Glass Bongs, Even Without THC, Can Get You Arrested

A 20-year-old Whitefish Bay man was pulled over May 20 for a defective headlamp, but that wasn't all he was driving around with.

pulled the man over in the 6800 block of North Lake Drive around 1:40 a.m. While explaining the reason for the stop, the officer smelled marijuana emitting from the vehicle through the open window. He told the driver he could smell the drug, and asked if the driver had recently been smoking.

After first replying no, the driver backpedaled and admitted he had smoked a joint prior to driving. When asked if he possessed any, he said said he did not have any, but advised he had two glass pipes in the car. According to the police report, the driver appeared very nervous and restless. He would not keep his hands still and he continuously glanced around the inside of his vehicle.

The officer asked him to come out of the car to continue the conversation. The officer asked the driver if he had anything that was dangerous or illegal in the car, and he said, “No, go ahead and search me and the car.” They found nothing during the pat down.

With the man now outside the vehicle and in closer proximity to the officer, they also noticed alcohol on the man’s breath. They asked if he’d been drinking and he immediately said he'd had two drinks containing gin earlier in the evening. He passed the majority of the field sobriety tests with flying colors, but when he was asked to perform the preliminary breath test, he had a blood alcohol content of 0.24.

During the vehicle search, officers recovered a multi-colored glass bong in the driver’s side door. The bong, commonly used for smoking marijuana, contained water, burnt residue and smelled of burnt marijuana. A second glass pipe was discovered in the glove compartment, and also had burnt residue.

The man was arrested for posession of drug parapharenlia and violation of absolute sobriety.