In this episode, Cae Jones joins me to tell me about his experience with the criminal-justice system for simply possessing cannabis in the state of Illinois.
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Links mentioned during show
- JungleCae website here
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- Episode 47
- Episode 49
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The auto-generated transcript is available below.
in this episode of the Cole memo I sit down with Kay Jones who you might know is jungle K Kay joins me on the show to tell us about his experience with the continued criminalization of cannabis so in January I was pulled over uh in which police found me in possession of about 4 and a half grams of cannabis which they cited me for meaning I had to show up to court today and I paid about $500 for 4 and half grams that I was not smoking because it was sealed in my center console versus my trunk um I say all this to say that as legal as cannabis has become in Illinois there’s still a long ways to go and there’s still a lot of brushing up that we can all do to make sure that we protect ourselves um from situations like this so that’s all maybe I’ll talk about it more later but that’s all for now in today’s episode Kay will be telling his story unfortunately this isn’t the first time I’ve heard a story like this if you’d like to see the stories I’ve gathered so far I’m constantly asking myself if cannabis is legal in Illinois why are people getting arrested and being sent through the court system if you’re wondering the same thing and you’d like to hear more of these stories go to the memo.com isit legal because I’m constantly wondering is it legal the memo.com isit legal to see more stories like these this is the Cole memo I’m your host Cole Preston every episode is released in audio video and transcript format to find the transcript audio or video version of any episode please refer to the description of the episode that you’re listening to now within that description you should be able to find a link that will take you to our website which will display the transcript for this episode and the platforms where you can find this episode in audio or video formats if you’re unable to locate the episode description on whichever platform you’re listening from Simply take note of the episode number and visit the memo.com from there you can find the corresponding episode and then you’ll be able to access the audio video and transcript version of that episode you might also find any links that we reference during the episode so that you might be able to do your own research or connect with awesome chillino like jungle K if you’re not listening to this episode of the co memo on patreon then you’re listening to this episode later than our patrons to become a patron go to the memo.com patreon our show is brought to brought to you by listeners like you and it only costs $3 a month to become a member of our patreon uh patreon page it allows you to get instant access to our episodes as they release another great way to support our show is by going to the memo.com support you can make a one-time monthly or yearly contribution of your choice that’s right you could donate a dollar once monthly which would would be $12 a year every little bit counts it costs a lot to do this show from hosting to licensing fees to equipment to travel and so much more if you’re able to support our show financially that would be greatly appreciated but one of the best ways to support support our show is absolutely free subscribe to or follow our show leave us a positive review from wherever you’re listening to us from favorite this episode give it a thumbs up leave a comment or share it with your uncle your engagement and support is appreciated today is March 21st 2024 enjoy this episode of the Cole [Music] memo [Music] okay I’m happy that I’m speaking with you from the comfort of your home as opposed to you calling me from a jail cell right now before we get into that uh I want you to finish up that dab and then tell us uh tell us where we can find you online and who you are my friend absolutely what’s going on world uh I go by the name of jungle K online that’s spelled jungle c a e um a cannabis educator content creator uh just rocking out and Vibe man hell yeah hell yeah one of the best in the space I must say so folks if you’re looking to learn more about cannabis jungle K is the way to go uh we’ll have links to Jungle K’s socials in the podcast description as always definitely give them a follow support your local chillino and I mean just check out all the great content there’s so much to learn and he you uh you’re constantly doing that that’s why I was I don’t know if you saw it but I recently tagged you there was a really popular weed account and they were looking for weed Educators and I was like jungle K baby jungle K all the way oh yeah man much love I appreciate it absolutely absolutely well I had to give you that plug at the start and I just teased our audience I want to give you the space dude you made a story yesterday we’ve been talking about this for a while now um I want to give you the space to tell your story all right man um well some of y’all might have seen from uh the story I posted recently that was a small dive into larger story at hand so this happened yesterday I’m just going to try and recollect the memory as fully as I can so if you’re rolling some weed if you’re if you’re packing a dab buckle up this is a ride all right um let me just start by saying this happened in January and January 18th was an unfortunate day not just because that was the day that I got pulled over but it was a really really cold day in Chicago I don’t know if y’all remember but it was like Subzero it might have been maybe not Sub-Zero but the windchill was really really bad like it was just advised that people weren’t supposed to go out and um I live over a storefront and the storefront happened to experience a burst pipe uh and that burst pipe caused the water in my building to be shut off for the entire day um and we had no knowledge of this you know what I’m saying I work from home I gotta use the bathroom I gotta take a shower I gotta I gotta cook you know what I mean I can’t stay here so what do I do I book a host heel day at my favorite hotel in the world out in Oakbrook um that’s the only reason I’m out there okay um so we are coming from a restaurant I said we me and my partners we are leaving from a restaurant uh um in this snowstorm it’s about midnight right and it’s really snowy I just bought a new car uh I’m from upstate New York I’m used to the snow I’m used to snowy parking lots uh so what am I thinking I would love to do in the mall maybe scir around a little bit I know it’s not the responsible thing to do you know what I’m saying and as I look around and I see a few security cars and a one two police cars I’m like okay definitely not going to do that all right so we leave only car in the parking lot only car on the road not like maybe two three minutes after we leave from the mall parking lot and get on the highway lights go off and I’m thinking okay that’s weird wonder what’s going on so we get pulled over uh offer goes you know I pulled you over I go no he goes yeah it was really hard to read your plate and I’m like hm it’s really hard to read my my my plate in a snowstorm this is what I’m thinking like now you know what I’m saying but at the time I’m like oh yeah I definitely didn’t brush off the car you know it was a temporary place so it was in my um my rear windshield and snow is covering it for sure but that’s what you gonna pull me over for all right cool this is your car yeah sure is give you this paperwork give you this paperwork cool yeah uh smells a little uh interesting in here I’m like oh I’m not really you know I’m not really sure what you mean you know do you mind if you roll down the back window rolls down the back window there might have been like some residual clouds in the air you know what I’m saying uh maybe from pre or post restaurant early in the day what have you officer comments on it right okay that’s interesting do y’all have the any canvas in the car with you I sure do I sure do officer it’s sealed right here in my center console don’t have access to it you know what I mean they’re in resealable odor prooof containers I absolutely do have some it’s about between three and five grams I’ll say three and seven grams confidently because I don’t want to undershoot and tell y’all you know what I’m saying something that may not be the case it goes okay um well we’re going to pull y’all out you know what I’m saying everybody’s GNA get out the car and we’re going to search y’all body searches all three of us being and my two partners side of the highway January blizzard midnight after a telling bro I I don’t have anything y’all don’t have any other flower in the car no so if you we’re not going to find anything else in here because if if we find something else in here it’s going to be an issue okay as they’re searching the car you know what I’m saying other officers asking me yeah so uh where’ you buy this car in yeah where in Indiana Indianapolis Motorsports on xli Z road if it really matters to you okay and you live there now no I live on the address that’s on my license oh okay so you live in Chicago yeah all right so you don’t have anything on you that’s gonna you know hurt me or anything like that I know they’re obligated to ask that but I’m like bro we are literally just trying to go to the hotel like it is two minutes away from the restaurant that we just ate at that’s all so searches all three of us you know what I’m saying pulls the flower out we go back we sit in the car and we sit in the car for a while this is a mind game that I learn they play bro we don’t set for five minutes we don’t set for 10 minutes we sat for maybe like 15 to 17 minutes after they pull the flower out of the car and you know I’m the only one whose ID they pulled uh because they kept asking they’re like well whose flower is it whose flower is whose flower is it honestly they were gifts I didn’t purchase them they were given to me they were gifts and the three of us are like I mean it’s all of ours we’re roommates we we all go in on it I don’t know what you want us to say we’re not trying to lie and also it’s like three or four grams like what are we really talking about here um so yeah after they well not even after they come back I’m thinking I’m like they really don’t have anything that they can pull like I know I don’t have anything on my record I I mean I didn’t run a red light or anything like that sure I didn’t brush off my car but I we weren’t even smoking in here the flower is sealed it was sealed you know what I’m saying it wasn’t in the trunk but why wasn’t it in the trunk because I drive a SUV the trunk is readily accessible I can reach back and be in my trunk you know what I’m saying so even if it was in my trunk who’s to say that officer is not going to think like oh he just threw it back here as soon as we over so finally comes back and he goes yeah okay so uh we’re going to give you the citation here it’s for unlawful possession of cannabis by a driver and uh yeah you can see for the court date on there it’ll let you know yeah and i’ I’ve never gotten any kind of ticket like this or violation like this so I’m thinking like Gordy like I can’t just like pay this off like whatever kind of fee this is or whatever and I look at it the original date is the day after my birthday so I’m like okay well I’m definitely not going to do it on this date like so what’s good with that because I’m I’m straight up not available like I’m not coming so what are we gonna do about that he’s like well you can contact the court and they’ll give you a continuous you could pick a different date so did that and I’m like all right cool thankfully didn’t take the car thankfully didn’t take anybody to jail you know what I’m saying those were blessings but I go to the hotel and I look at this this ticket you know what I’m saying this is a different ticket this isn’t just like a orange parking ticket that you get you know what I’m saying it looks different it looks kind of official I wish I I might have it on give me one second all right see this [ __ ] looks for real okay you got like a whole violation on here um against the local ordinance yeah nature of offense unlawful possession of cannabis by a driver um it doesn’t say how much is on here it doesn’t say whether or not I was smoking on here that’s all that it says so I go and I look up this this violation right this charge and I’m like okay what do I need to do to handle this I understand that I have to go to a court date but like what is what does that mean and I’m looking at it and all I’m seeing is like defense attorney as like hit us up before you go to jail cuz you’re going to [ __ ] jail you’re going to jail tomorrow and you need us right now so call us now because it’s free don’t worry about it we’ll talk about that later but you’re going to jail so don’t worry about it okay and I’m like I’m going to jail what are we what are we talking about this is when I find out that this violation is a class A misdemeanor punishable by up to $2500 and a year in for 10 gr or less yep generally just if I could add really quick yeah class A misdemeanors are equivalent from the the attorneys I’ve spoken to you can get a Class A misdemeanor for domestic violence so seems equivalent right for that was a joke by the way listen listen listen it’s so crazy for for not smoking but having cannabis in your possession in anywhere other than your trunk meaning if it was in your back seat versus your trunk that is a misdemeanor versus you walking free that is court fees attorney fees versus you walking free that is something on your record versus you going free the difference in a few feet within your own vehicle I thought that was crazy I thought that was crazy um so it starts to sink in a little bit and I’m like oh I kind of have a situation on my hands uh I need to kind of figure this out and I think that was when I started to contact you and I was like yo like do you know anything about this like this just happened like what do I need to do and you’re like okay I got you bro like hit up these uh torties you know what I’m saying we’ll get the process rolling then I started to learn a little bit about it um um but the next wave of like intimidation didn’t come until like a week or two later when I wasn’t seeing defense attorney ads but I was getting defense attorney mail flooded to me floods me I was I was getting like five to six a day and I’m like how did they even get my address like how is this possible my address and this is before I even get an official court notice that I have a court date right and so I look up how defense attorneys are able to get you know addresses like that and it turns out that they have made deals with police departments across the country you know wherever you’re at to buy that information that goes into police databases as soon as it happens so the second that you get cided with this you’re about to get flooded with mail that’s like oh okay well you know you need help defending your arrest or do you need help not going to jail XYZ contact us and ultimately like I’m thankful that I didn’t employ any of them and I was able to handle this on my own with some guidance but there are a lot of people who probably would have taken up those offers and gotten themselves in a worse Financial Place doing so you know so it’s so many layers to like how this the difference in a few feet within your own VI vehicle can really rock your your your worldview you know what I’m saying I’ve never experienced anything with the judicial system this was my first runin you know um So eventually I get in contact uh with a family friend who has been a defense attorney you know and has given me some good guidance and he gets on the phone with me and he’s like hey like you know what’s going on look like let me know the deal like yeah so got possession of cannabis this this and then he goes possession of cannabis it’s not even a jailable offense where where did you get pulled over I was like yeah I got pulled over right out of cook Hy I’m like okay I hear you but that’s that’s still that’s not a jailable offense uh you definitely shouldn’t worry anything about it it’s probably just going to be a fine um but I’m surprised that this is even going down like this so you should be good go ahead and go forward so I got that information and I at least felt a little bit more conf comforted you know because that is what a few people were telling me I did have some people that were like you know you should definitely get some kind of representation um but you know everybody’s got to do what is right for their own situation and ultimately I had felt like I had done nothing wrong okay I didn’t bring it up at the time because I wasn’t registered at the time my registration had expired but as of now I’m a registered medical patient you know what I mean and that is what I was going to present to whoever I needed to present s to and be like is this like really the protocol for how we handle this all the time um yeah so going forward I think from there because there really wasn’t a whole lot of development man that’s a whole another part of it like just waiting The Waiting you want to be done with it so bad you want to be through with the whole situation so bad and there’s nothing that you can really do outside of like sit and really deal with everything that’s going on and yeah you just gotta wait it’s crazy and um so my original date was the 21st of February my date got pushed to yesterday March 20th right so the very first piece of advice I got was don’t get caught with weed in your car between now and your court dat right so that’s already a solid two Monon period that I got to be extra on my toes um yeah there was just a lot of like waiting and dealing with this like yo are they really gonna try and take me to jail over this [ __ ] like is this just going to be like an exorbitant fine like I’d be grateful if it is but the Poss like even the possibility of going to jail for simple possession in a legal State as a medical patient was blowing my mind blowing my mind right well and especially I don’t mean to say that you would ever pull this card but you could be like do you even know who I am man you know I mean like it’s like pulling over like it’s literally almost like pulling over Snoop Dogg like you’re one of our like cannabis hicons in Illinois so it’s like much love man you know no it’s it’s it’s so funny because one of the I’ll get to it eventually but one of the things that the prosecution was offering me was like and you don’t have to do the Cannabis education course and I just laughed in my head bro I oh no get him his education right oh man so I think that about brings us to yesterday the day of because like I said it was just unfortunately a lot of waiting and that’s a whole another like mind game that they really play with you with and so I put on my Sunday Best you know what I’m saying I pull up in a suit and it’s so funny I I try and pick up on all the little things you know what I’m saying there’s a couple police officers that are you know checking everybody in there’s one lady in front of me you know she gets the good morning all right you can just set your stuff here and then go through here all right cool nobody else in the building I don’t get the good morning I’m like that’s fine but you know what I do get you know thanks for wearing a suit you know nobody wears nobody wears a suit these days they pull up in Jam I was like why wouldn’t I pull up in a suit I I usually wear suits I wear suits every day so they didn’t say anything after that and so I walked into my hearing uh there was maybe like there was a decent amount of people there there was probably like 15 other people there at first and I didn’t really know who I was there for what but I figured most of it was for traffic violations because it was traffic court and that’s what most of them were was literally like a line of like seven to 10 people that stood up at first and all of them had pretty much the same thing and they just ran down the line and uh everybody pretty much walked away after getting their paperwork and it was good to go wait they had the same thing like the same charge not the same charge but like they had like some lowlevel thing that was easily like judgeable or dismissable or whatever the case was because it only took maybe like two minutes for each person that was actually standing up there to be done and actually walk out but nothing cannabis related no not at this point okay and so I’m like oh this is a really quick process I don’t know if there’s like an additional process after they leave here or what because it was flowing like relatively quickly and then it started to go a little bit slower you know what I’m saying um I don’t know the the flow of court or anything like that like I’m literally figuring this out for the first time and so you look over over in the corner there’s like a couple police officers sitting over there I’m looking the dude that pulled me over and the people from his team were not there I knew that for a fact uh then there was the county clerk and the judge and then there was two lawyers over here and I learned that they was a prosecution right and so time goes by time goes by I’m one of the last people in that [ __ ] you know and I’m like okay they probably saving it obviously because this is some different [ __ ] and uh one of the officer from the checkin he walks up to me he goes y you’re here for a traffic violation right I’m like no he’s like okay um well yeah you could probably just go up there and wait yeah and so I get up and then I go and wait and I’m thinking okay is this it [ __ ] okay we’re started already and eventually I get called up judge goes approach please and I’m like hello she goes good morning um what’s your last name Jones okay uh this is a class A misdemeanor punishable by up to 2500 and uh a year in jail would you like to plead guilty not guilty or there’s something else she literally just got into it that quick I was like um I didn’t say um but in my head I was like I plead not guilty and keep in mind she’s looking at her computer and she stop and she looks up at me for a second like kind of kind of confused was kind of bewildered and then um she was like um okay well then we’ll start to look for a court date for your officer and then one of the she asked one of the prosecution attorneys she’s like when is Officer BL D I know his name but I probably shouldn’t say it um when his officer B available and one of the attorneys the mail attorney goes yeah he’s available April 177 April and he didn’t get to the dates because the other the woman prosecutor started to interrupt him and kind of shush him and talk to the judge directly right and I didn’t really hear what she said but the judge goes okay we’re gonna pass on this for a second and I’m like uh okay she’s like yeah you can go sit down and as I’m walking away she was like yeah are we gonna pass this for the the pile or for the dead or like what’s going on and then I didn’t really hear it until I came inside back down so by the time that I sat back down I turned around and prosecution was already walking over to the police right so she goes over and she’s talking to the police officers for I don’t know a couple minutes maybe they’re in a huddle and I I make I don’t try and pay attention intentionally you know what I mean because I’m just trying to like look as show as possible like I’m just here doing my thing you know what I mean whatever yall need me to do like fine and so she walks up and she goes hi okay uh I’m the prosecution uh you don’t have to talk to me if you don’t want to but uh if you were to plead guilty today um we could get your fee down to $200 and then there would be the additional court fees of the $300 and we can’t really wave that uh and there will also be three months Court supervision but you would be waving the Cannabis education course and stuff like that and we wouldn’t have to go to Tri you know and I’m thinking like okay uh well when is the trial date and she goes oh we can do it right now and I’m like it didn’t it didn’t go off in my head right then but I knew that it was kind of weird that she was like do it right now and I was like um can I take a second like I think I’m gonna go like get on the phone real quick and she was like oh yeah take your time but now that I’m thinking back on it I’m like do it right now wouldn’t there need to be a jury present there was no jury present there was no there was nobody else in the courtroom it was the prosecution it was the police it was the the court the uh you know the judge and nobody else in the room and from what I remember she was like you know and you could take it to trial if you want to you have to convince a jury be un reasonable doubt that you didn’t do this and so how would it make sense that they would take it to court right then and there without a jury right so this is something that again I didn’t think about it until now I’m thinking about it I go and get on the phone with uh dude who told me not to worry about it right got to seal the joint and um you know the word people spark up if you got them hell yeah no it’s about that time yeah I’m gonna get right into this [ __ ] oh yeah I appreciate you coming on man and and talking about this I think it’s important for other people to hear about this I realized that like this is such an easy situation to get caught in and people need to know about this to be able to avoid it you know so I get on the phone with um the person who recommended that I just kind of chill and I let him know the situation right so I’m like hey uh they said that they’re ready to go to trial right now you know if I want to or I can take this guilty plea of this this and that you know what I’m saying XYZ but I really didn’t feel like I did anything wrong oh gotta backtrack real quick before before I get on the phone as I’m listening to uh the officer give me this guilty plea deal because keep in mind she’s giving me this guilty plea deal before the judge or anybody has talked about whether or not I was smoking whether or not the flower was open how much I was actually traveling with whether or not this was my first offense whether or not I was a medical cannabis patient none of those things were discussed before she came over with the plea deal and tried to get me to you know go from there so after she offers me that I go um okay well do we really need to like do all this because you know I’m a medical cannabis patient and you know in my county and she was like yeah no it doesn’t matter uh if you are this this and that like if you have cannabis in your car and it’s not in your trunk then that’s that so going off of her tone it seems like they were ready to prosecute me based off of that statute alone Point Blank period yeah so in my head like I was like maybe I think think I should take it I get on the phone dude he’s like yeah you know what just take it it’s not going to go on your record you know what I’m saying as long as you just keep your head down for the next three months it’ll be all good and then we can get it expunged later and then I had an an exclamation point over my head I was like expunged wait a second what do you mean expunged you said it’s not going on my record so this was a whole new layer that I learned about dog oh also I didn’t understand what court supervision was until after I got out of but I’ll get into that in a second yeah [ __ ] roller coaster dude yeah um so I’m thinking expunge like okay I guess sure so I go back in there and prosecution walks right up she’s bright ey bushy tailed she’s all right so uh you know what you like to do and I just pause for a second because I didn’t want to give it to her right away I’m like yeah I guess we could do that you know and she was like okay uh all right so we’re going to go over here and you’re gonna sign this paper that waves your right to a jury and we’re gonna um you know we’re g to get you in front of the judge we’re going to say this and then you’re gonna have that fine and you’re going to be on your way literally didn’t explain what core supervision was or anything like that so I go up to the judge she goes you know judge we talked about it he’s a medical Canabis patient he understands you know that he needs to be in his trunk XYZ so we like we offer him this he likes to do that uh that’s fine with you judge is like all right cool boom and I was like I like to State Attorney goes he understands that he can’t be smoking and his cannbis flower shouldn’t be open yeah d d and I was like I’d like to say F the record that I was not smoking and my flower was not open yeah I didn’t say anything else and I just stared at the judge and uh she was like all right cool boom did that and was that she handed me I don’t think she even handed me anything she was like all right you can go over to the the county clerk and handle this you know she was like as long as you pay the $535 by June 10th and you don’t have any other offenses uh you this won’t appear on your record you know this won’t appear as a conviction on your record so I’m like all right seems easy know I go over to the county cler she’s like okay cool so you have until June 10th to pay off $535 uh you can do that by mail by this this and that I was like oh no I’m trying to pay that today she was like oh are you sure because you know that you can stretch this out over XYZ I’m like no I want to pay that right now where where do I go to pay that right now she was like okay well yeah you can do it right here she had the little keypad right there and she’s typing in the keypad and she was like um I don’t know if it was like a processing or something that she just like said off off rip without even thinking about it she was like yeah that’s a lot of money and I was like loud enough for the judge here I was like yeah I [Laughter] agree that’s so yeah um I paid that [ __ ] thankfully by the grace of God I was able to do that because a lot of people you know I realized that that’s not a feasible reality for some people in this country um right and I walked out of there and that was that and it wasn’t till you know what I’m saying I got in the car and I really looked up with court supervision meant and like I’m basically on like some kind of semi probation period for simple possession which is crazy and not only am I now officially on this period at the end of this I will have been on a probational period for cannabis possession for five or six months which is [ __ ] crazy if you ask man right an illegal um so yeah after that you know sat in the car for a while I took my picture I made my story right then and there bro I I was gonna set up my tripod like right outside the courthouse and like give my story and like tell it right then and there but like a I was kind of rushing out the door and B something and was like um man I don’t know if people want to see like this in-depth detail ya d da so I’m just going to like I’m going to go there I’m going to make do whatever I make out of it so I did that but man I wish I would have brought my tripod and like really gotten into it right then and there that would have been cool that would have been cool but that all happened obviously the court part of it that’s CRA that’s a lot for one day you were just they were just like zooming you around this building like oh go over here and like were you changing courtrooms and [ __ ] oh no it all happened in one little room little Lobby and um yeah the the prosecution was the one that was zipping between uh the judge and the police and I’m thinking like now another thing that I’m thinking back on is like okay let’s say we took this to trial how are y’all GNA corroborate any of the details without the officer here or just like replicating it like smell is so subjective yeah I’m sorry give me one second man yeah no problem you are all right we’re back on so yeah it it happened relatively quickly outside of the waiting period you know when I was waiting for all the other people to get processed but it happened extremely quickly like I’m thinking back on this now like how are y’all going to replicate this how are you going to Cate the details allow the officer here what was y’all gonna say did was y’all really not going to give a [ __ ] about whether or not this was my first offense whether or not I was a patient how much flow I had on me y’all could have just threw the whole book at me and just just called it a day right and again I just want to dwell on the fact like how are they going to replicate it like are they be like all right your honor we’re going to have him pull his vehicle in here and uh we’re GNA have him put that container in his center console and then we’re GNA have you or the jury whoever you got to prove it to sit in his car or go up to his car and see like how do you how are you going to replicate that you know I mean there are with with like crimes where you actually hurt somebody there’s something where you like do like ballistics or something like that so you can prove a crime you don’t have to replicate that um yeah that’s what that’s that’s so interesting because I remember the judge had kept saying to somebody yeah well this is a class A misdemeanor so this is a class A misdemeanor so so that’s all that they were looking at so if this was a quote unquote Class A misdemeanor and it needed to be handled by trial or whatsoever I would think that a trial at least a jury would need to be present or the officer would need to be present right but no they just came back with that cute little plea deal in probation period so yeah let’s talk about that I mean unless you have a different idea of where you’d like to go next I I’m curious like you said you basically have the charge but now you’re going to have to go through an expungement process under after while being under Court supervision is that kind of a natural next step in the story yeah so I think I have to wait until I actually am in the clear so it’ll be June June 20th when I’m officially in the clear from this charge it’s fitting yeah um and from there I think that so how it was explained to me is that it won’t show up on my record but how it was also explained to me is that if a judge wanted to pull this up if I got pulled over later down the line or if I got in offense later down the line they will be able to see that and reference that and site me for whatever based off of that right so the expungement is so that doesn’t happen but that wasn’t explained to me shout out to Logan local yeah dude shout out to Logan local I love that guy um so yeah I’m gonna have to go through an expungement process uh once that’s through and I’m not necessarily familiar with the EXP process this is going to be a great opportunity for me to learn though um and yeah I’ve just looked at this as a as a learning opportunity in in totality because like I said I had no experience with a Judicial System um I now know how at the very least do count D Page County government sees Stoners okay uh and the federal government for for lack of better words um and I want to just help people avoid that because that is so so possible for anybody I mean keep it a being it was a driving wild black that turned into this you know what I’m saying but there’s no there’s no reason that it can’t happen to absolutely anybody absolutely absolutely um yeah just wanted to they saw the no plates on the car and we’re very curious right well they saw the car too you said it was new right I mean relatively new it’s [ __ ] 2017 yeah it was nice so that so I guess what I’m saying is what I’ve heard especially in the southern states that will or southern part of the states so there’s different as lawyers have described it to me there are like different jurisdictions all over the state of Illinois and that’s kind of part of the problem here because depending on where you get pulled over you could face a drastically different um result I don’t know if you remember but like for a while people were really excited because there were some rulings a local level that said that odor couldn’t be used as a reason to search a vehicle or to do what they did to you but those were local rulings so that meant if you were pulled over in that county then that’s the case but if you got pulled over in the wrong County like you did you still have to deal with that right so and that’s why we’re waiting on this Supreme Court case you know ultimately I’ve heard so many people tell me like oh yeah I’ve literally had so many problems in that exact County or you know in the surrounding counties obviously but this would not happen in Cook County you know what I’m saying people are telling me like what man I’ve gotten caught with this amount this amount and they’re just like man take that [ __ ] home in Cook County you know what I’m saying but the difference in proximity within a legal State quot quote unquote legal State makes a difference makes an extreme difference yeah yeah well you know just in case people are in the same spot as you I I don’t know exactly where to start on this but I’m just going to share what I do know because I recently sat down with Cana Equity Illinois and if you go to their link tree which I’ll put in the podcast description the very bottom links that they have are need help with expungement watch our how- to expunge 2020 webinar so I hope that helps to anybody that are that’s listening right now um and like I say I’ve never heard of or had to gone through had to go through that process I can’t speak for their services but they do seem like they’re coming from a good place and they’ve been on this podcast several times so maybe a good place to start at least um yeah definitely no they reached out for sure because I was you know obviously I’m gonna you know advocate for people to know about this going forward and there there’s a lot of people who’ have come out of the woodwor that want to be involved with that so yeah yeah well I’ve got I’ve got a few different questions for you but I wanted to give you the space if there’s still more to this I I was I’ve been writing down questions because I didn’t want to interrupt the story but like if you still more bases uh to cover I wanted to give you the space yeah I think that’s I think that’s about it man honestly as as far as I can remember I talked as in depth as I could hell yeah hell yeah well again thank you for joining me and here’s the part where you might get frustrated and others might get frustrated too um it’s crazy to think I’ve talked to lawyers and so when cannabis was legalized medically in 2014 I think originally started showing up in the stores around 2015 so you might have been rolling around with some legal weed in 2015 but the crazy part is and you can see this uh folks on episode 47 of my podcast which is the Supreme Court debate on odor uh they bring up the idea that the medical cannabis law as it was written has no mention of odor at all and so that means that technically for a brief period of time you could roll around and it could smell and they couldn’t use that as a reason to get in your car I guess hypothetically speaking I also wanted to add that cannabis was decriminalized in 2016 by then Governor Bruce rer and as attorneys have told me the exact situation you could just got caught in would have gone would have been a $200 ticket and you would have been on your way between 2016 and 2020 because you see the Cannabis regulation and Tax Act the law that legalized cannabis is what added this as a Class A misdemeanor that’s where it began and so what absolutely yeah so before 2020 this was not an issue um I mean at least that would have stood up in law and went this far and that’s why they were just off the book Class A misdemeanor Class A misdemeanor because that’s what you did I mean it it was that and uh I want to just play a small clip from an attorney because I think that sometimes it’s powerful for people to not hear it from just me you know the person that’s been smoking a joint not that that lessons what I’ve said but you know I just want to get give it from a a license perspective right so here we go hell yeah right but the problem is we’re in a state where we say it’s legal we say we’re Progressive on cannabis but um we still have more ways now to get in trouble criminal trouble for cannabis than we did before 2020 so the ti it’s it’s hard to do the dance or hard to stay on the tight rope whichever you know analogy we want to use definitely in many cases it’s hard and we can we can talk about that but in some cases my favorite one that we’ll be talking about today it’s arguably impossible right and I’m talking about Illinois Supreme Court will soon decide whether the smell of pot is enough reason for police to search a car even if um say the driver were to say yeah it’s right here I have a cannabis in this old prescription pill container which is child resistant it’s got the child resistant top it’s sealed is that not good enough if the officer says I can smell it the officer can then effectuate an arrest put the person in handcuffs take them to jail make them post bond because they’ve committed a Class A misdemeanor punishable by a year in jail so the point of this whole rant that I’m going on is that we have a law in Illinois that says that you can possess and transport cannabis in a vehicle but only if it can’t be smelled I think it’s just a skeleton key for probable C it’s just a probable cause generator for police and before you accuse me of being conspiratorial or you know being a wack job who thinks that this is all some dark magic to give police probable cause I have seen it I have represented people and taken their cases through the court system who got charged with more serious crimes only because the police said that they smelled cannabis and not because the police said you have illegal cannabis or not because you have too much cannabis or not because you’re high on cannabis MH holy [ __ ] smell it and that’s it so uh that’s where we’re at right now in Illinois and I hope it changes just so and that’s actually a sneak peek at my new Mini do that’s going to come out on the failures of cannabis legalizations so oh man let me just very quickly L the work that you’ve been doing bro you have been one of my favorite investigative journalists in this [ __ ] in the region and in the industry period thank you for doing what the [ __ ] you do um I want to go I want to go on to say that I said that this was like a wakeup call to how the the federal government sees Stoners you know what I’m saying generally medical Canabis or not it was also a wakeup call to how the judicial system was designed and how the police system is designed and it’s like you know you hear these like insane things all the time like you know the government is going to make more money off of you in prison than you are free and the proof is kind of in the pudding like that courtroom was designed for me to go to jail that day Those ads you [ __ ] got Bro think about the whole thing it’s like there’s a business everything everything is a business it’s all about generating revenue and it it it made me realize bro just the more people that they can lock up for whatever for longer the better off that they’re going to be they aren’t really working to work with you I didn’t feel that I was innocent until proven guilty in that courtroom them [ __ ] looked at me like a criminal from the second I walked in the building they didn’t give a [ __ ] about [ __ ] about they they didn’t care if I talked they would not have care if I spoke when I went in if I would have pled guilty maybe they would have went you know right out the gate maybe they would have gave me some lenen here or whatever but because I went in and I said the very little bit that I did they tried to shut me the [ __ ] up it was was crazy and like I said I tried to have the legal barriers or whatever you want to call it to help set me up for success I tried to be a law AB bodying citizen as a medical cannabis patient that should do not matter that sh does not matter yeah and I mean you I agree with you that being a medical patient adds strength to your argument but as we were starting off with if it’s legal in this State you shouldn’t need a card to to strengthen your argument you know what I mean why is it an argument exactly why is an argument we’re in a legal State how is this an argument how is possessing something that I can go and buy from a store and pay taxes on and drive home with a receipt from a jailable offense yeah because it’s in my seat versus my trunk that’s that’s seriously what we’re talking about like if if it has not been made perfectly clear if you go to the dispensary and you pick up something and you put it in anywhere other than the trunk in your car and you drive home in the wrong County you can go to jail for up to a year a year and realize that the containers are supposed to be odor prooof but if you’ve ever been into a dispensary it smells and uh okay are the products packaged at dispensaries or do they come prepackaged they come prepackaged right prepackaged yeah which means folks that you know they are not in odor-proof containers how how can we really like seal like no pun intended but seal up this odor prooof plausibility you know what I mean because if we’re going to say that cannabis can be in a space we have to acknowledge that cannabis is an odorous plant right um it’s it’s insane it’s it’s pretty it’s pretty nuts and it’s important to make the point that while you can search up the term odor-proof container online and it will yield plenty of results that might do a great job there’s no such thing as I’ve talked to several K9 officers and lawyers about on the show there’s there’s no such thing as a odor prooof container and uh I’ve talked to people that do border work if there were such a thing as an odor-proof container they would not be using canines anymore because they would be ineffective there is no such thing oh my gosh I can’t believe it’s that simple it is that simple right I mean the officers will tell you themselves you know like you know I’m not discounting the fact that there may be some honest officers out there but the K9 is used as a tool and as the attorney said especially odor it’s it’s used as a tool and this is the final thing and I’m glad this didn’t happen to you um it’s used as a skele skeleton key to toss your vehicle to get into your vehicle and if they find anything else that might have been a problem because they’ve got a skeleton key to get in there they then have the right to take your whole vehicle so it’s a when I said you had a nice car and stuff they will pull over people with nice cars um or who they think M meet to the you know fit that they’re looking for um in order to seize their property it’s a legal way to steal your property and they have a financial incentive to do so they they literally auction off you can see police auctions with nice Vehicles all the time guess where they come from just people that were unfortunately caught at the wrong place at the wrong time that’s crazy man it’s really crazy yeah so folks be careful out there and you know just it’s unfortunate that we can’t really give anybody solid advice today because even with you when you asked me like I gave you some advice but I was like I you know this is really kind of fluid there’s not a solid answer to this and I feel that’s it’s unfortunate we can’t really put a bow on this episode and be like all right folks if you find yourself in this position I mean but can you share anything else before we go just any tips or pointers I lose you yeah sorry you’re kind of breaking up yeah let me turn off my Wi-Fi real quick okay could you repeat that my friend yeah so I know that we don’t have many answers today but I just wanted to give you some more space before we close is there any like advice you could impart for people that that are going through the situation or might be about to go through the situation because it still could happen any day now um even if it’s just like peace of mind I don’t know any advice you can impart before we go because this is crazy yeah no you know now that I’m thinking about it um really the only advice that I can feasibly think of is if you’re traveling with cannabis you know it should probably go in your trunk but as we’ve talked about and as is the case for many vehicles your trunk could be in the same cabin as you meaning that even in your trunk your car is probably going to smell like cannabis um so that being said maybe we all just need to invest in more fragrances you know what I mean more fragrance covers it’s it’s unfortunate that that’s what it’s come to at this point but I can’t really think of another feasible way out of this like yeah that’s it like at least in my situation like I said my trunk is in the same cabin as my driving space so if I have you know something that smells relatively oh you know there’s another thing um the lock boxes I’ve heard that you know they need a warrant to open any kind of lock container and I do have some lock containers um and that’s that’s a good workaround for sure that’s that’s a recommended thing I wish I had um my [ __ ] on me but anything that has like a little combination lock on the box uh or there’s even bags with combination locks that is I’ve heard a good way out of it um a lot of people have told me that there were a few searches and that you know because they did the search illegally the case gets thrown out but me being a black man I wasn’t about to refuse a police [ __ ] I was just trying to get on my way you know um so yeah that’s that’s really where we’re at yeah just be aware of of what can happen you know what I’m saying I guess and uh better mentally arm yourself because if I got pulled over because my car smelled like weed and they wanted to search it and they found it in the trunk like are they going to believe that I didn’t throw it back there we’re going to have to hope so but for now I’m just going to have to travel with the lockbox and hope that you know me now having this thing semi on my record doesn’t give them reason to press me any further for the next three months yeah well said well I have I have one question that I realized I missed uh I think it’s an easy one and then I’ve got a final little joke we can end on that that’ll maybe be the at least we can end on a laugh right um so um what kind of things you mentioned like the ads would say like you’re going to jail and stuff like that but did they like know it was a cannabis offense or did you was it seem targeted oh okay okay yeah hell no they just it Class A misdemeanor that’s that’s all all anybody that’s all anybody knew that’s all anybody was like a picture of like a guy with like a cigarette and a wife beater on cuz like you know good dud in trailer I don’t know but something stupid okay so um I I my joke and this is not actual advice to end on my joke and this is inspired by uh protesters from the University of Illinois uh that did hash Wednesday back in the day if people want to learn about that go to co memo.com hisory what they did back in the day to smoke weed on the quad in like the 70s 80s and 90s openly uh in front of the police and everything was they flooded they gave everybody cigarettes some of them had weed in them some of them had cigarettes in them they gave everybody brownies some of them had weed in them some of them didn’t have anything in it and it conf they flooded and they they made it so the police couldn’t make sense of what was actually going on and they they just stopped they just like [ __ ] it we we’re we’re going to get ourselves in trouble for arresting somebody with a tobacco joint or something like that right so they like backed away so my analogy my joke my my joking advice for this issue is that uh you know hemp’s legal right now so maybe just like dang a hemp uh nug on your center console like a like a air freshener yeah you know what I mean or just like leave a bunch of hemp in your car so that your car always smells like weed or get you know I’m sure there’s weed air fresheners just make everything smell like weed even when you don’t have weed on you even if you don’t smoke weed people if you’re listening to this make your car smell like weed yeah as an advocate right so that it’s just like something that they’re like we can’t [ __ ] deal with this I’m Jing so funny on the opposite end of this Spectrum uh I was definitely thinking you know maybe I need to buy an emergency pack of cigarettes so if I ever get pulled over I just need to burn a bunch of cigarettes and not even smoke them and just be like oh yeah this is all cigarette smoke like I love smoking cigarettes smell all this cigarette smoke that’s what I’m doing I will just say that I’ve I watched cops for some reason the show I don’t even know if it’s still on the air but I watched it as a young kid and that was a move that people did and they actually they like they like oh this guy just sparked up a cigarette as we’re pulling him over he’s probably doing something that we don’t that he doesn’t want us to smell this is a common thing they’re on to me yeah they’re after me Lucky Charms yeah well K uh I had a really good time speaking with you today and it’s been too long I’m looking forward to the next time we can connect and um you know last I saw you were mentioning doing events so maybe when you’ve got another event ready I always love to have people on that are doing events cuz I truly believe that that’s what the community needs right now um and we talked about this before we went on a but I guess I’m just pitching that out there as an idea um for a follow-up conversation maybe if you’ve got something cooked up or whenever just hit me up and you can come back on the Pod so definitely definitely we do man thanks for having me it was a pleasure as always like I said you’re doing phenomenal work for the community everybody tell a friend that’s your homework today tell a friend to tune into the co memo because we know that you love the co memo but we need you to get somebody that doesn’t love the co memo to love the co memo that’s your homework for today thank y’all for listening to my story okay thank you so much and folks I hope you found as much value in this conversation as I did we’ll see you in the next episode of the Cole memo take care peace out
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