Did the jerks behind the legalization of medical marijuana actually believe that medical pot growers would grow pot plants only for medical use? I don’t think so! It’s the old story of money talks, bullshit walks.
As for AIDS patient Ryan Landers’ assertion that cancer and AIDS patients “can't live without their medical marijuana,” that too is a load of crap. What’s keeping them alive is the traditional medical treatments they are getting for their cancer and AIDS, not marijuana.
MARIJUANA GARDEN SHOOTOUT LEAVES ONE DEAD, FIVE IN CUSTODY IN AMADOR COUNTY
By Peter Hecht
The Sacramento Bee
September 30, 2011
Neighbors reported a few shots shattering the night in rural Amador County, then more gunfire exploding like rolling thunder.
Sheriff's deputies, racing to a former horse property near the town of Ione, found 779 marijuana plants, bullet-riddled trailers and a dead man – covered in blood – grasping an empty shotgun.
On Thursday, two days after the wild shooting that allegedly involved gang members trying to steal marijuana, Amador authorities held five young men in custody. They were juggling both a homicide investigation and a probe into possible illicit dealings in the name of medical marijuana.
The deadly incident illuminates the dangerous lure of marijuana gardens – medical or otherwise – during the fall harvest season. The investigation also underscores law enforcement's dilemma in determining at what scale medicinal cultivation may constitute illegal pot growing or trafficking.
Amador County Sheriff Martin Ryan said he is just glad that his officers, who arrived as two vehicles were speeding away, weren't caught in the shootout.
"Grows of this type have become a very attractive option for criminals to attack for the cash value," Ryan said. "And these gang members would not have been in our county had it not been for the lucrative financial opportunity.
"We were within a minute of being in the middle of that shooting."
Amador authorities Thursday were withholding the names of the alleged gang members, ages 18 to 23, as an FBI evidence team arrived to assist at the shooting scene. Law enforcement in Sacramento County, meanwhile, served search warrants on separate marijuana growing sites – one allegedly connected to the Amador County property, the other possibly tied to suspects in the killing.
"We are investigating all aspects of this, from the gang-organized part of it to the marijuana cultivation to the robbery-murder," said Amador Undersheriff James Wegner.
The dead man, He Ting Fu, 45, was described by authorities as a pot grower who – with three other people on the property – got physician's recommendations to grow 99 plants each for their medical conditions.
Wegner said a man who identified himself as Fu's nephew contacted authorities, telling them that his wife owned the property. He said the man told deputies that the couple cultivated medical marijuana in Elk Grove but not at the Amador site, where growers had 8 pounds of processed marijuana, 400 outdoor plants and 379 more in indoor cultivation rooms.
The suspected assailants were described as gang members from Sacramento with semiautomatic pistols, a flak jacket marked "SWAT," plastic handcuffs, a flashing police light, and pruning shears and bags – apparently for cutting and stealing marijuana.
The suspects were arrested after being stopped in a green Ford Expedition on Carbondale Road. But authorities lost sight of a second vehicle that fled on Michigan Ione Bar Road.
The shooting was unnerving to Ryan Landers, a senior adviser for a medical marijuana advocacy group, the Compassionate Coalition and an AIDS patient who grows plants for his personal use.
Landers said he was bothered by the scale of the Amador County cultivation. He said a setting with multiple marijuana patients with recommendations for 99 plants sounded more like people cashing in to sell pot than caring for themselves or others.
"There are people like me who are dying, who are cancer patients, AIDS patients," Landers said. "They can't live without their medical marijuana. But they're not the ones out growing 500 plants."
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