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Central Coast politicians’ son arrested for drugs

September 5, 2015

ddddThe California Attorney General’s Office is investigating last month’s arrest of the 30-year-old son of Santa Barbara County Supervisor Doreen Farr and Goleta City Councilman Jim Farr. [KCOY]

On Aug. 4, Doreen and Jim Farr requested a welfare check on their son Richard Farr. Santa Barbara County Sheriff deputies located Richard Farr and took him to the hospital for a mental health evaluation.

Deputies then discovered Richard Farr owned a gun so they searched his home.

During the search, deputies discovered hundreds of rounds of ammunition, a handgun and a shotgun, more than 50 pounds of “shake” marijuana and other drug paraphernalia. Deputies arrested Richard Farr and then released him on his own recognizance.

“I have never had a child exhibit signs of serious mental illness before — nor be arrested,” Doreen Farr said in a statement. “This is a great personal tragedy for me and for the rest of my family.  I sincerely thank the first responders who demonstrated such skill and professionalism during this incident. Please respect my family’s privacy during this difficult time.”


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50 pounds of pot? Drug dealer. Why is everyone around here dancing around this fact?


Second, pot has been proven to affect the brain development of teenagers, and odds are he has been a long-time user.


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That may be the case, but different people’s brains develop differently and at the beginning of adolescence their brains may already be significantly different. Point being that there are some people that could smoke weed all day long from teenager to adult and still have a greater mental capacity than someone who didn’t. So ideally it’s better not to use it, but you can’t mecessaro;y make assumptions about someone just because they’ve been a long time user.


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Perhaps this “child’s” mental illness is caused by his use of drugs. Maybe more appropriate for the politician to have said…”my son is a drug addicted loser and thank god he was arrested before he killed someone, please vote for me.”


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“…hundreds of rounds of ammunition…” Is that a lot? Or is that barely adequate for an afternoon at the range?


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” hundreds of rounds” Sounds like the writer of the press release may have been sensationalizing. I’m sure that most people who use their guns for sporting purposes and home protection have hundreds of rounds since the shells are frequently sold in boxes of 50 to 100 depending on the caliber.


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Sounds to me like they are parents that love their messed up son.


This is a 30 year old. They are using the law to make sure he is alive and not a danger to his self or others. This 30 year old man child had a shit ton of SHITTY SHAKE WEED, probably a lot of stuff to smoke the weed with, and was probably stupid enough to have his gun and ammo in plain sight so the officers would have “probable cause” to walk on in and look around.


These are the kind of 30 year olds that REAL criminals LOVE to rob and murder. This man child needs rehab and mental help. His parents are probably worried sick and probably overly babied him and made him a perpetual 12 year old. The weed isn’t helping with the maturity thing either…..


We need an island to send people to called cheese crackers. You know, like the commercial. We need a few people with a check list to monitor our man/women children to monitor for maturity until we get them fully ripened, then ship them back. They need to seriously be isolated, where they can learn LIFE SKILLS, like washing their clothes, waking up to an alarm clock, putting their trash in the trash can, sweeping the floor. I know you all think I am exaggerating, but I wish I was…. There is a reason this man’s parents wanted a welfare check…..


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It could also be that he is a perfectly normal well adjusted person who happens to own a gun and also has some ammo on hand. It could be that someone he know who runs a [relatively] legal grow operation offered it to him for a very cheap price and he decided to turn it into concentrates (like hash oil) and sell it to a dispensary to make some extra money. It could also be that his parents are a pain in the ass, and he has a hard time dealing with them; that they saw him hanging out with someone they don’t like, and his paranoid mother who lives in a totally different and extremely uptight reality felt this was enough to try to intervene.


It’s also possible that police violated his constitutional rights during the search, because his parents are influential and they also are paranoid about protecting against another hyped up killing like the one in Isla Vista a couple years back.


That’s pretty sad that just because a person makes a foolish decision, especially if he was in some difficult circumstances, that you create this whole image of him as a perpetual 12 year old.


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I get where you are going. I think that for a potentially “uptight” political figure to out herself like she did about not having a “perfect family”, she had to be pretty worried about her son.


I hope he gets help if he wants it, because the Central Coast is woefully lacking in dual diagnosis treatment. He is lucky, his parents have resources and want to help him.


As for the weed, it just said shake and paraphernalia. If the police can dramatize a situation, like say “clandestine hash oil lab”, they would play it up so they can claim DARE works since their panga boats don’t. I could be wrong, I have been wrong, I am jaded, but there it is in all it’s glory; my Wednesday AM coffee opinion.


Have an awesome day.


P.S. Marijuana in adequate amounts (think like a bowl every few hours) does tend to keep brain growth emotionally stunted. There is some research out there regarding the prefrontal cortex, which controls judgment. Saying perpetual 12 year old seemed easier.


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The deputies took Mr. Farr to the hospital for a mental health evaluation. They then “discovered” he owned a gun so they searched his home. “Discovered”, huh? “Searched his home, aye”?


Did they ask Mr. Farr if they could search his home while he was being held prior to any adjudication?


Scary stuff…


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Seems like we complain when parents are aware of the kids mental health issues and do nothing (EX: Adam Lanza/Sandy Hook School shooting, James Holmes/ Colorado Theater shooting, Elliot Rodger/Isla Vista shooting) and now we have responsible parents who apparently are aware of some stable issues with their son and request a check and we want to condemn them and the process law enforcement followed.


We can’t have it both ways and I have respect for the parents as I am sure that was not an easy decision to make, especially both being political officials, but it was the right thing to do for their son and the public welfare. The law enforcement obviously seen something at the site that gave cause to search. I have nothing to hide and would welcome law enforcement anytime, as I am not paranoid!


Hope all turns out well for this family!


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AMEN!!! Welcome to the U.S. of whiners. Kills me that you can’t make em happy. Proves they just want to whine.


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“I have never had a child exhibit signs of serious mental illness before — nor be arrested,” Doreen Farr said in a statement.


Well, you have now.


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WOW. Sounds to me like they are clueless statist robots who preferred to turn in their own son. I’m sure they believed they were doing the right thing, but the state is a SCARY machine., So if you own a gun (and I presume it was registered which is how they found out) and someone calls in a welfare check on you, they can search your house and you can be arrested for anything they find? 50 pounds of shake marijuana is basically a couple garbage bag fulls of LEAF that someone likely gave him after trimming. WHO CARES.


And then the family THANKS the storm troopers? I’m sure many people here will think all fo this is fine and dandy. But from my perspective, this is exactly the kind of psychotic control freakishness Americans were originally trying to escape from.


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I agree with most of what you say, tho I think trimmings are the main ingredient in hash oil production, which makes it full level more serious in my book.


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The trimmings? Uh no, everything I have seen says the entire plant including the flowers is what is used and the flowers contain more than 90% of the THC. Sounds to me like he got the shake as a cheap purchase or gift.

I think the more likely scenario is the poor guy has some emotional/mental issues and was using the pot to self medicate. His folks , right or wrong were worried enough to make a call for help. In that instance the firearms are far more important than 50 lbs of low grade weed.


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You don’t know what you’re talking about, so you might want to reserve your judgment on this. “Shake” is generally what is trimmed off the plant plus some parts of the flower depending on how carefully it is trimmed. It has very little value, and you would have to smoke a lot. However, if it is processed, the end result is high quality concentrate… it just takes a lot of it, and that’s the reason he would have so much of it.


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Yeah I would agree, especially if he was planning on doing that processing in his garage.


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Super scary that 44 people already gave my comment a thumbs down, considering that probably at least 75% of those people drink alcohol but in their minds there is a complete difference between a guy brewing his own beer, and a guy with a few bags of shake weed. The capacity of people to grasp anything outside of their own cultural context or experience is mind boggling and the cause of a lot of the problems in this country.


You are not better. Your choices are not morally superior. You need to pull your heads out of your collective butts, or at the very least, mind your own business and quit getting behind bad policy on issues that you do not fully understand.


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