Posted on 12/16/2008 10:36:28 PM PST by MovementConservative
A jury sentenced a Lakeview man to 10 years in prison for growing nearly 7,500 marijuana plants.
Andrew Stever, 40, was sentenced on Monday after a three-day trial in the Federal District Court in Medford.Ten years is the mandatory minimum sentence for anyone convicted of growing 1,000 or more pot plants.
In July 2007, officers from several local, state and federal agencies found 7,459 plants growing on Stever's Lakeview property, which bordered Forest Service land. Two men fled the scene, leaving behind personal property and three firearms, according to the U.S. attorney's office in Portland. Physical evidence and testimony linked Stever to the operation, officials said.
"This was clearly the largest marijuana grow ever discovered in Lake County," said Mark Suba, a Forest Service official.
(insert joke about Obama’s smoking here)
That’s 2 days per plant!
He would have been better off killing someone. He would be out in 5.
I don’t have any problem with giving 10 years to a professional pot grower, but this gives me a bit of pause:
“which bordered Forest Service land.”
Given some past government excess, I’d need some strong evidence of his guilt. The government has been known to try to use questionable tactics to acquire land.
I guess it's a tad insane.
Imagine if Bush pardoned all pot offenses? Would he be your hero?
/johnny
"Hero" is a bit much, but I would certainly be impressed as hell.
It’s a sad day in our free Republic when somebody can have ten years of their life taken by an overreaching federal government for growing plants. Sometimes I wonder what I’m defending. That’s like getting put away back when Clinton was being impeached and just getting out now, all for horticulture.
I'd be pleased. Prohibition of marijuana doesn't work and actually IMO makes people respect law less. Sell the stupid stuff in liquor stores and put the underground pot industry out of business. That would cut a lot of crime and help empty out some of our county jails. I'd rather have these silly pot heads going to work at the ski resort every day than sitting in jail sponging off the taxpayers. Just because I don't use something and have no intention to doesn't mean I need to tell everyone else they can't stupidly suck something besides oxygen into their lungs.
All for profit given the number of plants. Just because this guy got busted doesn't mean squat though. The money is there to be made someone else will do supply the goods. Why are we fighting pot? I'll buy the arguments against heroin and other classifications of controlled substances, but pot makes no sense.
That's gotta be the number one reason for , at least, decriminalizing marijuana.
I don’t buy it against any “controlled substance” at the federal level. It’s silly, it’s cost tons of money with no return in profit to society, it’s made a lot of bad guys rich because it’s underground - thus driving up prices, taxfree, and it’s just not my business what you - an adult - put into your body.
Hero? Not really, we should be 'exporting' our product- the result of our expertise. Just another commodity we could be exporting and taxing such that our treasury wouldn't be so dry.
Hemp as a fiber and the oil derived from it could add plenty to our farming economy at low cost. No reason a plant's useage need be limited to 'getting high'. In fact, that ought to be ancillary.
It’s absurd. Let people grow it in their gardens.
This nation has to go on a National De-Tox movement: those things that poison us as a society need to be purged before we can 'move forward' as so many politicians like to say.
Moving forward beats moving backward (I guess) 'cept when it comes to the vote (I used to have to produce an ID). Legalizing would wipe out Mexican drug cartels and the power they exert on the border (and places like Arizona).
Additionally, our prisons could house the real bad asses that were fortunate enough not to have been shot plying their trade amongst the sheep-like, unarmed populace. That too, could change under a detox regimen.
that’s a little over 2 days for each marijuana plant. sounds fair to me.
“No reason a plant’s useage need be limited to ‘getting high’. In fact, that ought to be ancillary.”
no kidding. huffing paint thinner and gasoline fumes is far down on the list of “utility” for both substances.
Wathced a doc on pot (got bored and turned) but they did say the pot folks smoke now a days is not the weak stuff Gramps smoked in the 60s.
But I agree putting pot heads/growers in jail is a waste of $$$$.
We had an arrest of two guys here on the coast for being out in a field picking the WILD ride mushrooms that grow all over.
My landscape guy showed my the type of mushroom that grows wild on our property.
Waiting for the Berry bushes to become illegal to pick in the fall.
Pot growing is a gateway plant to growing tobacco.
Please, think of the children.
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