A Gainesville man chewed himself into a hole Tuesday when, instead of stopping right away for police, he drove two blocks while swallowing a stash of marijuana.
Amos Moye, 22, was pulled over on East University Avenue shortly after 11 p.m. when officer Jeremiah Kelly noticed Moye had made an improper right turn and his license plate was obstructed, according to a Gainesville Police report.
Kelly smelled marijuana and noticed bits of a “green, leafy substance” in the man’s teeth. Moye was charged with possession, fleeing, driving with a suspended or revoked license, and – because he swallowed the marijuana – tampering with evidence.
Cpl. Tscharna Senn, spokeswoman for GPD, said it’s not irregular for people to swallow marijuana or crack cocaine in an attempt to hide the drugs from police.
“It doesn’t happen every day,” she said, “but it’s pretty common.”
Swallowing drugs isn’t wise – tampering with evidence is a felony, whereas in some quantities, possession of marijuana is a misdemeanor.
“They might think they’re getting away with it, but officers are trained to be observant,” Senn said. “We’re watching a lot of things people don’t know we’re watching.”
On top of the charges, Moye most likely wasted his stash.
According to professor Margaret James, chair of UF’s medicinal chemistry program, Moye probably wouldn’t have gotten the drug’s full effect from swallowing it.
“It depends on how much he had,” James said, “but generally it wouldn’t be quite as potent as smoking it.”
