few weeks later, both with the same judge, and both ended up getting an entire year of probation, on top of various court fees. What the fuck?! They get you to agree to the probation, in exchange for basically writing off the charges at the end of it. It's called a 7411. It was hard for me to believe that this was happening for such a trivial infraction. The reality of having to be coerced into dooing things for arbitrary reasons and costs settled in. We weren't putting anyone's lives in danger, sitting outside of Chuck's place in a parked car with nobody around. Yet we were looked upon as denizens by the court officials, and forced to comply. This experience was a catalyst for me, I became even more fed up with the entire legal system, on top of my already growing anti-government sentiment due to the inefficiencies, corruption, and control that seemed to come along with the operation of nation states. Not only did we have to report to some probation officer every so often, but we both had to do 3 urine drug tests every month, and pay for them every single time. Not only that, but they also made us do alcohol PBT tests and pay for them. You never knew when one was coming until you called a hotline to figure out if your assigned color was randomly selected. I suppose they decided it was their duty to "reform" us terrible drug users, us who have selected of our own free will what we deem worthy of ingesting into our own bodies.

Let me observe while you pee in this cup

        Is it just me, or does it seem shady to anyone else that the operators of the drug testing location is also the Oakland County Sheriff's department, responsible for funneling citizens into the court system? Nope, there'd definitely be no conflicts of interest to see there. The drug tests proved to be horribly inconvenient, and there were many times I had to drive for an hour each way just to make it to a required test. Not only that, but cops would sit around getting paid, just to follow you into the bathroom and watch you pee. The hours were different depending on the day of the week, adding to the confusion, and being a student in a different city, I wasn't always able to test if the pee place in Flint was shut down. Drug testing would interfere with my class schedule oftentimes, too. Missing any tests was a violation of probation, bound to keep you snared up in the legal system if you had transportation issues. On holidays, I had to lug around a portable breathalyzer machine that would take pictures of my face in order to travel to see family. I deeply resented all of these requirements, and faked my drug tests often in order to live the lifestyle I wanted. I also studied the hotline schedule and in some scenarios could be pretty certain about the days I wouldn't be called. In hindsight, it was reckless of me to disregard the reality of the situation, and instead I flirted with disaster.

Masking your urine only gets you so far

        I became deeply in tune with my urinary schedule. I knew the optimal amount of times to pee before a test, and learned how to make my own masking drinks that would allow me to pass the test. These worked by causing your system to flush all of the toxins from your blood stream, providing a window of opportunity to urinate without expelling high levels of the THC metabolites. Anyways, of course I got cocky at this, and failed a test eventually. I violated my probation and they decided I should turn myself into jail for a weekend. Oh, and more money. Always more money.

Trapped like rats!

       Oakland County Jail was mind-numbing but I was only there for 31 hours. I guess they count Friday night, all day Saturday, and 1 hour of Sunday as "three days". Fine by me. The holding cell was over capacity; they just kept cramming more bodies in. I read a Dark Tower book that was floating around, and met some sad people. One man was a heroin junkie that managed to avoid capture for over a year. He was looking at 7 or 8 years of prison. Another was a biochemistry professor new to the state, who was pulled over driving home from an Oakland University Faculty convention and charged with a DUI. There was another man who somehow smuggled Xanax into the cell and was snorting it, but he wouldn't share it with others so he was snitched on. Always share your candy, I guess. Some older men were bragging about how long they'd be in jail, as if it were a badge of honor and a testament to their badassery. Way to be a role model for the 17-18 year old juveniles that were alongside of us, jail-dude. The cake stuff they give you is basically currency... probably the most valuable commodity in there other than toilet paper. Some friends came and picked me up after my stint. Of course, yet again, I had to pay for my involuntary stay. We left and picked up some taco bell. Much better than the sandy-textured potatoes they were feeding us in captivity.

If this happens to you, write letters to the judge

        The best thing you can do after you've fulfilled all of the court requirements, is to draft up a letter making a case for why you should be let off probation early. I did this and ended up having my probationary period reduced by 1 month. That's 30 more days of total freedom that I would have been deprived of at the mercy of drug testing hotlines, probation officers, and additional costs. And considering I was able to have the charges expunged from my record, it officially didn't happen.

What did I learn?

1. Never leave any arrest vectors open.

2. Community service can be fun and a great way to meet people. I culled invasive species with the DNR.

3. It's always better not to be reliant on things. I could have gone without the herb for a year, but decided I didn't want to let my behavior be controlled by someone else. I did end up toking up way less after this whole experience.

4. Go to trial. Don't let intimidation scare you into accepting a plea bargain if you feel that an injustice occurred.

5. Write letters to your judge. Butter them up and tell them how much you're a changed person.

6. Not all cops are unjust, but I still haven't had a positive experience dealing with any cops to date. More stories to follow...