The Florida Keys are a constant source of life lessons for the rest of the state. Last year, for instance, we learned not to get drunk while pushing your grandkid around in a stroller. More recently, the importance of giving someone known as the "Sea Hag" a beer when she demands one was hammered home.
This morning comes this vital Keys PSA via 60-year-old Steven Andrews: If you are driving around with a backpack crammed with a third of a pound of weed, do not give police permission to search it and then act shocked when they actually do so and arrest you on felony charges.
Andrews was driving erratically in a red van around 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday on northbound U.S. 1, according to a report from the Monroe County Sheriff's Office. A sheriff who was helping a disabled car pursued him and watched him weaving across the lanes before pulling him over.
The cop noticed a "distinct odor of marijuana" and asked Andrews if he could check his van for drugs.
Andrews -- and here is the lesson, kids -- swore he had no pot and agreed to let the officer search his van. Apparently, this was a bluff on his part. Do not bluff police when carrying a third of a pound of weed!
The officer was not bluffing about his search, and he quickly found the plastic bags full of pot totaling 163 grams.
Andrews was shocked, police report, exclaiming, "I can't believe you checked! Cops always ask to check and then never do."
He then asked the officer to "help him out" by tossing the drugs so he didn't lose his job.
The cop didn't oblige, and Andrews now faces a felony county of marijuana possession.
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