Monday, May 24, 2010

THAT'S A BUNCH OF HORSEMINT

Oops or Oh Shit, whichever you prefer. How embarrassing! Why? Because, except that both are green, horsemint doesn't look anything at all like Marijuana.

COPS’ 400 POT PLANTS TURN OUT TO BE HORSEMINT
By Max Read
 
gawker.com
May 23, 2010
 
Cops in Corpus Christi, who are clearly very well-intentioned but maybe not the sharpest tools in the police shed, seized some 400 marijuana plants from a city park. Only, they were not marijuana, so much as, "horsemint."
 
A "teen riding his bike through Waldron Park" gave the Corpus Christi police a call on Friday night to alert them to all the marijuana plants that were growing there. And the police, ever the responsive, civic-minded public servants, showed up very quickly and "hauled away 300-400 medium-sized plants," stopping because it became too dark.
 
However, after spending more than an hour removing and tagging the hundreds of plants, then hauling it all down the police department downtown, testing revealed that none of it was marijuana at all.

According to local news station KRIST, the plants were, in fact, a common weed called "horsemint."
 
You snigger now, but could you tell the difference between horsemint and marijuana? Here is a handy guide:
 
Horsemint - Appearance: According to Wikipedia, "The leaves are oblong-elliptical to lanceolate, 5–10 cm long and 1.5–3 cm broad, thinly to densely tomentose, green to greyish-green above and white below. The flowers are 3–5 mm long, lilac, purplish, or white, produced in dense clusters (verticillasters) on tall, branched, tapering spikes" Scent: "A peppermint-scented aroma"
 
Marijuana - Appearance: Looks like a marijuana plant, for Christ's sake. Scent: It smells like goddamn weed.

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