It's a pretty simple fact of road life in Texas: if you're traveling from west from El Paso on I-10, you have to stop at the Sierra Blanca Border Patrol checkpoint.
That's where Willie Nelson was arrested in November of 2010—a marijuana bust that gained fame when Hudspeth County prosecutor C.R. "Kit" Bramblett initially suggested Nelson might get off with a small fine and a courtroom performance of "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain."
So you would think that Nelson's friend and fellow pot enthusiast Snoop Doggy Dogg, who took great exception to Nelson's arrest at the time, might have been forewarned. (But, studies have shown, marijuana affects the memory .)
The Southern California rapper, who was on his way to San Antonio to see his son play in the EastBay Youth All-American Bowl at the Alamodome, was caught with .13 pounds of marijuana at approximately three in the morning on Saturday morning, leading to this all-time great tweet from the Smoking Gun:
According to a statement from the Hudspeth County Sheriff's department:
During a routine check of U.S. citizenship the inspecting Border Patrol agent detected the odor of marijuana emitting from the inside of the vehicle and requested the driver to pull into the secondary inspection lane for further inspection.
As Aaron Bracamontes of The El Paso Times reported, the dogs then went to work, uncovering a trash can with a red prescription bottle of pre-rolled marijuana cigarettes and two other stashes. As Bracamontes also noted, citing the Associated Press, Snoop has said he is a legal medical marijuana user in California, due to migraines and blurred vision.
Like Nelson, Snoop was sent on his way with a citation, and this photo from his Twitter feed reveals he reached his destination.
The rapper is scheduled to appear in Hudspeth County Court on or before January 20. He did not acknowledge the arrest on Twitter.