BEWARE THE `SPECIAL' CHOCOLATE

You won't find these in a box of fancy assorted chocolates. These
candies cost a boatload more, both in money and time.

Time in jail, I mean. That's what 23-year-old Taylor K. Goettelman of
Sturgeon Bay learned last month when Burlington city police found in
his car two bags of chocolates filled with THC, the chemical that
gives marijuana its oomph.

And you thought chocolate was powerful enough on its
own.

It was early in the morning July 25 when Burlington police stopped a
car that was challenging the authority of a one-way street. According
to a criminal complaint filed by the Racine County District Attorney's
office, the driver was arrested for drunken driving.

That happens hundreds of times every year in the county. Cart the
driver off to jail, send the passengers home and move on to the next
call. Officer Robert Jones, still in field training, looked a little
deeper.

According to the complaint he found the chocolates, 8.42 pounds of
'em, all with a weird green substance inside. "Ghostbusters" isn't
marketing a new ectoplasm flavor, is it? Jones and Officer Eric
Mitchell tested it. The stuff turned out to be THC. Goettelman, the
owner of the car, was not driving, but according to the complaint he
had more than $4,000 in his wallet. That earned him an escorted tour
to the jail and two felony charges, including intent to deliver. He
posted bond and is scheduled to return to court Wednesday.

"This is a nice catch, really," said Burlington police chief David
Walsh. "It's funny what a certain stop will turn into."

Walsh is no naive hick. He worked on the street crimes unit in
Oakland, Calif., where they were treated to a smorgasbord of
drug-hiding tricks. Of course, there were the infamous pot brownies.
Those have even worked their way into pop culture; remember the sitcom
"Taxi," when Christopher Lloyd's character was an intellectual until
he discovered pot brownies? In Oakland, Walsh saw drugs hidden in
fireworks, or sometimes disguised as sandwiches inside tortilla
shells. Just hungry, officer, not high.

"Sometimes we can be a little slow, but not stupid," he said.

The chocolate is a new technique for Burlington, Walsh said, where the
drug users tend to be more traditional. Chocolate City jokes have been
flying around like crazy.

"I'm always impressed by the inventiveness" of those in the drug
trade, he said with zero hint of admiration.

Apparently the candy was homemade, which prevents us from asking the
Twinkie-esque question of how the stuff got in there. The bags had
equal amounts of candy, which gives Walsh more reason to believe it
was meant for delivery.

A quick online search shows the mixture of the two has a little bit of
a following in the pothead community. One site offers a contest asking
readers to submit their favorite "chocopot treat." The best entry wins
an autographed copy of the "Treasury of Hashish." Second prize is a
picture of a President Bush - it's not clear which one - kissing a
former Canadian first lady. I'm not sure what those awards signify,
other than those people need some new hobbies.

The recipes must come from those who just dabble in the drug. The only
heavy-duty stoners I ever knew had trouble finding the ingredients to
tie their shoes.

Could be there's more to this cuckoo cocoa saga. Two other people were
in the car. Nobody answered the phone at Goettelman's address and his
lawyer was out of town this week, so I couldn't get their explanation
for this mess.

We'll have to wait for his preliminary hearing, which comes Wednesday
morning in Racine. In the meantime, everybody stick to the more common
forms of chocolate. If anybody pulls up with a trunk full of "high
quality" candy, beware.

Drugs aren't worth it. If the goodie-two-shoes method doesn't sell
you, look at it this way: What's the point in eating chocolate if you
get the munchies right away afterward?

Mike Moore is the associate editor of The Journal Times.