Driver Nabbed With Avocado Marijuana Pipe

SEPTEMBER 22--While patrolling a stretch of highway earlier this month, a Missouri sheriff’s deputy spotted a motorist smoking a pipe and exhaling “a cloud of smoke.”

After pulling in behind the suspect around 9:35 PM, a cop noticed the vehicle had a break light out, so he “activated his emergency equipment” and stopped the car on a street in Branson, the popular tourist destination.

As two deputies approached the auto, they recognized the “strong odor of marijuana emitting from the interior of the car,” which was being driven by Benjamin Hensley, 21.

A deputy asked Hensley what he had been smoking while driving, according to a Taney County Sheriff’s Office report. Hensley, seen above, then “pointed to an avocado in the center cup holder of the vehicle.”

Hensley explained that he had fashioned the avocado into a pot pipe. He then handed the fruit (yes, avocado is a fruit) to a deputy, who noted the “strong odor of burnt marijuana emitting from a hole in the avocado.”

Hensley then retrieved a small bag of pot from the car’s center console and turned it over to a cop, who cited him for marijuana possession. In a two-count misdemeanor information filed last week, prosecutors tacked on a second charge, since “defendant possessed an avocado, which was drug paraphernalia.”

Deputies confiscated the avocado during the September 3 traffic stop. At the direction of an evidence technician, a deputy reported, “I placed the avocado in the evidence freezer.”

Hensley is scheduled for arraignment on October 17. The avocado enthusiast is a University of Arkansas student whose family lives in Branson. (4 pages)