By Jasper Ward
Feb 17 (Reuters) – Los Angeles Lakers center Deandre Ayton was briefly detained on Tuesday at Lynden Pindling International Airport in the Bahamas on suspicion of being in possession of a small amount of marijuana, his lawyer and two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.
The sources said Ayton, a native of the Bahamas, had been arrested and detained after being found with marijuana. But Ayton’s lawyer, Devard Francis, told Reuters he was not arrested and only briefly detained before being released.
“The investigators saw that the actual very small amount of marijuana wasn’t in Deandre’s bag, but they still went through their investigations and he was released expeditiously,” Francis said.
Francis said the marijuana had been in someone else’s bag.
The Royal Bahamas Police Force and the Lakers did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Although the archipelago has taken steps to legalize marijuana for medical and religious purposes, the drug remains illegal in the Bahamas.
The former number one draft pick signed a two-year deal to join the Lakers last summer after stints with the Phoenix Suns and Portland Trail Blazers. He missed his second consecutive game for the Lakers last Thursday.
(Reporting by Jasper Ward in Washington, editing by Ross Colvin, David Gregorio and Neil Fullick)
Legalize relatively benign cannabis federally now. What’s legal to possess and consume in over half of the populated areas of The United States should not make you a criminal in states still being governed by woefully ignorant prohibitionist politicians. Cannabis consumers in all states deserve and demand equal rights and protections under our laws that are currently afforded to the drinkers of far more dangerous and deadly, yet perfectly legal, widely accepted, endlessly advertised and even glorified as an All-American pastime, alcohol. Plain and simple! Legalize Nationwide Federally Now!
The Prohibition of cannabis and Reefer Madness are only pushed and believed by a very small, lunatic-fringe minority of irrational looney-tune Holier Than Thou types that are on a never ending little personal moral-crusade and witch-hunt against relatively benign cannabis and it’s consumers. The rest of us sane, rational, normal Americans just laugh our butts off at and mock utterly desperate lying prohibitionists and their ridiculous Reefer-Madness-Rhetoric as the comedy show they truly are!