[21-year-old Thomas Ricardo Cunningham and 19-year-old Mary Elizabeth] face felony charges including inducing consumption of controlled substances by fraudulent means, and second degree assault.
December 11, 2012
"Two students from the University of Colorado Boulder were arrested after they gave marijuana-laced brownies to their professor and unsuspecting classmates Friday."
It was "bring food to class" day. Perhaps they thought it was amusing, considering that "legalization" they have in Colorado now.
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62 comments:
They'll be in the Martha Stewart wing of the Julia Childs Correctional Institute.
-XC
Behind bars without bail. Sounds about right to me.
Google "Thomas Ricardo Cunningham" and click on Images. Interesting, to say the least.
WTF does this headline
CU students arrested for feeding marijuana brownies to unassuming class
mean?
Unassuming? What? Are these people who write this stuff even literate?
"Controlled substances"?
I thought it was now a legal product in Colorado. Seriously.
Would you get arrested for putting tobacco or caffeine in brownies, too?
Obama voters Im sure
Happened to me at a party gig in the early 70's. Walked off stage, grabbed a brownie from the end of the food table and halfway through the second set I was feeling no pain. Everything was....groovy. Wild thing.
Our societies laws, norms, and punishments are becoming downright dangerous to nagivage.
Safer than alcohol, right?
This is just the modern version of spiking the punch.
Wait, you can't poison people without their permission?
Who knew?
@Quayle - Ain't it the truth brother. Everytime you turn around you're breaking some law you had no idea even existed. We got busted for fishing off the beach with no license. Who ever heard of such a thing? For generations you could fish off the beach but I guess the State needed revenue to feed the beast of bureaucracy. It's the little freedoms they take away that get ya'...
See: But when you spike the punch, you don't risk people who may have to have a drug test will face federal prosecution because of your prank.
Things like this are why, in many elementary schools, students cannot bring food to class unless it's commercially prepared and wrapped.
Pogo: But it is not legal at the federal level, I believe. So, controlled substance is still accurate.
Would you get arrested for putting tobacco or caffeine in brownies, too?
Perhaps. There are laws about tampering with food. Would it be any different had they put cocain or heroin in the brownies? It's one thing to make pot laced brownies for yourself and your friends to knowingly consume. It's quite a different thing to give pot-laced brownies to someone without their knowledge.
What kind of university class has 'bring food to school' day?
The seriously unseriousness of modern American education.
When someone gives me food, I typically ask what's in it.
I would wager $100 that this class was not an Engineering Class.
Would you get arrested for putting tobacco or caffeine in brownies, too?
Or ExLax? Back when I was in school, rumor was that a girl brought in brownies for the faculty room. The faculty was kept running and the girl got into trouble. But it wasn't a felony, for crying out loud. Does everything have to be illegal?
I'm not in favor of it, not at all. I see an expected consequence of legalization, is my point.
It's Colorado, it's legal, and this is what morons do: They vote for Prez Choom and put choom in the brownies.
"At approximately 10:20 a.m. on Friday, police responded to the Hellems Arts and Sciences Building on campus after a professor became dizzy. Paramedics took the professor who was going in and out of consciousness to a local hospital to be treated."
-- Also, this looks like it wasn't just innocent marijuana brownies. They screwed up their prank, got people seriously ill and could have killed someone if they passed out at a bad time. Prosecution seems fair here.
Well, I would not be so all alone
Everybody must get stoned!
With ExLax: It matters on the consequences. If it is just people had uncomfortable stomachs all day, probably nothing serious would happen. If someone had a serious medical reaction though? Then I think you'd have seen t be a felony. A lot of prosecution is based on actual results; if the folks had just gotten a little high off a brownie, they'd probably have just gotten told off by the school. People were collapsing; that's serious.
I agree with Prairie Wind. Felony? Seems a little harsh for a juvenile prank.
Send a message to others who would do the same kind of stupid thing that THERE ARE CONSEQUENCES for their actions.
They seem to live in la-la land and the message needs to be sent.
Used to they would have just been horse whipped but we are more 'enlightened' these days.
Why work or study if "Everybody must get stoned"?
Legal pothead sure goes hand in hand with President Choom's policies to re-distribute wealth.
Message: stay Leary of professor/student drug messaging.
More money than sense.
So: Who read the actual consequences of the prank, including people having to be taken to the emergency room?
So: Who read the actual consequences of the prank, including people having to be taken to the emergency room?
I did. But, hell, when you're an old fart you've got to have a sense of humor about all sorts of really awful things... like cancer, physical degradation and death.
At my age, I have to save my ration my outrage.
Yeah, these kids really fucked up! And, they should get their asses kicked. How hard? Damned if I know.
And, it's funny and stupid. Human stupidity is funny.
I did indeed read the article. Causing people to go to the ER? This is a felony these days?
Poisoning people through fraud -is- a felony. If they had told the people the drugs were in there, it would not have been. What I'm also, by the way, guessing we'll find out eventually is that marijuana wasn't the only thing in the brownies, since, unless these people gorged themselves, I don't think there's enough marijuana in a single brownie to cause those things, so we'll find there was something else in there.
I miss the good old days when the commies were going to get the hippies to put LSD in the public water supply and conquer the U.S.
But what's worse than the marijuana is the refined sugar.
EMPTY CARBS!!1!!1!!!!!!!!
"Things like this are why, in many elementary schools, students cannot bring food to class unless it's commercially prepared and wrapped."
No, that's to satisfy the suffocating nanny instincts of the school administrators, and the self-interested paranoia of their lawyers. The equivalent of banning Halloween because of mythical razors in the apples.
No, that's to satisfy the suffocating nanny instincts of the school administrators, and the self-interested paranoia of their lawyers. The equivalent of banning Halloween because of mythical razors in the apples.
Also, the calories. Schools seem to be putting the kids on starvation diets due to so many being overweight, and that is partially because they no longer have recess and sports.
Who read the actual consequences of the prank, including people having to be taken to the emergency room?
I read the article, Matthew, and I agree that the brownies had larger consequences than a good laugh. I still don't think something like that should be a felony unless they can prove that the miscreant bakers meant to make people sick and end up in the hospital. A felony could mean prison time, and a felony record would definitely mean difficulty finding employment or a place to live. It also means they lose the right to vote or to own guns. All that for a prank gone bad? I don't think so.
Felony charges for first offenders are almost always negotiated down to misdemeanors.
If only, ST. Maybe for some crimes. Definitely not for today's hot-spot crimes like drugs and sex offenses.
If you spiked the punch and someone with an alcohol allergy died, you'd be charged with a crime. This is the same sort of thing. When a harmless prank goes out of control, there are consequences.
This is a failure of grandparents and parents who failed to pass down the etiquette and recipe for a good brownie.
prairie wind said...
All that for a prank gone bad?
Calling this a prank is a ridiculous minimization of their action. A prank is a phone call. This effected someone's mind for a time. Suppose one of the students had killed someone trying to drive home unable to recognize their drugged status?
If you spiked the punch and someone with an alcohol allergy died, you'd be charged with a crime. This is the same sort of thing.
Actually, it isn't. Because no one died.
Remove the drug component. What if they'd brought in brownies made with peanut flower, and a severely allergic person died (or "only" had to go to the ER). Should the bakers be imprisoned?
Back in the day (in the Peoples Republic of Madison in the late 1970's) the sister of a friend of mine offered me brownies. Which I ate. Which contained hashish, and which made me wretch. Didn't get high, just violently ill. Splitting headache, blew chow.
It matters: Withholding the fact there are peanuts in the brownie is pretty irresponsible, given peanut allergies are a well-known thing. However, there is no -clear intent- by putting peanuts into a brownie to cause harm to others. Putting marijuana in the brownies shows that their goal was to get people to eat it without their knowledge and get them high; it went badly, people got very, very sick, and were sent to the emergency room (taking up time, space, money and effort that could have been better used.) A felony might be too harsh, but there should be some consequences.
I'm just gonna repeat what I said first: I never eat anything from someone else without asking what's in it.
What kind of bonehead professor eats food -- a brownie!! -- brought in by a student? (I suppose the type of bonehead professor who dreams up a bring food to class day). ANY kid of college age offers me a brownie, and I am immediately suspicious of what's been baked into it. I can't be the only person who thinks this way, can I?
Oh, no. I agree with you there. There was bad judgment in eating what strange people give you without at least asking.
I agree with Prairie Wind. Felony? Seems a little harsh for a juvenile prank.
It wasn't a juvenile prank. They purposely gave people, without their knowledge, a substance that made people sick, or uncomfortable or was morally repugnant to some.
I remember the LSD, "pranks" where unsuspecting people were dosed with LSD and it was NOT a pretty sight. Ha ha ha....really funny. Watch this gal or guy freak out thinking that they are going crazy. Ha ha ha...watch what funny things they do....ha ha ha.
Some people had long lasting mental effects from being 'surprised'.
They deserve to be severely punished, not necessarily because it was pot, but for surreptitiously feeding people things that could potentially harm them. If you want to indulge yourself...feel free. If you want to announce to everyone what is in the brownies or punch, then let them make the choice.
If you are a surprised subject who is then going to take a drug test for a job or for insurance purposes, you are not going to be amused.
MadisonMan said...
I can't be the only person who thinks this way, can I?
It would never occur to me that someone would do this in a class setting, at a party maybe. Although I did notice in the booking photo the guy is wearing reefer shirt. Maybe if he came in reeking every day and then showed up with brownies I'd make the connection. But giving someone drug against their will should be a crime. It's dangerous in addition to being a usurpation of their freedom. And people who choose not to be involved in drug culture shouldn't have that choice held against them legally.
You're asking the wrong question relating to the severity of the issue though. The question should not be whether anyone else thinks like you, but whether all or most people would do. It doesn't seem so.
Unassuming? What? Are these people who write this stuff even literate?
No. They are not literate. They also have no knowledge of history or science. The journalism profession is proof of the failure of our educational system to actually "educate". The egregious errors in our local paper are just embarrassing. The journalists in the bigger publications are just as bad.
It's not the pot, Moochelle objects to the brownies.
It would really suck if one of their classmates was in the National Guard, or on the football team, and was required to piss in a cup the next day.
Ross Rebagliati Defese anyone?
It would really suck if one of their classmates was in the National Guard, or on the football team, and was required to piss in a cup the next day.
Just one of many problems with Zero Tolerance (that is, Zero Thinking) rules and laws.
Zero tolerance makes sense in some cases. I don't want men with guns showing up high, for example. It's bad to use as a blanket policy, but some cases it works splendidly.
I got dosed once in Nawlins. I think it was speed or X, who knows, not me. Getting dosed sucks.
Trey
I suspect this originated as a typically dull lefty "teachable moment" in the wake of the Great Pot Legalization Victory in CO.
Haha, like wouldn't it be so cool to get everyone high in class.
I suspect that not one thought given to the rights of other people not to be used as guinea pigs for overbearing underthinking brats and their need to instruct.
If they'd been in Washington state instead of Colorado, they could have put the marijuana into a gay wedding cake instead of just brownies.
I have no problem with them being charged with a felony. Prank, my ass. How dare they? People have a right not to be effectively forced to ingest a drug. It IS assault.
How did those two amoral a-holes know that any of their targets--for that's what they were--weren't already on a medication, for one example, which could be quite dangerous?
I'm not at all a "zero tolerance" sort of gal in the overwhelming majority of cases, but there are exceptions. This type of scenario easily falls into the "exceptions" category.
I’m fine with prosecuting them but at a minimum they should both be expelled from the university.
"I suspect this originated as a typically dull lefty "teachable moment" in the wake of the Great Pot Legalization Victory in CO."
-- I suspect it more went like this: "Hey, let's put marijuana in these brownies."
"That'd be funny!"
Then, they did it, without a thought given to teachable moments or politics.
it somehow makes me wonder what classes at the university of colorado are like.
I doubt the kids meant any harm. They probably figured that, since marijuana is legal in Colorado, that it would OK to cook with it (like you cook with wine, for example). Maybe, unbeknownst to them, the marijuana they cooked into the brownies was laced with something else. That might account for the ER visits.
If they have a clean record up till now, rather than saddle them with a felony conviction, I would sentence them to pay reparations to those they wronged plus a heavy dose of community service.
This is Colorado, where you can Pat Sullivan a kid's brown eye and walk in 30 days.
"Even more shocking was Dougherty's statements that after his arrest, Sullivan was asked whether he had ever had sex with a minor. But he could not tell them yes or no because he was under the influence of meth during those encounters.
"He may very well have had sex with underage individuals," Dougherty told the court.
Investigators also found images on Sullivan's computer that were "suspicious" with regard to whether they depicted minors. In the end, they couldn't be "classified" as minors, Dougherty said."
Read more: Former Arapahoe County Sheriff Patrick Sullivan pleads guilty in meth-for-sex case - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/recommended/ci_20320732#ixzz2EnDfqhCr
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