Despite claims marijuana advocates have made about the reduction of drug related crime if the drug were legalized, the Associated Press reported today that medical marijuana dispensaries and growers are the targets of increasing amounts of crime. The crimes range from simple theft of plants from a backyard garden(though some cases involve shootings as growers protect their crop), to full-on home invasions and armed robbery with security guards killed. The article quotes a police chief saying "Whenever you are dealing with drugs and money, there is going to be crime. If people think otherwise, they are very naive."
I agree with the chief's statement. Some say that goverment regulation and backing will cut down on crime, and we won't have the turf wars and other illegal activity we see with the illicit drug dealers now. B.S. With a "product" like this, there are infinite opportunities and motivation for corruption. Suppose marijuana is accepted as an alternative painkiller and dispensaries pop up as more mainstream businesses. Who can stop some dispensary owner from selling to any and all customers, even those without a prescription?
As for the theives who found a not so happy homeowner, I can't say I have too much sympathy. Homeowners should have every right to defend themselves, their homes, and their families. In all honesty, I lack sympathy for those who defended their crops as well. To me, defending your pot (legal or not) is not the noblest thing.
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The fact is that there is an issue here, and it is about what rights you have here in the USA.......some people think they can invade the lives of others with invasive political, social, and penal codes of behavior that are "enforced" on certain profiled individuals and groups. Fact is, that is illegal and very unconstitutional. It is no different than calling an African American a N*****! You are backing the DEA's Profiling of our community, while creating an illusion of crime associated with smoking cannabis and fearmongering the agenda to the ground with your comments, you obviously have forgotten a little about the unaccounted actions of the USA, and their ever changing political strategies.
ReplyDeleteAnd you seem to think that you can come into my home like a thief with your opinion and rob me of my apt, my job, my respect, my status, my tax benefits, my human services benefits, etc., and lock me into a cell until I choose a different kind of plant to smoke?
Where's the crime come from?......I mean if a man is smoking, what then leads him to commit crime, was it the big smile on his face, the laughter, the memories and vivid feelings of happiness and peace?
These growers who were robbed were renting out entire homes and growing there secretly in every room....others found out and they robbed them blind, usually when they aren't home!!! Give a man a regulated price at a shop to pick and choose his tastes, and you think he will be renting out a home and paying thousands to watch the grass grow? I guarantee they will use the shop that has the professionally grown strains first, eliminating the spreading of illicit and unsafe grow rooms by a huge percent. And the illicit growers will also want the permits to finally to be able to do their work safely and professionally as well.....and have more customers available to them, so your fears are no longer very legitimate.
So the nature of the movement is to allow shops and dispensaries to establish professional growing rooms and secure areas for this, first medically, then socially.....not to get every Tom,Dick,and Harry to grow for the fun of it, nor is it meant to create any situation that puts americans at risk.
But you want to keep the millions we have in prison and under close watch of the government because they smoke a different plant than tobacco? You can't sit back and let them rot if they haven't comitted a crime!!! Where's your respect of others rights first, then the contingency created to protect the general public from the corrupt interests still left.???
ReplyDeleteThere is nothing noble about letting the constitution be reprinted on Dupont's Nylon!!! Hemp is a tool for the future of VT's economic recovery, and the tax revenue from these dispensaries will be a relief to the cause of regulating the use of cannabis the same as tobacco and alcohol is regulated.
And if the FDA said for years that it had no medical value, now all of a sudden they change completely, and leave the political prisoners to suffer? Who's to say from the complete turnaround of their "medical" opinion that there is any need to regulate it at all? Maybe your own govt has lied to you for some political reason? Perhaps to cover up their first big mistake, and the fact they have created a CIVIL WAR across the globe over this.
Maybe you have been caught up by the biggest illusion since "refer madness" hit the streets.....you won't get a chance to vote behind my back and try to impose a ridiculous legislative bill on the backs of millions so you can manipulate my life to fit into your idea of the "perfect community"......no one here is looking for a response, but I would like to know why you are for the "Legalization" of cigarettes and alcohol, but that is enough for america right? More crime is clearly due to Alcohol, and cigarettes are the gateway to cannabis use, not VICE VERSA.
You obviously have no plan and just want to give up without any solution offered and that is the norm in Vermont.......so continue fighting your CIVIL WAR! And I would like to see you claim all of that to a gang member who thinks you are so racist that you are even blinded by the whites of your own eyes!
Give me liberty or give me death,
ReplyDeletePatrick Henry
Alright, just got back on the site and I was debating whether to publish the first two comments. The accusations of racism and profiling by the author almost sent them to the trash can, but seeing as they are as long as the original post they include other things I thought were worthy of a response.
ReplyDelete"Fact is, that is illegal and very unconstitutional. It is no different than calling an African American a N*****!"
Is using that word offensive? Of course, but it's neither illegal nor unconstitutional.
"You are backing the DEA's Profiling of our community"
Which community am I profiling?
"You can't sit back and let them rot if they haven't comitted a crime!!!"
Posession/trafficking/etc. of drugs is still a crime; whether or not one believes that is right doesn't come into the legal question.
"There is nothing noble about letting the constitution be reprinted on Dupont's Nylon!!!"
????
"they have created a CIVIL WAR across the globe over this."
Have they now? Across the globe? http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/civil+war
"I would like to see you claim all of that to a gang member who thinks you are so racist that you are even blinded by the whites of your own eyes!"
1) I'm certainly not racist 2) The illegal nature of drugs keeps their trade farily lucrative, legalization might not be the best thing for him.