Teens on a bus trip to Utah for what would be three whole days of parent-free debauchery in the snow were busted by cops this week for having a massive stash of marijuana. Party foul.
Nearly 250 high school students from the Bay Area were heading to Salt Lake City on a trip organized by Costa Mesa-based SWAT (Summer Winter Action Tours). The annual event, El Nino, brings together kids from all over California and Arizona for skiing, snowboarding, parties and stuff that should never, ever be posted on Facebook (but probably will anyway).
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According to the Associated Press, five buses were stopped in northern Nevada after a store clerk reported that passengers were smoking in the parking lot of an Elko travel plaza. Police dogs stiffed marijuana in the baggage compartment of each bus and cops found “pipes, bongs and rolling papers stored in jars, Tupperware, cigarette packs and plastic bags” — a stash that totaled several pounds.
Miraculously for the young stoners, Elko Police Chief Don Zumwalt was cool about it, or just lazy.
“I could have written a citation and arrested them all and confiscated the buses,” he told the AP. But logistically it would have been a nightmare. Who belonged to what? Where would we put them?”
SWAT organizers, on the other hand, took a stronger approach, interviewing all the teens upon arrival and sending 17 of them on a long, sad trip home.
