U.S. - How a small town reacted when its mayor was caught growing weed

S.J.B.

S.J.B.

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How a small town reacted when its mayor was caught growing weed
Aaron Calvin
The Guardian
April 8th, 2020
At approximately 4.20pm, the mayor of Jamaica, a town of 217 people in central Iowa, was arrested along with her husband for growing marijuana in their home.

Police arrived at their front door without a warrant on 16 January, reportedly in search of an 18-year-old wanted for shooting a woman in nearby Ames. According to the Guthrie county police, the “overwhelming odor of raw marijuana” led to the discovery of a large crop of marijuana plants. The couple was arrested, and LaDonna Kennedy stepped down from her position as mayor shortly after.

The initial reporting by Iowa media, largely sourced from Guthrie county authorities, had all the low-stakes scandal and situational irony to make a trending news story on social media. The story took off, with many articles noting the time of the arrest in the lead of their story (420 is shorthand for cannabis), while the Kennedys were besieged by the media in the wake of their arrest.

Like many crime reports that explode across the digital news ecosystem with an amusing headline, the initial articles didn’t tell the whole story. After the buzz faded, a small, close-knit community was left divided, and a middle-aged couple who had devoted their entire lives to this town faced the prospect of prison time for self-medicating using a substance that in many other states is legal, and in others decriminalized.

But the Kennedys’ arrest not only turned their lives upside down, it revealed the fault lines of a community – ones that reflect a growing tolerance for marijuana even in America’s rural heartland that stands at odds with its more conservative leadership.
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Read the full story here.
 
Jamaica of a places too lol. People don’t know this but in certain states in the Midwest towns are named after other places. Like in MN, you got Wyoming, MN you got Houston, MN, there’s more. I’ve always found that odd.

-GC
 
Yeah, G_Chem, my dad came from a farm in Indiana. The nearest town was named Peru. My grandmother used to knit me Peruvian styled alpaca hats all the time. ;)
 
G_Chem said:
People don’t know this but in certain states in the Midwest towns are named after other places.
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You can drive to Paris, London, Cairo, Scotland, Delhi, Hamburg, and Wyoming in one day and never leave Ontario.

What the hell, settlers? Like, "We must leave this land and strike out on new adventures, build a new civilization in this great wilderness... but fuckin Gertrude is homesick so we should use the old names."
 
What about the mayor that got caught
smoking crack with gang members on hidden camera? Growing pot is nothing
 
I love how the real down home good was in that piece. Cant get much more down to earth then that.

Sounds like really good people now facing hardship and struggling.. no positive outcome.. two more good people victims of the discussing pathetic "drug war."

civil servants non the less.
 
draculic acid69 said:
What about the mayor that got caught
smoking crack with gang members on hidden camera? Growing pot is nothing
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Haha, that was Rob Ford. His story was pretty bizarre/strange, actually...he was definitely a "man of the people", that Rob Ford

And then there was the classic example of a druggie and/or crack-smoking mayor, Marion Berry of Washington DC
 
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