[420 Girl]

The war between marijuana criminals and law enforcement continues, providing one debating point after another in favor of rationalizing our laws.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Oregon reports on a recent case in which a 57-year-old man from Gresham was indicted and arrested to await trial. He is charged not just with running a marijuana farm on his property in the woods, but also with trying to run over a Forest Service officer to avoid arrest.

The guy allegedly was trying to get away from two Forest Service officers trying to arrest him and aimed his pickup at one of them. They opened fire and hit the suspect in one leg before he surrendered.

If he’s convicted, the defendant faces 10 years in federal prison for growing pot, and up to life in prison for assaulting a federal officer with a deadly weapon, meaning his truck, not to mention forfeiture of property used for growing the crop.

If the man did try to run over the officer in his attempt to flee, he deserves whatever harsh punishment he gets. But the outsider scratches his head and wonders: All this trouble and heartache, all this mayhem and gunfire, all this suffering and expense connected with long imprisonment over some guy growing plants in the woods?

Sure, it’s against the law and he shouldn’t have grown it (assuming he did what he’s charged with doing). But can’t Congress adopt more sensible laws — such as licensing and taxing, perhaps — regarding a plant that everybody says causes less immediate harm than the booze for which, in Oregon at least, the state itself earns a nice profit from sales?


http://www.420magazine.com/forums/in...ar-cont-d.html