Fornits
General Interest => Open Free for All => Topic started by: Antigen on September 03, 2005, 12:31:00 PM
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Newshawk: Suzanne Wills
Pubdate: 3 Sept 05
Source: Dallas Morning News
Contact: viewpoints@dallasnews.com (http://mailto:viewpoints@dallasnews.com) (600 word max)
Website: http://www.dallasnews.com/ (http://www.dallasnews.com/)
Webpage:
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent ... 964a4.html (http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/texassouthwest/stories/DN-arrowheads_03tex.ART.State.Edition1.1e0964a4.html)
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Posted for its wierd value.
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Arkansas meth addicts seem to be collecting arrowheads
Dealers and users trade artifacts among themselves, suspect says
12:00 AM CDT on Saturday, September 3, 2005
/ Associated Press
SEARCY, Ark. ? The time-consuming and methodical motion of searching for arrowheads on farmland and in riverbeds seems to appeal to methamphetamine addicts, a sheriff says.
White County Sheriff Pat Garrett said that after more than 100 search warrants, he has come to expect arrowheads, many thousands of years old, when he storms the home of suspected meth makers.
"I noticed it when I first started. It just seemed there were always Indian arrowheads, and I couldn't figure it out," Sheriff Garrett said.
Tony Young of Velvet Ridge said the sheriff is on to something.
"You get kind of wired on that stuff, and you need to have something to do," said Mr. Young, who is in the White County jail awaiting trial on methamphetamine charges.
Mr. Young, 36, sold his arrowhead collection to a local dealer for $1,250 ? enough to pay for a defense attorney. He said "head hunting" filled his need for activity when he was on meth.
"You just get to walking and looking at the ground," Mr. Young said. "You get to looking, and an arrowhead catches your eye."
Many nights Mr. Young found himself in fields full of fellow arrowhead hunters. Now he is in jail, surrounded by fellow inmates who say they also searched for arrowheads before they were incarcerated.
"The strangest things you find out there is other dopeheads," said Mr. Young, who added that drug dealers and users often trade the arrowheads among themselves.
But local farmers find the groups of drugged arrowhead searchers an annoyance.
"To me, arrowhead hunting is the same as me going to a stranger's garden and picking his tomatoes," said Jerry Smith, who farms in nearby Bradford. "That land and what's on it belongs to me."
The searchers also may be threatening the integrity of archaeological sites, said Arkansas State archaeologist Ann Early.
"It is very troubling, for a variety of reasons, that the culture of meth use has embraced the idea of collecting relics," Dr. Early said. "I know that people using methamphetamine are out collecting at sites. Some have been digging at rock shelters in the Ozarks."
Although surface hunting for arrowheads is legal, trespassing and digging through archaeological sites is illegal, she said.
In April 1998, two Bentonville men were charged and later convicted of murder for leaving two young children in a hot unventilated car for about eight hours while they hunted for arrowheads. The men were under the influence of drugs at the time, police said.
... and the group leader was a clown.
GregFL
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Why's it so troubling that someone on drugs should be obsessed with anything? Everyone else is drinking coffee to get their work done obsessively too!
And who the fuck's business is it what anyone wants to smoke or shoot up?
And, "landowners" should quit being so damn righteous about what they own. Like anyone else is gonna go out there and hunt for the arrowheads? Here's an idea, educate them on proper archaeological techniques, and you could get a lot of site work done by obsessive workers who never need sleep! What ever happened to good old American ingenuity?
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Better to have them out there searching for artifacts than in the city mugging people, etc. I see no problem with this at all. Maybe instead of prison, they can just make archaeologists out of the methheads.