Posted on 12/07/2012 4:01:14 PM PST by drewh
The first day of legal marijuana use in Washington State was marred by an attempted robbery ending with two deaths at an alleged pot-growing facility just south of Seattle.
The possession of pot became legal in the state Thursday after voters passed a measure decriminalizing it in November. Day two kicked off with more celebrations under the Space Needle tower, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported, but the Pierce County Sheriff's Department investigated an attempted robbery in Puyallup at an alleged growing center foiled by a homeowner who shot two alleged burglars in front of his 9-year-old son.
Officers say they arrived at the home of the man, 35, Thursday to find two masked men dead on the floor and marijuana plants in the attic, ABC affiliate KOMO-TV News reported.
While the law passed in November made it legal to carry and consume marijuana, Sgt. Sean Whitcomb of the Seattle Police Department said cultivating and selling the drug outside of medical dispensaries is still a crime.
"When you're engaged in that type of criminal activity, there is an element of risk," Whitcomb told ABC News Friday.
The legislation leaves Washington in a "murky place," Whitcomb said. Smokers who have purchased marijuana from a street dealer are in the clear.
The U.S. Attorney's office in Seattle sent out a statement Wednesday reminding residents that pot is still illegal under federal law and cannot be brought onto federal property.
An ABC News poll released shortly after the election, 48 percent of Americans expressed support for legalizing marijuana.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
I hear they turned off the elevators. Folks just floated to the top.
however much you get for running a still and discharging a firearm in the commission of a crime.
Thanks for your answer. We disagree. I’m biased myself too though. If the scenario was about a crack house I’d have a different take. Guess I’ll have to mull it over some more.
I warned some co-workers who live up in Washington of this very thing happening. It reminded me of the late 80’s in Michigan when bandits were robbing crack houses for cash, including some people from the law enforcement community. Guess those people didn’t believe me. Drug dealers make a perfect target for armed robbery.
Nope. Never drank, never smoked. Don’t take any prescription medicine. An occasional aspirin for a headache. I drink my share of RC Cola, which obviously has caffeine.
And I don’t equate my drinking an RC Cola to some degenerate brain-dead, dope-peddling, reefer-smoking piece of human trash.
“that’s assuming that the reporter knows her azz from a hole in the ground... i doubt she even knows she the difference,”
Yet, we count on this same reporter to dutifully tell us if the intruders were armed? Anyway, 2 masked intruders come inside your house, and your 9 year old kid is there. He’ll be fine. And i’m betting a Washington state jury will be sympathetic to a guy who grows in his attic.
This is how much the “War on Drugs” has corrupted even the very concept of freedom in the USA - we’ve got a bunch of Freepers who are actually arguing that this man had no right to defend his home from masked robbers because he had some pot plants in his attic. You get that? Grow a plant in your attic, and suddenly even “conservatives” think that all of your God-given rights like self-defense (life, liberty, property?) go right out the window. But as long as we make those dope-smoking hippies pay, f*** the Constitution!
Did you, also, surmise the son HAD to be in the attic? After all, it's in the house.
The homeowner should/may be fined and probation for growing it illegally (that's his crime) but you want him in jail for life. Originally, you said it was a farm while the article states attic. Why the need to embellish against the homeowner? Isn't it bad enough?
crack?
How can be for crack to be illegal? That means the “drug war” will have to continue. It will continue until the federal government is subsidizing handing out cocaine to elementary school students right before sodomy class.
“How can be for crack to be illegal? “
You lost me. You got any of them special kinda plants the government thinks should be banned?
that is already federally legally true. We got law this year or last and FDA regulations that forbid growing pretty much anything edible in your yard or house or anywhere else that is not a farm. The ubiquitous farmers' markets are no longer legal either. Enforcement is not happening all at once but it will come. It is already creeping into some areas. We are deliberately working up to a system of State Farms being the only government authorized and permitted entities allowed to produce food. In the USSR they were called State Farms. We are skipping the collective farm stage.
Exactly, some only see the immediate results and can't/won't think pass their nose what they are agreeing to. They are too knee jerk to be any good.
How can you be for only one drug to be legalized?
That doesn’t end the “drug war”. It doesn’t stop the DEA and SWAT from raiding drug houses of innocent gangbangers it doesn’t stop the Coast Guard from chasing and stopping those poor illegal drug traffickers in their high speed powerboats.
Only wanting pot legalized is so heartless.
//sarcasm
I read about that awhile back and thought about how many I know who plant tomatoes, etc., and share them with the neighbors. That’s why I said that. It’s all about control and money. Create a law, then enforce it for payday!
It’s a plant. God made it. It grows in dirt. It’s been here as long as we have. It lives and passes like we do. That makes it different to me.
Although, that illegal still in N.C. is fine by me too.
it is not. guy has no legal defense.
Exactly. The cops saw the bodies when they came in and the pot plants were in the attic.
Very different story at this link: http://www.thenewstribune.com/2012/12/07/2393983/2-slain-during-apparent-robbery.html
“A Pierce County man with his 9-year-old son at his side Thursday shot and killed two men who apparently were trying to steal marijuana from what sheriff’s deputies called an illegal pot-growing operation inside the man’s garage.
The man and the boy were not hurt in what sheriff’s spokesman Ed Troyer described as a gunfight during which both sides fired multiple rounds.
“We could have had a dead 9-year-old and a dead homeowner,” Troyer said.
When deputies arrived, the boy’s backpack, multiple weapons and marijuana were strewn throughout the garage and on the driveway outside the house in the 5900 block of 132nd Street East, near Summit, Troyer said.
Detectives and evidence technicians were at the house most of Thursday and will be back today.
The 35-year-old man was taken in for questioning but not arrested. Troyer said the results of the investigation would be forwarded to prosecutors for a charging decision. Even if the man is not charged in the shooting, he likely will face prosecution for illegally growing marijuana, Troyer said.
“The amounts he’s growing far exceed what’s legal for medical marijuana,” he said.
Prosecutor Mark Lindquist would not speak specifically about the shooting as the investigation was unfolding, but said homeowners in Washington state have a right to defend themselves and their families, even if it’s from robbers intent on stealing their illegal drugs.”
Read more here: http://www.thenewstribune.com/2012/12/07/2393983/2-slain-during-apparent-robbery.html#storylink=cpy
APatientMan couldn’t comprehend the second paragraph in the article.
I’d blame the drugs, not the patient...
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