CONFISCATED BONGS TOTAL 146 IN THE LAST YEAR ALONE

Sergeant Tom Dewey claims to have confiscated 146 bongs in 2002. The
UPD media log reported eight bong confiscations during the fall 2002
semester and 14 in the spring.

This leaves 124 bongs left unaccounted for. The Bong Tally published
in The Lumberjack is not an accurate representation of the number of
bongs confiscated or found on the HSU campus, Sergeant Dewey of UPD
said. A skeptic's reflex might be to subscribe to conspiracy theories
in attempts to explain the large discrepancy in the actual numbers.

When asked if the low number of reported bong confiscations was an
effort to try to alter the perception of marijuana use at HSU, Dewey
said "No" and that any rumors suggesting that this may be happening
are "untrue." "We (UPD) do not have any interest in hiding any
information from the public," Dewey said. Staff members from The
Lumberjack tally the number of bongs confiscated based on the
publicly-accessible media log that is published daily by UPD. Sergeant
Richard Schultz said that UPD is not required by law to get specific
confiscated bong statistics out to the public.

Therefore, 'several' suffices as an accurate description for this
action carried out by UPD until personally inquired upon. Still, if a
case is in the process of being judicated, officers of the law are
legally bound to withholding case-specific information from the
public. "(Disclosing that information would) jeopardize the integrity
of the investigation and any hearings tied to the case," Schultz said.
The Bong Tally may be 'several' bongs short of the actual count of
destroyed bongs at anytime because cases may still be in the process
of judication when the newspaper is published.

Pipes and bongs are not legally defined as paraphernalia under Health
& Safety Law 11364, but marijuana-smoking devices are sometimes filed
and referred to as paraphernalia. As it applies to this case, UPD is
not legally required to publish exactly what kind of paraphernalia was
confiscated, what model of gun was taken, nor the name of the strain
of marijuana that this person possessed when they were arrested. "That
is just way too much information," Schultz saidabout publishing such
details of cases. "It would be like publishing the entire police
report," he said. In a case where several counts are involved in the
arrest, marijuana-using devices are sometimes thrown into the media
log as paraphernalia. The trained journalist who knows this
distinction has overlooked these entries in the past, which accounts
for a percentage of the bongs that have not been included in the
weekly-updated Bong Tally. The purpose of the Bong Tally is to inform
readers of how many bongs have been confiscated in the past week on
the HSU campus and residence halls.

UPD's primary area of enforcement though, is the HSU campus as well as
the surrounding one mile of the university. UPD publishes all
happenings that go on during an event where an officer is called out
to duty. The media log displays confiscations that occur on and off
campus.

Here is where the major discrepancy between the total number of bongs
confiscated by UPD and those published by The Lumberjack lay. Many
more bongs are confiscated off campus than on. Though individual
police reports of simple confiscations are restricted in order to
protect the identity of the violating party, a quick glance through
last semester's UPD clips and Bong Tallies will show how many bongs do
not make their way into the Tally. Eleven bongs have been confiscated
since Jan. 1, 2003, according to the UPD evidence technician and none
have been published in the UPD media log. The Bongs not accounted for
in the bong Tally were confiscated off the HSU campus and subsequently
have not been tallied.