Pubdate: Fri, 26 Apr 2002
Source: Washington City Paper (DC)
Copyright: 2002 Washington Free Weekly Inc.
Contact:  http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/489
Author: Dave McKenna
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)

ILLEGAL BATTER

Chris Corker will earn no more letters. The three-sport star of Chancellor 
High School in Fredericksburg, Va., recently baked his way off the playing 
fields. And onto the crime blotter.

This week, Corker must show up in Spotsylvania County General District 
Court to face one felony count of distribution of a controlled substance in 
a school. His controlled substance, say prosecutors, was marijuana. His 
method of distribution was brownies.

"This was a classic case of stupid," says William F. Neely, commonwealth's 
attorney for Spotsylvania County.

If stupidity were indeed the charge against Corker, Neely would probably 
get a quickie conviction. The prosecutor alleges that on Feb. 28, Corker, a 
senior, brought a pan of pot-laced brownies to school to satisfy a homework 
assignment in his math class involving the practical use of measurements.

"The class was doing something with numbers and how the numbers oriented 
with food," Neely says. "So this kid baked brownies and sprinkled them with 
marijuana. He was just giving them away to other students. Maybe it's 
because I'm an English major, but I really don't see exactly what this has 
to do with math."

Corker quarterbacked the Chancellor Chargers football team to a playoff 
berth and starred on the baseball and basketball squads; on the very day he 
brought the brownies to class, in fact, he was named to an All-Battlefield 
District hoops team by the Free Lance-Star, the Fredericksburg daily. (In 
November, he was named by the paper to an all-district football squad.) 
Athletic privilege apparently ain't what it used to be on campus: After 
Corker allegedly told some classmates about the special nature of his baked 
goods, one of his fellow students immediately dropped a dime on the 
school's top jock to Chancellor administrators.

Before the magic brownies even had time to work their magic, a county 
sheriff had gotten into Corker's locker. There, she found leftovers from 
the math project that allegedly reeked of weed. No students complained 
about whatever effects the brownies may have had on them, but Corker was 
hauled down to county jail by day's end.

The brownies, meanwhile, had another destination. "We sent the leftovers, a 
plastic bucket of brownies, to the state lab in Richmond to have them 
analyzed," says Neely. "There was a lab test, and the brownies tested 
positive for marijuana."

Neely says that his office has never handled a case such as this before. 
But Corker, even if the allegations are true, is hardly a pioneer in the 
field of getting baked on baked goods. Potheads trace the use of marijuana 
in the kitchen back to the mid-'50s, when the Alice B. Toklas Cookbook was 
published. Toklas' primary claim to fame came from being a gal pal of 
Gertrude Stein. The draft of the cookbook Toklas sent to her publisher, 
Harper's, included a recipe for "hashisch fudge" that called for the use of 
"canibis sativa" that had been "picked and dried as soon as it has gone to 
seed and while the plant is still green."

American editors caught the joke, even with the misspellings, and expunged 
the recipe. But the British version left it in. Soon enough, literate 
hipsters on both sides of the ocean were lacing their sweets with THC, 
hoping to experience the "extensions of one's personality on several 
simultaneous planes" that, Toklas' book promised, "are to be complacently 
expected" by those who eat the special confection.

The recipe, over time, made its way down the artistic food chain. Pretty 
much every '70s sitcom threw pot brownies into a script at some point. An 
episode of Laverne and Shirley had the title characters carrying on with a 
pair of rock stars (played by Eric Idle and Peter Noone) while high on 
magic brownies. Abe Vigoda, back when everybody knew he was alive, played 
Detective Phil Fish on Barney Miller. The only episode in which Vigoda's 
character was depicted as anything but unhappy and grumpy featured his 
eating hash brownies made by Detective Wojo's girlfriend. (Pro-pot 
advocates claim that the Barney Miller brownie episode, though a fan 
favorite, has been pulled from syndication because it portrays their drug 
of choice in too flattering a manner.) On the more recent That '70s Show, 
in which pot references play as much a part as the laugh track, uptight dad 
Red and his wife, Kitty, loosen up on a plate of weed brownies.

Pot as a dessert also appeared in the feature films Never Been Kissed and 
Dick, the Watergate-era spoof starring Kirsten Dunst, which has disarmament 
talks with Moscow ensuing only after Henry Kissinger gets high on baked goods.

Whether on the big or little screen, there is one constant to the Hollywood 
portrayals of laced desserts: Only good things come from eating them.

Perhaps that's why the student body at Chancellor isn't particularly 
incensed by the alleged pot-brownie caper. "From what I hear, all the kids 
think this is no big deal," says Joyce Roman, secretary of Chancellor's 
Parent, Teacher, and Student Association and the mother of a 10th-grader there.

Even Neely concedes that Corker probably got the idea for his brownies from 
some pop-culture source. "I think this was life imitating art," says Neely.

Unlike Hollywood or high school kids, the law does sometimes treat the 
distribution of pot brownies as a very big deal.

Fredericksburg attorney Mark Gardner is representing Corker, who was 
allowed to return to class after serving a suspension. Gardner says that no 
matter what happens in court, his client has already paid a stiff penalty 
for his wayward Betty Crocker imitation.

"He's a good athlete and a good kid who had never been in trouble before 
this," says Gardner. "But he wasn't allowed to play baseball. He can't 
attend any school activities. He can't go to prom. He can't drive to 
school. He can't walk with his class at graduation."

Gardner says that Corker, who could not be reached for comment, has been 
offered a college football scholarship. The attorney declines to name which 
college tendered the offer. "What happens in this case will determine if he 
goes to college," Gardner says. "That really is the situation here."

Neely says that Corker faces a jail sentence of up to five years if 
convicted of passing out pot. Had Corker sold the brownies, the prosecutor 
adds, the potential sentence would be 30 years. But Neely hints that he 
might not play hardball with the kid once the case gets to court. The 
charge against Corker, he says, could even be reduced to a misdemeanor, as 
the state code allows as long as there's no evidence that anybody became 
addicted to the controlled substance being distributed.

"And surely nobody got addicted here," he says. "Not from one little brownie."
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MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens