How Catnip Almost Landed My Mom In Jail

I just read the story of a man in Florida who spent 90 days in jail for a crime he didn't commit. The police mistook drywall powder in his vehicle for cocaine. After reading this, it reminding me of a childhood memory where my mom was almost arrested. When I was younger, my mom and step father had a lot of friends that would pop by the house at random times. One of them was local police officer who would just stop in for a cup of coffee and conversation from time to time.

I remember one time we were all in the kitchen and on the counter, kind of hidden, was a glass container filled with a green, dry, leafy substance. The officer was chatting with my parents and all of a sudden noticed the jar. As he walked over, he picked it up, thoroughly looked at it and turned to my mom. He said that he couldn't ignore what he saw and that even though they are friends, he was going to have to take her in. The officer did not open the lid. Had he done that he would have known that it wasn't marijuana. My mom quickly exclaimed that it was cat nip.

The man in the dry wall story wound up having to stay in jail until the drug test results came back which took three months. My story is a bit different. Thank goodness our misunderstanding was cleared up quickly.