Yep! People think of it as an urban thing (i think?) but small city police use it as a way to abuse the fuck out of people.

Definitely varies by region or specific cities. And thanks! Yeah, the police and school administration where I lived were insanely punitive and pretty much out to get counter-culture type kids. I had a bunch of conflict with a middle school vice principal and a few years after I left he was fired for punching a student… so… they moved him to Principal of an elementary school. Our HS security guard was an ex DEA agent and he and the admin were obsessed with the idea of busting kids for smoking weed. Local cops were obsessed with the idea of pulling us over and searching us and the car, and we were 15-18. We didn’t realize we could say no. One time we bought a bong at a local head shop and it turned out the cops were staking it out and followed us, then claimed the driver made a ‘rolling stop’ 100 feet before we got to the next city limits. We’d also get stopped just driving around not doing anything, if they saw 2-3 teenagers in a car. So, both the school and local police were pretty tough to deal with. In a midwestern town we moved to, my brother and a friend had this one cop who had it out for them who would walk up and just start jamming his hands in their pockets “am I going to find anything? am I going to stab myself on a needle?” (which makes no sense, they never did/got busted for IV drugs). I went into my 20s thinking I’d always have to be concerned about being pulled over and searched but when I moved to the SW it didn’t happen again.