The Germs' Drummer Arrested For Carrying Soap

dwrugh writes "The drummer for the seminal punk band The Germs, Don Bolles, was arrested in Orange County because a field-test kit indicated his bottle of Dr. Bronner's soap contained GHB, the date-rape drug. (Here is an interview with Bolles.) Using the same test kit, available on the web for $20 for a pack of 10, according to Bolles' attorney on NBC this morning, other soaps tested positive for GHB. But of course since it's just soap, when you test it in a real crime lab it comes back negative. Makes you wonder what other common household products also test positive, and how many others have been arrested based on faulty test kits who didn't have the resources to defend themselves."

Comments

Lexicon Devil

[Bryan Ischo]

The Germs. Heh. Haven't listened to them since high school. You can only play G.I. (their only good album) so many times until the lead singer's grating voice just becomes completely unbearable. Great music though.

On a tangent only marginally related to the topic ... does anyone else find today's breed to pseudo-punk-acting bands just too funny for words? I don't follow modern music too much but have seen some music videos here and there and it cracks me up how all these new bands play this completely cheesepuff light rock ballad crap and have faux-hawks and punk-ish clothing and slam around like they're belting out hardcore. It's just so silly to see a bunch of guys jumping around acting like they're so tough and like the music is so raw all the while playing Justin Timberlake-esque fluff. I just couldn't do that with a straight face, I wonder how they manage it.

The Germs were the REAL DEAL, the lead singer would spread peanut butter on his naked chest while cutting himself with a broken bottle on stage. They didn't just looked the part, they sounded the part too, with some of the rawest late-70's-hardcore-punk around.

Now to the topic at hand - so what. Not every test is 100% reliable. False positives exist. This is a headline story for what reason exactly?

And for the obligitary Slashdot tongue-in-cheek comment: I don't see how having GHB in soap is helping anyone. If you've already convinced your date to take a shower with you the GHB is kind of redundant ...

Re:Lexicon Devil

[mochan_s]

... does anyone else find today's breed to pseudo-punk-acting bands just too funny for words?

It's called getting old.

Best. Headline. Ever.

[Anonymous Coward]

Best. Headline. Ever...

Do your job "editors"

[MaelstromX]

Editors, I wish you'd take five seconds to review what you are putting up. TFA is from April 11 (that's eleven days ago), and since then he has been released. A discussion of the faultiness of field testing methods might be in order but you need to properly set the stage for said discussion, otherwise it gets derailed when people get alarmed about the fact that somebody is sitting in jail right now for a mistake and then somebody (in this case me) has to come and point out that the whole thing has actually been resolved.

Re:Do your job "editors"

[jimicus]

Sorry, while this story is upsetting, I'm not really outraged when somebody is falsely arrested, as long as they are not falsely convicted, and as long as the basis for the arrest was honest and without any malice or impropriety. I certainly would like to see the number of innocent people arrested minimized, and in that sense maybe we can learn something about how field testing methods can be less than reliable, and maybe in certain cases their findings should have to be corroborated before they can be used to arrest somebody. I was just kind of annoyed that the detail of "this person's situation has been totally resolved" was not included in the writeup.

Technically, you're correct. But mud sticks.

What if he wasn't a drummer with a band? What if he was an IT geek with a day job in a "respectable" office like a large percentage of /. readership? Would our collective employers be pleased to know that someone they employed had just been arrested on suspicion of carrying a date-rape drug?

In many parts of the world, my guess is you'd come home from your short involuntary stint in prison to find yourself out of work with little hope of a reference or of redress. The police "acted properly" by arresting you when they thought you'd committed a crime, and released you when it became apparent you hadn't. Not their fault your employer dropped you like a hot potato.

What it does do is highlight that some of these tests need to be drastically improved.

Re:Do your job "editors"

[Desert Raven]

Sorry,

Speaking as an ex-cop, never, EVER, *EVER* consent to a search.

Doesn't matter if you might get hassled while the cop tries to find a reason to search, you also have the right to keep your mouth shut. Unlike a warrant-based search, which must state *specifically* what they are looking for, and thus limits them to the places where such items can be found, consent searches allow *anything*. And, once you consent, you can't take it back, since a smart cop will isolate you while they perform the search.

Frankly, you may not know what is in your car/home, etc. All you need is for one of your idiot friends to have left something behind you didn't know about.

A cop who asks for consent is fishing. If a cop has probable cause, he won't ask, he'll get the warrant, or search immediately if allowed (exigent circumstances, probationers, etc). The more they try to convince you, the more sure you can be that they don't have anywhere near enough evidence for a warrant.

Folks think that if they consent to a search, the cop will feel better about them. Of all the folks I searched with consent, the *best* I felt toward them was mild contempt for voluntarily surrendering their constitutional rights. The rest? Well, frankly, I still get a real belly-laugh over the folks I arrested for drugs, illegal weapons, stolen merchandise, etc because they were dumb enough to give me consent to search.

It's sort of like poppy seed bagels

[jameseyjamesey]

When I was in high school, I would have poppy seed bagels for breakfast every morning. When I turned 16 and started applying for jobs, I failed a few drug test even though I had never done any illegal drug. It caused a lot of stress in my family and was quite embarrassing. Even though my parents believed me, I could always sense it nagged them in the back of their minds. A few months ago I saw an episode of myth busters which proved having just one poppy seed bagel can cause you to fail a drug test. I downloaded the show and sent the DVD to my parents to clear my name.

Re:It's sort of like poppy seed bagels

[vux984]

A few months ago I saw an episode of myth busters which proved having just one poppy seed bagel can cause you to fail a drug test. I downloaded the show and sent the DVD to my parents to clear my name.

Ok, so you cleared your name of being a drug user only to incriminate yourself as a copyright infringer... a crime far worse in todays legal framework.

A word of advice; once they catch up to you:

Don't drop the soap!

Re:It's sort of like poppy seed bagels

[no_pets]

So, bring poppy seed bagels to the next interview to share with other prospective employees. :-)

Not exactly shocking for Orange County

[kc8jhs]

This isn't exactly shocking for a county where our local Government, won't issue ID cards for those who have been prescribed medical marijuana. This county loves to be the uptight puritan neighbor to Los Angeles. The state says its okay, but the county is claiming that since the federal government says no, they can't risk getting sued. States rights? Ha. This county is known for its unbelievable government and law enforcement. Recently an inmate was killed in the county jail after the staff told other inmates that he was a suspected child predator. The Sheriffs department insists they did no wrong in this, and there pat answer is more or less, "Who cares, he was a child predator?" and "You can't listen to criminals to tell you the truth, they're people who do things that are wrong anyway." All local press fails to point out that he was never even convicted.

I don't mind a conservative government, and all, but here it's like being conservative just for the sake of being conservative, instead of any real reason behind the decisions of the local government. Law enforcement in Orange county seems to me, to serve mostly to harass the public, in hopes of catching some illegal immigrants along the way.

So yeah, this really isn't surprising.

P.S. In OC, if it had been a 30 y/o MILF in an SUV, she could have had the soap, had it tested positive for GHB, heck she probably could have had pure GHB and pot in the car, and still been able to drive off.

Re:We'll get to see more like this

[geoff lane]

GHB is rare. The use of GHB is rare. Suppose the test kits are 99% accurate. In 1000 tests, there will be 10 false positives. In 1000 people there is probably zero actually carrying GHB. So when some cops jump to a conclusion based on the supposed effectiveness of the test, they are almost always going to be wrong.

It seems that the test kits are a lot less reliable than 99% in some environments which makes them useless.

In situations where the event is rare, the failure mode of the test will dominate the effectiveness of the action taken.

The same faulty thinking is common in anti-terrorism procedures. Actual terrorists are rare and almost every action taken to detect or prevent terrorist acts has a very high false positive rate that makes it useless for the purpose.

Re: huh?

[Black Parrot]

What's this "soap" thing you're talking about? It's a paste the alchemist will give you to counter the 'Turn Girls' spell.

Re:It's not a matter of resources...

[grassy_knoll]

However, TFA says that Bolles spent 3 days in jail, presumably waiting for the results of a test.

I've been stopped for a broken tail light in my country, and the police certainly did not use this as an excuse for searching my car. Is it usual in your country for people to be imprisoned for so long on so little evidence, after so minor a motoring offence?

To be fair to the police, he was acting suspiciously.

police: "A drummer.... with soap? S'yah right! Must be drugs, you dirty hippy!"

[badum-ching]

Re:It's not a matter of resources...

[fyngyrz]

Inexplicably, SCOTUS does not consider a drug dog to be an unreasonable search. Go figure.

The USSC (SCOTUS) considers the article 1, section 8 enumerated power to regulate interstate commerce ["among the several states"] to be the foundation of a rationale to regulate intrastate commerce. It considers the highly public listing of citizens as criminals to "not be punishment." It approves ex post facto laws without blinking an eye. It punts regularly on the government's blatant favoring of religion by law (fed and state.) It allows wiretapping without a warrant (and don't get me started on FISA.) It allows breaking into your home without notice. It allows theft of your home and property for any purpose whatsoever. It has had absolutely no problem turning consensual, personal, victimless choices into crimes.

Clearly, the USSC is long past being a useful institution, made up of shills for special interest groups (one of which is the government itself, of course.) It has zero problems pronouncing that black is white and night is day. This should not be a surprise, however, as the number of unauthorized government actions - meaning, absolutely unconstitutional - has skyrocketed in the past half century or so across the entire government structure, judicial, executive, and legislative. The USSC is just one part of an entirely corrupt and out of control government.

Remember to vote so you can pretend you have an effect on all this. That's what they want you to do. That, and complain. It vents the steam safely, as opposed to finding pissed off constituents at their doors. That is why freedom of speech is the least eroded right and will always remain so.

Re:It's not a matter of resources...

[Gordonjcp]

At this point, the police will either 1)make up probable cause or 2) just bring in a drug dog

I'd just *loooooove* for them to try and search my car with a drug dog. I suspect the combination of four different kinds of leaking oil (engine, gearbox, diff and hydraulic), engine cleaner, brake cleaner, carb cleaner, hydraulic system flush, hydraulic system solvent cleaner *and* my rigger boots in a bag in the boot would probably send it over the edge. Hydrocarbon olfactory nightmare.

If you ever see a retired police dog with a nervous twitch and a fondness for Jefferson Airplane, you know it's happened.