Petition Drive Challenges Medical Marijuana Ban

[August]

But Sheriff Youngblood says that the marijuana has been a destructive force in his county, destroying public lands — where growers often plant — and bringing into an otherwise largely peaceful rural environment an influx of weapons as a result of what he says are criminal cartels involved in the drug trade. He has conducted several major raids this year, including one in September that netted more than 2,100 plants near the town of Wasco.

The good sheriff misses the whole point. Those problems are all the direct result of the drug being illegal, not the drug itself. If anything he should be advocating its full legalization if he wants to eliminate those problems.

Legal crops are just not grown in secret patches and fields by criminal cartels. When will we learn the lessons of Prohibition?