HAMPSTEAD, N.H. (AP) — A New Hampshire police department has issued a public service announcement with an odd mug shot after a man was arrested with marijuana in his car.

Hampstead police said in a release Monday, “as a public service announcement — it is illegal to possess recreational marijuana in New Hampshire, even if you only ‘smoke it in Massachusetts.’”

Selket Taylor (Courtesy Hampstead, N.H. Police Department)

WMUR-TV reports the announcement came after the arrest of 27-year-old Selket Taylor, who was pulled over for using his cellphone while driving.

Police say they arrested Taylor after they saw he had a bag of marijuana in a cup holder.

Taylor has been charged with possession of a controlled drug, transporting a controlled drug in a motor vehicle and use of an electronic mobile device. In his arrest photo, Taylor is sticking out his tongue while his eyes are closed and arms are crossed.

No information on an attorney for Taylor could be located.

Recreational use and possession of small amounts of marijuana were legalized in Massachusetts last year.

— Associated Press


MENDOCINO COUNTY — The Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office on Monday dispatched SWAT and canine teams to a Laytonville property in response to a reported theft of marijuana.

The property—s owner contacted law enforcement at about 11:30 a.m., saying 20 pounds of manicured bud marijuana had been stolen from a shed on his property, located off Highway 101. The man followed what he believed were human tracks and spotted four men, one of them armed with what he believed was an assault-type rifle, walking through a meadow on his property, police said.

Sheriff’s deputies and CHP officers conducted an extensive search of the area but did not find the suspects. The Sheriff’s Office asked that anyone with information contact investigators at 707-234-2100.

— Santa Rosa Press-Democrat


SYDNEY — Australian drug smuggler Schapelle Corby, whose trial and imprisonment on Indonesia’s tourist island of Bali mesmerized her country for more than a decade, returned home Sunday.

Corby landed in the Queensland capital of Brisbane early Sunday morning, after she was deported from Bali amid a frenzy of journalists. More than 200 police officers were deployed to secure her departure from Denpasar, Bali’s capital, said Ida Bagus Adnyana, who heads Bali’s Justice and Human Rights office.

FILE – In this Wednesay, Aug. 3, 2005, file photo, convicted drug smuggler Schapelle Corby stands behind the bars at court’s prison before her appeal trial in Denpasar’s court, Bali, Indonesia. (AP Photo/Firdia Lisnawati, File)

“Corby signed a document to end her parole. She is completely free now,” he said.

Back on Australian soil, she managed to evade the waiting media throng and slip out of the airport unseen. A member of Corby’s security team, Eleanor Whitman, read a statement to journalists on behalf of the family.

“To all those in Australia and all those in Bali who have been there throughout this difficult journey, your support has not gone unnoticed,” the statement said. “The priority of our focus will now be on healing and moving forward.”

Corby was arrested in 2004 at the age of 27 after customs officers at Bali’s airport found more than 4 kilograms (9 pounds) of marijuana inside her boogie board bag, sparking a media frenzy in Australia on par with America’s O.J. Simpson trial.

Corby always insisted the drugs had been planted in her bag, and most Australians initially believed her story. Her courtroom battle was tailor-made for TV: a photogenic Australian beach girl who had apparently fallen victim to corrupt officials in an Asian country that had come to be viewed with fear and suspicion after dozens of Australians were killed in the 2002 Bali bombings.

Indonesians, who called Corby “Ganja Queen,” were mystified by Australia’s response. To them, the case was clear-cut, and the Australian outrage overly nationalistic.

Corby’s insistence that the drugs were planted by baggage handlers was dismissed as lies by Balinese prosecutors. A court sentenced her to 20 years in prison, though that was later reduced.

In 2014, after nine years behind bars, she was released but had to stay in Bali until her parole expired on Saturday. In the lead-up to her deportation, she kept a low profile, living in a villa in Bali with her Indonesian boyfriend.

— Associated Press


LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles firefighters responding to a house fire uncovered a marijuana grow operation.

Fire Department spokeswoman Amy Bastman says nobody was at the home in suburban Van Nuys at the time of the fire Saturday.

Crews quickly knocked down the flames and called narcotics officers after finding dozens of pot plants in a car port.

Police Sgt. Michael Goldberg tells KCBS-TV that the cause of the fire might have been overloaded electrical circuits to power the grow operation.

Officers seized 48 marijuana plants. Six are now allowed by law, Goldberg said.

The owner of the home has been cited.

— Associated Press


To subscribe to The Cannifornian’s email newsletter, click here.