Arrested and Depressed :(

[WhosGotTheHerb]

I of course am posting on this thread because I am curious how I'm going to get out of this shit that I'm in...

I'm in the back of my friends' car and we had finished tokin and were headin back from White Castle (I know, so cliched..) and we hadn't been smoking in the car, but I was the only one with shit on me and my asshole friend decides to cut through his old high school (btw this is a very conservative town we're in) so we pass a po of course and he pulls us over way down the road asking what we were doing there. My friend says just finishing our cigarettes before heading home but he smells pot on us (or just said he did, but regardless, we probably did smell) so that gives him probable cause I guess, so we got searched. I guess because I lied to his face (who wouldn't??) about having shit on me I got arrested while my friends (whose fault it was we got pulled over in the first place) got off scott-free. The fucking pigs even told them to clean out the car of all the shake and stems and roaches.

I'm 21 and a white female and got charged with possession of less than 2.5 grams of cannabis and possession of drug paraphernalia. I also have a previous arrest from fresh. year of college but it was deferred and expunged. I'm getting a lawyer, but what am I looking at here? I just graduated from college and was hoping to get a job pretty soon (REALLY soon so I can start paying this shit off), am I completely fucked?? Do you think I'll get probation/parole and get drug tests??

I'm also really depressed.. last time I got arrested (stupid drunk times) I sunk down into a depression that was so bad I was cutting my wrists and went to counseling and was there til the day I graduated. So I was having a pretty positive outlook on life until this shit happened. Now my parents are going to be doubly disappointed (even though I just graduated college) and are probably going to insist on paying for it, even though I would like to myself to alleviate any burden on their behalf. Does anyone else get really depressed after being arrested? I can't help but feeling like a delinquent and a criminal, even though I'm well aware of the hypocracy going on in this fucked up country. Now I'm afraid to have anything on me at all, I am even too scared to pick up and bring it to the safety of my own home. Any advice guys? :(

[the yeag]

damn it was little and purple.....sorry I could not read it.

[doco]

Depends on what state you are in and what their laws are. Here in my state, that offense is a citation & $100 fine at max, nothing on your record. Check the Norml website to see what the laws are in your area. I can't imagine less than an eighth means anything more than probation if even that. Why waste taxpayer $$$ to even prosecute something so petty?

[birdgirl73]

Do you have a good attorney? I hope so. Hope you live some where on the west coast or far northeast, perhaps, where, with luck, there'll be more leniency. I'd be depressed, too. Depending on the type of job you're hoping to get, and since you're a college grad, I'm guessing it's likely to be an entry-level professional gig, you may run into some trouble if something goes down on your record. Seek qualified counsel as fast as you can.

[T®auma]

damn it was little and purple.....sorry I could not read it.

lol and get a good attorney :hippy:

[WhosGotTheHerb]

I probably will get a very good attorney seeing as now my father is involved. And yes, I am looking at entry-level positions, mostly writing/journalism as well as administrative assistant (secretary) jobs. My friends say nothing will show up on my record for a few months, but I'm still paranoid as fuck and depressed.

Here's the first post for those of you who couldn't read the fine purple print:

I of course am posting on this thread because I am curious how I'm going to get out of this shit that I'm in...

I'm in the back of my friends' car and we had finished tokin and were headin back from White Castle (I know, so cliched..) and we hadn't been smoking in the car, but I was the only one with shit on me and my asshole friend decides to cut through his old high school (btw this is a very conservative town we're in) so we pass a po of course and he pulls us over way down the road asking what we were doing there. My friend says just finishing our cigarettes before heading home but he smells pot on us (or just said he did, but regardless, we probably did smell) so that gives him probable cause I guess, so we got searched. I guess because I lied to his face (who wouldn't??) about having shit on me I got arrested while my friends (whose fault it was we got pulled over in the first place) got off scott-free. The fucking pigs even told them to clean out the car of all the shake and stems and roaches.

I'm 21 and a white female and got charged with possession of less than 2.5 grams of cannabis and possession of drug paraphernalia. I also have a previous arrest from fresh. year of college but it was deferred and expunged. I'm getting a lawyer, but what am I looking at here? I just graduated from college and was hoping to get a job pretty soon (REALLY soon so I can start paying this shit off), am I completely fucked?? Do you think I'll get probation/parole and get drug tests??

I'm also really depressed.. last time I got arrested (stupid drunk times) I sunk down into a depression that was so bad I was cutting my wrists and went to counseling and was there til the day I graduated. So I was having a pretty positive outlook on life until this shit happened. Now my parents are going to be doubly disappointed (even though I just graduated college) and are probably going to insist on paying for it, even though I would like to myself to alleviate any burden on their behalf. Does anyone else get really depressed after being arrested? I can't help but feeling like a delinquent and a criminal, even though I'm well aware of the hypocracy going on in this fucked up country. Now I'm afraid to have anything on me at all, I am even too scared to pick up and bring it to the safety of my own home. Any advice guys?

[WhosGotTheHerb]

Sorry, also, it is in Illinois and the NORML site points to the probation solution, but I have heard of several ppl in this state getting charges dropped and whatnot as long as they have a decent lawyer. I'm just not in a good place now... and since I have no bud I have turned to drinking tonight... I must say, I feel sorry for alcoholics.

[DonnieDarko]

1) A good lawyer is a given .. good lawyers got OJ off ...
2) What you've done is called youthful indescretion .. when you were young and foolish ... you were young and foolish ... that's what you say if it comes up on any job interview. George W Bush did cocaine in his youth .. it's part of making mistakes and growing up ... Eighty percent of the people that interview you have tried weed ... guaranteed. That probably goes for your rents .. In short .. life is not over for you .. you had some bad luck.
3) Don't fail a pre-employment drug test ... even if you gotta stop smoking for a while ... the drug test has to be spotless to get any good job these days.

I would like to congratulate you for getting a college degree ... You're way ahead of most people your age .. Keep the positive outlook .. learn from your mistakes ... Write in purple if you want to ..

[palerider7777]

first thing i would say is stop hanging around abunch of jerkoffs first and formost my rule of thumb is to not put myself in a place where i can get fucked u have to use ur brain a lil more

[chantoke]

man it just pisses me off to hear shit like that. at least it's <2.5 grams.

perhaps you can get a lawyer to make the mj inadmissable as evidence because it was taken without probable cause. i don't know though.

[indicagrower]

i too live in illinois and less than 2.5 is nothing to freak out about i wouldn't bother with a lawyer either(court appointed will be fine..they have to do what you want) your looking at a fine and some substance abuse counseling or community service so just chill smoke up and relax

[mikeo14]

I like your purple writting. :D

[WhosGotTheHerb]

Thanks for the advice/words of support guys! I don't have a job yet, and recently decided to quit smoking :'( until I have one, even though it won't be what I want to do (as a rule I'm fucked as an English major anyway..). I've been trying to get a job so I can get a background check out of the way before the arraignment, but no such luck yet. The shitty thing is that it will be on my record for the next five years, that's how long I can wait before having it expunged. That sucks.

I admit, I wasn't the most careful with carrying around shit in my purse, but I completely trusted the friends I was with, since they had way more to lose than me (one of them is attending law school in the fall) so I figured he wouldn't put me at risk like that... but it's times like these where you find out who your TRUE friends are. They were merely smoking buds, nothing more. Once I told them I quit smoking for a job I haven't heard from them since... pretty shitty considering I lived with them for the past year and they live so close now.

The worst part of this whole ordeal, besides the obvious fact of spending $2500 on a good lawyer when I don't have a job and will have a terribly difficult time getting one (can't even enjoy the graduation money..), is how disappointed my parents are. They didn't even care that I smoked, they just care that I 'threw away my future' and made my current situation very difficult.

And smelling it IS probable cause, at least here in IL. And the pig did NOT give us a choice, he said he had the right to search the entire vehicle, including my purse. We merely complied, what else could we do? He would have arrested me if I said I did not give him permission to search my purse... he suspected us of being potheads as soon as my idiot friend drove through the high school parking lot at 1am. I'm hoping my lawyer can use the fact that the pig didn't really have a reason to pull us over and searched us just for 'smelling' it on our clothes (we didn't smoke in the car) EVEN when we had just eaten White Castles in the car. Wish me luck. Fuck the fucking pigs and the fucking hypocritical laws in this fucking country.