That’s right! It’s another tomato raid. This time, in the greenhouse of a Montessori school.
“We were all as a group eating outside as we usually do, and this unmarked drab-green helicopter kept flying over and dropping lower,” she said. “Of course, the kids got all excited. They were telling me that they could see gun barrels outside the helicopter. I was telling them they were exaggerating.” […]
Then other vehicles arrived and four men wearing bullet-proof vests, but without any visible insignias or uniforms, got out and said they wanted to inspect the school’s greenhouses. Pantano said she then turned the men over to the farm director, Greg Nussbaum.
And that’s how the heavily armored men discovered the tomato plants.
Patricia Pantano, the education director, said it best when she…
…questioned why such a commotion was necessary when anyone who asked would have been given a tour of the greenhouses.
“We’re sitting here as a teaching staff, always short on money, and we’re thinking, ‘Gosh, all the money it takes to fly that helicopter and hire all those people, it would be great to have this for education.’ ”
I always supected the movie, “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes” was a documentary! And what about Homer Simpson’s crop of “tomacco?”
Farm out man, this is so like an episode of the X Files… careful Scully, watch out for the tomatoes! IF they’re really tomatoes at all…
Sargent Stedanko was sighted at the raid in a faux laundry van shouting “shoot the moon” out of a zipper on the side of the van. For those that don’t get it watch Cheech & Chong classic up in smoke.
BORG are known to be not that smart.
DATA had a somewhat boring childhood.
Vulcans and Humans,, pffft
C’mon KLINGONS, we know fully well how to both throw a party, and entertain! Ignore the lessor, deviant intellectual dull sterile porcine logical herd bred washed brain goofy CCTV obsessed plant fearing species.
What a great use of tax payer dollars!… not, btw any of the readers of this site like penn and teller’s show BULLSHIT on showtime?
“As we have nothing to hide, you know, they did the tour and they went in the greenhouses and they found it was tomato plants and so that was the story,” [Pantano] said.
*headbang*
*headbang*
*headbang*
*headbang*
*headbang*
Just what are you teaching when it comes to Civics, Ms. Pantano? Blind submission to the state?
I think as a school (presumably licenced by the state) they have very little rights to keep them out.
I love these stories. They’re really good for pointing out the stupidity of drug laws, as well as teach them about the concept of ‘growopaganda.’
“We’re sitting here as a teaching staff, always short on money, and we’re thinking, ‘Gosh, all the money it takes to fly that helicopter and hire all those people, it would be great to have this for education.’
At the very least, people are starting to think that. But:
“Just what are you teaching when it comes to Civics, Ms. Pantano? Blind submission to the state?”
Exactly that.
OOO-Bouy !! More tomato busts ! Whats next, bust for coke that turns out to be goody’s headache powers? Oh Nov cant get here soon enough… time to stop the stupidity!
A helicopter costs appx $100 per hour to fly,more if it is leased. If they fly it for 6 hrs a day,5 days a week just for the last 4 months of the grow period it would pay a teachers salary for a year. That does not include paying the observer/spotter or the ground tactical team.
Even more disturbing,they suited up to raid a school.
Luckily no one gets to bring their dog to class.
These’s no substitute for a solid education. And those kids just got a great civics lesson, courtesy of our Federal Government.
That money is being spent on edjumacation. The entire point is to teach dope fiends a lesson.
By now, just about everyone has heard of the incident where firefighters let a man’s home burn to the ground because he didn’t pay his $75 dollar fee to his local government.
This is where we’re heading. This is the shape of the fiscal reality in this country. And it;s bound to get a whole lot harder and meaner as time goes by.
I once read somewhere a long time ago that “A society has the ethics it can afford.” When it comes to attempting to legislate morality via the drug laws, it is becoming more evident that we can no longer afford the ‘ethics’ behind drug prohibition. It is increasingly, rightly seen as a liability. One that will have to be jettisoned when it finally gets to the point where all those who’ve been marginalized by this economy lose their patience with it…and with those who’ve enriched themselves at everyone else’s expense.
Those teacher’s tepid musings about the waste of all those resources when the teachers could have used them better will acquire more heat and mass as time goes by.
This took place in Santa Fe, New Mexico region. Read another story from the same region about hours and hours of helicopter flights and manpower just to find 35 plants a ranch owner was growing outdoors. Wonder what the cost of manpower and helicopter vs the amount of plants.
Idiots.
What judge signed a warrant for this search? Oh, I forgot, they don’t need one anymore. No stinking badges either. This goes on everyday in every state, as any DWR reader knows. The guy in the White House knows it too…..