Man carrying book on not getting arrested for pot gets arrested for pot

A photo posted Tuesday on the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics Facebook page depicted the cover of a book about avoiding arrest on marijuana charges, ironically found in the car of a man arrested for trafficking marijuana.

Curious, KRMG called OBN to get the story behind the photo.

It turns out the arrest actually occurred a couple of years ago, but the agency posted the photo to send a message about a very real -- and growing -- problem.

The problem is a large increase in the trafficking of marijuana across state lines, which OBN spokesman Mark Woodward says can be directly tied to the legalization of pot in Colorado.

"We are seeing large shipments of Colorado marijuana now coming through Oklahoma, heading back to the east coast for sale," he told KRMG.

"It's only going to increase now that states like Oklahoma have legalized marijuana," he added.

He also talked about the vastly increased potency of the pot.

People don't realize the "problems this is adding here in the United States to have legal marijuana, and strengths of it we've never even see before. Ther are just literally new strains all the time."

That said, he did admit that the largest drug problems in Oklahoma, as far as deaths and hospitalizations, are prescription drug abuse and "K-2," or synthetic marijuana.

"We're number one in the country in prescription pain killer abuse,  and we're as high as fifth in the country in prescription pain killer deaths."

As for the photo, he said despite the seriousness of their jobs, they did recognize the humor in that particular situation.

"It was ironic that we would find somebody who has a book on how not to get busted with marijuana, gets busted trying to traffic marijuana," he chuckled.