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CONFISCATED BONGS TOTAL 146 IN THE LAST YEAR ALONE

Sergeant Tom Dewey claims to have confiscated 146 bongs in 2002.  The UPD media log reported eight bong confiscations during the fall 2002 semester and 14 in the spring. 

This leaves 124 bongs left unaccounted for.  The Bong Tally published in The Lumberjack is not an accurate representation of the number of bongs confiscated or found on the HSU campus, Sergeant Dewey of UPD said.  A skeptic's reflex might be to subscribe to conspiracy theories in attempts to explain the large discrepancy in the actual numbers. 

When asked if the low number of reported bong confiscations was an effort to try to alter the perception of marijuana use at HSU, Dewey said "No" and that any rumors suggesting that this may be happening are "untrue." "We ( UPD ) do not have any interest in hiding any information from the public," Dewey said.  Staff members from The Lumberjack tally the number of bongs confiscated based on the publicly-accessible media log that is published daily by UPD.  Sergeant Richard Schultz said that UPD is not required by law to get specific confiscated bong statistics out to the public. 

Therefore, 'several' suffices as an accurate description for this action carried out by UPD until personally inquired upon.  Still, if a case is in the process of being judicated, officers of the law are legally bound to withholding case-specific information from the public.  "( Disclosing that information would ) jeopardize the integrity of the investigation and any hearings tied to the case," Schultz said.  The Bong Tally may be 'several' bongs short of the actual count of destroyed bongs at anytime because cases may still be in the process of judication when the newspaper is published. 

Pipes and bongs are not legally defined as paraphernalia under Health & Safety Law 11364, but marijuana-smoking devices are sometimes filed and referred to as paraphernalia.  As it applies to this case, UPD is not legally required to publish exactly what kind of paraphernalia was confiscated, what model of gun was taken, nor the name of the strain of marijuana that this person possessed when they were arrested.  "That is just way too much information," Schultz saidabout publishing such details of cases.  "It would be like publishing the entire police report," he said.  In a case where several counts are involved in the arrest, marijuana-using devices are sometimes thrown into the media log as paraphernalia.  The trained journalist who knows this distinction has overlooked these entries in the past, which accounts for a percentage of the bongs that have not been included in the weekly-updated Bong Tally.  The purpose of the Bong Tally is to inform readers of how many bongs have been confiscated in the past week on the HSU campus and residence halls. 

UPD's primary area of enforcement though, is the HSU campus as well as the surrounding one mile of the university.  UPD publishes all happenings that go on during an event where an officer is called out to duty.  The media log displays confiscations that occur on and off campus. 

Here is where the major discrepancy between the total number of bongs confiscated by UPD and those published by The Lumberjack lay.  Many more bongs are confiscated off campus than on.  Though individual police reports of simple confiscations are restricted in order to protect the identity of the violating party, a quick glance through last semester's UPD clips and Bong Tallies will show how many bongs do not make their way into the Tally.  Eleven bongs have been confiscated since Jan.  1, 2003, according to the UPD evidence technician and none have been published in the UPD media log.  The Bongs not accounted for in the bong Tally were confiscated off the HSU campus and subsequently have not been tallied.