CRIMINALS SELL POT 'LEGALLY'

Here are some statistics showing how things are going in Colorado
since that state legalized the sale of so-called ?medical marijuana?:

A majority of the owners of ?medical marijuana? dispensaries in
Colorado have criminal records, according to the Drug Enforcement
Administration.

Nearly one-fifth of those dispensary owners have felony convictions,
ranging from sexual assault to burglary.

?The felony figures ... bear out officials? fears that former drug
dealers and drug users have flocked to Colorado?s nascent medical
marijuana industry,? The Associated Press reported.

Kevin Merrill, assistant special agent in charge for the Denver field
division of the DEA, told the AP, ?There?s people who are in the
marijuana business strictly to make a profit and not what was
portrayed to the voters, which was (to) care for very sick and
imminently dying people.? He added, ?This business seems to have an
inappropriate number of people with criminal backgrounds involved as
business owners.?

The federal government is partially to blame for the ugly state of
affairs in Colorado and some other states that approved the use of
?medical marijuana.? Last year, the Obama administration declared that
it would not seek to prosecute people who sell marijuana with the
permission of the states in which they live ? even though it is a
federal crime. That ?federal signal gave rise to more than 1,000
dispensaries? in Colorado, the AP reported.

Now, Colorado residents are in an uproar, and the state is scrambling
to shut down ?medical marijuana? dispensaries owned by convicted felons.

It would have made more sense not to permit such dispensaries in the
first place.