POT WAR, CONT'D

The war between marijuana criminals and law enforcement continues,
providing one debating point after another in favor of rationalizing
our laws.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Oregon reports on a recent case in which
a 57-year-old man from Gresham was indicted and arrested to await
trial. He is charged not just with running a marijuana farm on his
property in the woods, but also with trying to run over a Forest
Service officer to avoid arrest.

The guy allegedly was trying to get away from two Forest Service
officers trying to arrest him and aimed his pickup at one of them.
They opened fire and hit the suspect in one leg before he
surrendered.

If he's convicted, the defendant faces 10 years in federal prison for
growing pot, and up to life in prison for assaulting a federal officer
with a deadly weapon, meaning his truck, not to mention forfeiture of
property used for growing the crop.

If the man did try to run over the officer in his attempt to flee, he
deserves whatever harsh punishment he gets. But the outsider scratches
his head and wonders: All this trouble and heartache, all this mayhem
and gunfire, all this suffering and expense connected with long
imprisonment over some guy growing plants in the woods?

Sure, it's against the law and he shouldn't have grown it (assuming
he did what he's charged with doing). But can't Congress adopt more
sensible laws -- such as licensing and taxing, perhaps -- regarding a
plant that everybody says causes less immediate harm than the booze
for which, in Oregon at least, the state itself earns a nice profit
from sales?