Private land the new frontier for pot wars
By Robert Townsend, California Watch
A little-spoken-of war is taking place behind California’s fences and property lines: Trespassing marijuana growers are setting booby traps, resorting to violence and vandalism, and spoiling the land by stealing water and spraying dangerous chemicals that leach into streams.
As the federal government focuses on stopping illegal marijuana crops in public parklands and U.S. forests, sheriff’s and state drug enforcement officials face the persistent and potentially dangerous problem of pot growers commandeering private land for their crops.
While some land owners fear violence, others face environmental havoc.
Legalize it.
Does anybody REALLY believe that everybody with a card is using it for purely medicinal purposes? All these problems would go away if it could be legalized, grown properly in the open, sold and taxed like any other adult product.
The people who oppose legalization are primarily the illegal growers and sellers who benefit from the high prices caused by the “war on drugs” by the federal government, the federal policing agencies themselves, and a few misguided folks who believe that by keeping it illegal they are actually preventing harm. It isn’t working.
Legalize it.