Pubdate: Wed, 31 Dec 2008
Source: Springfield News-Leader (MO)
Copyright: 2008 The Springfield News-Leader
Contact:  http://www.springfieldnews-leader.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1129
Author: Matt McSpadden
Note: Matt McSpadden lives in Springfield.

EFFORT TO GET MARIJUANA RAISES QUESTION OF WORTH

In the case against the Smith family, the police raided the home to 
find the four pounds of marijuana which they knew was in the house. 
They burst in, using flash bang grenades to disorient and confuse the 
people in the house, and hoped to safely remove the marijuana without 
anyone getting hurt. However, they were prepared to fight for the 
"pot" and do whatever was necessary to get it. No one got hurt, a 
miracle considering that shots were fired.

Now I ask you all, was it worth it?

The potential was here for loss of life, and I ask again, is that 
worth it? A 19-year-old girl could potentially go to prison for the 
best years of her life, so that four pounds of marijuana, an herb, is 
taken out of circulation.

At the end of this raid, did the police congratulate themselves on 
serving "justice"? How about if the worst possible scenario had 
played out? Had the girl accidentally killed the policeman, and I do 
believe that she had no idea what was going on in the house for her 
to have shot through that door (what do we think, that this girl was 
planning on taking out an entire SWAT team but stopped at the one 
shot?), and then the police responded by shooting her, would it still 
have been worth it? Had the other policemen decided to be rougher on 
the remaining suspects in the house, after seeing two people shot and 
killed, and a policeman decided to sit on the young pregnant girl, as 
officers do to stop a struggling suspect, and the baby been killed, 
would it still have been worth it?

For four pounds of marijuana?

That means that, to stop four pounds of herb from hitting the street, 
it is possible to have two people die and a baby killed in the womb 
and consider this an acceptable exchange. How far off have our 
priorities fallen to allow this?

You people (are) mad to ignore the value of the lives inside the 
house and to Rambo through the windows to destroy the evil... herb? 
How many dead people are acceptable to destroy four pounds of an herb?

Now, the other side of the coin.

Had the police not approached the house at all, what is the worst 
case scenario? The four pounds of marijuana would be distributed, 
smoked and disappear altogether. No one gets hurt, no one goes to the 
hospital, no one gets shot through the door by a terrified teenage 
girl. In fact, no one dies of marijuana unless the police are somehow 
involved. It is the nature of the law itself which drives people to 
behave violently in regards to this drug; if there were no laws 
against it, then there would be no reason for anyone to ever get hurt at all.

Sound familiar? Kind of like alcohol prohibition, more people were 
endangered because it was outlawed than were hurt by the drink. By 
the way, legal alcohol kills more people (sclerosis of the liver, 
drinking while driving, etc...) than illegal marijuana (which can, 
admittedly, cause lung cancer.) This defies logic, and when this poor 
girl is sent to prison, she'll have at least a decade to think about 
how illogical it is that she is in prison because she shot an armed 
man outside her door.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom