“Why were the central California gendarmes so interested in you?”
My parents got into meth after my brother died. My father ended up in prison where he died and that left me living with my mother. The cops would raid the apartment hoping to find my mom holding and she never was (she was smart enough to hide her stash outside) so they turned their attention to me. Maybe it was frustration on their part or maybe they thought they could get my mom by getting me.
In any case I was never involved in drugs and the experience proved to me that cops can do whatever the hell they want and they will almost always get away with it.