Giant marijuana joint, UC Santa Cruz student hauled away

This post has been corrected. See the note at the bottom for details.

The young man didn’t need to, as the song says, smoke two joints in the morning, and smoke two joints at night. One was more than enough when it was roughly 4 feet long and weighed more than two pounds.

That’s what UC Santa Cruz police officers were confronted with when they descended on a rally last Saturday. The young man was not happy when his cartoonishly large joint was hauled away, according to video footage capturing the incident.

“Dude, you’re a liar. You’re a liar,” the young man complained as he walked beside a police officer carrying the torch-like joint. “I can’t wait to see you in court. I can show how you’re harassing me.”

Every year, hundreds of students and others gather at the campus on April 20 to smoke pot. They do so with seemingly little concern for the inevitable police crackdown, which usually involves the confiscation of dime bags, bongs and other paraphernelia.

But this year, campus police were in for a surprise. The joint, which was wider than your average baseball bat, more than exceeded the state’s one ounce limit for those who carry medical marijuana.

Jim Burns, a university spokesman, identified the young man as Gennady Tsarinsky, a 25-year-old UC Santa Cruz student. He was arrested on charges of being in possession of more than one ounce of marijuana.

Burns said he didn’t know what the street value of the marijuana in the joint, nor its exact weight or length.

“I don’t know if there is a precise measurement,” he said Wednesday. “It certainly would be safe to say several feet long.”

For the record, 4:46 p.m., April 24: A previous version of this post said incorrectely that Bob Marley sang “Smoke Two Joints.”

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hector.becerra@latimes.com