WHAT WOULD YOU DO WITH A FREE CASE OF BUD?

YOU'D smoke it.

Or, hey, the economy's down, so maybe you'd sell it to your buddy who
brought a joint to the college reunion.

But only about a third of the more than 1,500 readers who voted in a
Philly.com poll yesterday said that they would call police - as an
Upper Darby couple did last week - if 5 pounds of pot mysteriously
showed up on their doorstep.

Upper Darby Police Superintendent Michael Chitwood Sr. said that he's
disappointed in the nearly 70 percent of you who wouldn't turn the
marijuana over to authorities.

"Fortunately, these are good, law-abiding people," Chitwood said of
the couple that received the weed shipment, which had a $20,000
estimated street value.

They had plenty of reasons to call the cops. If you get caught
sitting on 5 pounds of bud, do you think the judge is going to
believe it was for "personal" use? And what if the drug dealer sends
his goons to find his missing herb?

"They're scared to death that these guys could come looking for it,"
Chitwood said of the law-abiding couple. "Dial 9-1-1. Call police for
any package you're not sure of. In this day and age, who knows what
it is. It could be explosives."

Yet, most Philly.com readers say that if they were presented with a
free brick of high-grade pot, they wouldn't exactly be asking
themselves, "What Would Chitwood Do?"

Forty-eight percent said that they'd fire it up, while 19 percent
said that they'd sell it, according to the poll - which shouldn't be
that surprising, considering the evolving national mood toward marijuana.

Fifty-two percent of Americans support legalizing, regulating and
taxing marijuana, according to a 2009 Zogby poll. And larger
majorities support the medical use of marijuana and elimination of
jail time for recreational users, according to the National
Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

Chitwood said that the package turned over to his department had
likely been sent to Upper Darby to test the postal system to see if
larger drug shipments could get through, or with the intent of
intercepting it just before it got to the unwitting recipients.

It's not uncommon, either. Upper Darby police handle eight or more
such drug cases a year, Chitwood said.

Those, of course, are only the ones they know about.