Dropped Marijuana Cigarette Leads to Arrest

Source: tcpalm.com

PORT ST. LUCIE — If you’re smoking marijuana in your car, don’t drop your joint — it could catch your vehicle on fire and help lead to your arrest.

That appears to be the moral of a Friday night incident in which Ryan M. Bays and Jonathan D. Mills, both 18, fumbled a marijuana cigarette they were puffing en route to a club, according to a police report released Monday.

Bays stopped the 2009 Acura to look for the dropped blunt because he “didn’t want his vehicle’s interior to catch on fire,” a report states.

Meanwhile, a police sergeant who was traveling east on Southwest Lakehurst Drive saw what he thought was a disabled vehicle. He turned on his emergency lights, and Bays got out. Bays said all was well with the vehicle, but the sergeant smelled marijuana.

Bays told police that he, Mills and a 17-year-old boy in the back seat were headed to a club. Bays and Mills, both of Port St. Lucie, were puffing a pot cigarette and dropped it under a seat, so he stopped in the middle of the road to get it.

Police found about 80 grams of pot in a bookbag in the back seat, which Bays said he bought in Fort Pierce. Investigators also found a loaded shotgun in the trunk, which Bays said was for skeet shooting.

Bays faces charges including possession of more than 20 grams of marijuana, possession of marijuana with intent to deliver and possession of drug paraphernalia, a St. Lucie County jail official said. Bays, listed as a cashier at a grocery store, was released Saturday from the St. Lucie County jail on $10,500 bail, the jail official said.

Mills was given a notice to appear.