What to do with $175,000 in pot found in your back yard

Silver Lake games developer Mack Reed, the former LA Times reporter and LA Voice blogger, was faced recently with a quandary most of us will never encounter. Immersed in a tough deadline day at work, he came home at lunch to handle a quick errand. His plans for the afternoon got hijacked when he found a duffel bag stuffed with Ziploc baggies of weed, and mason jars of more drugs, stashed in his backyard.

I start reaching into the bag to see if there’s anything truly dangerous, like heroin or cash or guns - and then I realize I should *not* be touching it at all. I have to call the cops.

I can’t have this anywhere near my family, and I need professional advice on what to do when the drugs’ owner returns and finds the stash is gone.

I let the bag drop and immediately call 311. The City Hall non-emergency line’s phonebot chirps, “I’m sorry, but due to the high volume of calls at the moment, there will be a delay in answering your call. Please wait on the line, and your call will be answered in the order in which it was received.”

God. My mind is racing, and all I can think is fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. Where did this COME FROM and WHY NOW?

I’m trying to deliver a massive month-long project with my dev team at work. On deadline. Today.

And some evil bastard has stuffed a bag of dope into a hole behind my house and turned my life into the backdrop of a James Ellroy noir. Any minute now, some neckless mook with steroidal shoulders and a bullet-shattered voicebox will stalk up behind and beat me bloody with his pearl-handled Desert Eagle .45.

“I do NOT have TIME FOR THIS!” I groan.

He describes the day here.

Noted: Reed is co-founder and COO of F.8 Interactive and CEO of Snapcious