Killing Highlights Risk of Selling Marijuana, Even Legally

[rodeodance]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/02/us/02cannabis.html?ref=health

March 2, 2007
Killing Highlights Risk of Selling Marijuana, Even Legally
By KIRK JOHNSON

DENVER, March 1 — Ken Gorman, an aging missionary of marijuana, was found murdered in his home here two weeks ago. The unsolved crime is exposing the tangled threads at the borderland of the legal and illegal drug worlds he inhabited.

Mr. Gorman, who was 60, legally provided marijuana to patients under Colorado’s medical marijuana law, but he also openly preached the virtues of illegal use, and even ran for governor in the 1990s on a pro-drug platform.

In recent years, he had grown frightened as the mainstream medicine of cannabis care bumped against the unregulated and violent terrain of the illicit drug market. He had been robbed more than a dozen times in his home on Denver’s west side, had recently gotten a gun and also talked of installing a steel door and gates.
............

Some legal experts say Mr. Gorman’s death could lead to a reconsideration of how medical marijuana is administered here and elsewhere. Providers are often left exposed and vulnerable because of the nation’s conflicting drug laws, with marijuana use illegal under federal law but legalized for some medicinal purposes here and in 10 other states.

[Porcupine]

1. Killed by prohibition not by drugs.

This man was killed by the process of prohibition. After several decades of drug wars can we quit already? In California the medical marijuana laws merely seperate the wealthy drug users from the poor and/or stupid drug users. Anyone who really wants a medical marijauna card can get one with the cash.

There is no real claim that use of the drug itself presents a criminal problem. The problem is in the very high profits that can be made from prohibition laws. The person who killed this man was probably attempting to get cash rather than drugs.

This is another example of how our current system of government is unresponsive to the will of the people. America is clearly done with the concept that marijuana prohibition does any good whatsoever. Our "elected" representatives, the collected congressmen for life, refuse to acknowledge this and continue this mindless policy of prohibition.

[mntleo2]

3. A-Men Porcupine!

...I do not use pot, but I was at county Democratic meeting with our governor here just last week where some medical patients said they are being harassed for legally using the stuff by local police forces spurred on by Homeland INSecurity ~ they were in wheelchairs, walking with canes and obviously not even using for other than their medical needs. At first our governor (a Dem) denied it was happening, but the outcry that rose up when she said that embarrassed her enough to force her to say she would look into it.

Making drugs illegal only forces up the price, which spurs robberies and violence. If it were legal in all forms, we would not be having people killed ~ as has been proven by legalizing alcohol and it could add a significant and much needed tax base as well as perhaps an industry for areas who are distressed. It would also help to control use better such as driving under the influence, etc. One of the most significant things I have seen is that usage does not seem to only be about class lines, there are just as many marijuana and other drug users in upper income areas as well as lower income areas. Upper income users are not stolen from as much because they can afford to protect themselves better and rich people do not need to (illegally) steal from each other to make ends meet (tho they seem to be real good at legally stealing from anything that moves, lol) they are just not harassed as much and get away with it more. Also if they are white, they are more apt to get lighter sentences if caught. it all just causes more violence by users for each other and by and to the police.

Here is a group of police both from the U.S. and Canada who are for legalizing marijuana and other drugs: http://leap.cc/

My 2 cents

Cat In Seattle

[ixion]

4. exactly. if pot were legalized and regulated, things like this would happen

far less frequently.

[Warren Stupidity]

5. Precisely correct.

Are we ever going to wake up from this nightmare?

[Uncle Joe]

6. I agree Porcupine n/t

[moodforaday]

2. Meanwhile...

There's this:


Marijuana as wonder drug - The Boston Globe

A NEW STUDY in the journal Neurology is being hailed as unassailable proof that marijuana is a valuable medicine. It is a sad commentary on the state of modern medicine -- and US drug policy -- that we still need "proof" of something that medicine has known for 5,000 years.

The study, from the University of California at San Francisco, found smoked marijuana to be effective at relieving the extreme pain of a debilitating condition known as peripheral neuropathy. It was a study of HIV patients, but a similar type of pain caused by damage to nerves afflicts people with many other illnesses including diabetes and multiple sclerosis. Neuropathic pain is notoriously resistant to treatment with conventional pain drugs. Even powerful and addictive narcotics like morphine and OxyContin often provide little relief. This study leaves no doubt that marijuana can safely ease this type of pain.
(...)

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/03/01/marijuana_as_wonder_drug/

[Warren DeMontague]

7. That's a misleading headline. The drug didn't "cause" the violence, the fact that it's illegal

in most cases did. If it was regulated and taxed and sold like booze is at liquor stores, then you would no more have gangs killing people over it than you would have Al Capone with a tommy gun doing drive-bys at the local Liquor Barn.

Get rid of the prohibition, you get rid of the organized crime element. Simple as that.