Oregon Medical Marijuana and Gun Crimes -- Part II

(UPDATED -- see below)

Last month, in Part I of this two-part posting, I posted a blog highlighting the connection between marijuana, including medical marijuana, and gun crimes.  But shootings aren't just for illegal dealers, illegal users, or medical users; shootings happen to medical marijuana growers, too, and not all of them are innocent victims.  In fact, some are the criminals.

I ended the last post as follows:  "According to one article, 24,000 of Oregon's 38,000 medical marijuana card holders are growers of marijuana.  Are the growers any less likely to commit gun crimes or be attacked by shooters?"

First off, marijuana is an illegal drug for the vast majority of users, including in Oregon (where medicinal marijuana use is legalized).  At the federal level, marijuana is still considered illegal for everyone, setting up a problem with enforcement between state and federal authorities.  And though marijuana is less addictive for most people than most other drugs, including tobacco and alcohol, it has been shown to lead to addiction, particularly for long-time users.  Wherever you have an addiction, particularly with illegal usage, you have crime and shootings.

When most people around the nation think of marijuana growers, they think of shady characters with giant crops hidden in remote forests.  There was a case fairly recently, for instance, here in Oregon, where five men had an illegal "grow."  When they discovered that their plants had been harvested, they pinned it on another man, kidnapped him at gunpoint, tortured him, and left him to die.  The man escaped.  The five growers were captured.  And it turned out one of the gunmen had actually secretly harvested the crop without telling the others, preferring an innocent man take the fall.

But what about legal marijuana growers?  Surely they are above these crimes.  Immune from the illegality of the drug, shouldn't they be insulated from gun crimes?

Not at all.  As I mentioned, wherever you have an addiction, you have crimes, including gun crimes:

HERE is an example of one where two men invaded the Springfield, Oregon home of a medical marijuana grower, demanding drugs and money, and shot the family dog.

HERE is another example, where three men invaded the home of another medical marijuana grower in Oregon City, locked up the family's three children in a closet, and stole money and marijuana.  The invaders held a gun to the head of the grower while the children watched.

HERE is an example where three men tried to shoot and rob a medical marijuana grower in Springfield, Oregon.  Luckily, in that case, the men were fended off by the owner's dog.

HERE is a more recent case from Eugene, Oregon, where two armed suspects got into the back yard of a medical marijuana grower.  When the male homeowner went to investigate, the suspects shot him in the leg.  The grower's wife then came out with a shotgun and shot back, missing the suspects but scaring them off.  Said the neighbor, about the marijuana growing operation: "It's a risky business," he said. "There's lots of people that'll rip you off at gun point."

And that last quote is really the heart of the problem, isn't it?  Other high-risk commercial ventures, like banks, convenience stores, pawn shops, and gun shops, all have security features in place, like cameras, bars on windows, alarm systems, or even armed guards (for banks).  But this simply isn't the case for many marijuana growers.  Other than sometimes having a weapon of their own or, in one case, having a dog, none of these articles suggest any other sort of security.  No cameras, bars on windows, or even heavy-duty locks on the doors.  They don't seem to follow many of the alternatives to gun ownership that I espouse.  If you were growing a drug that is potentially addictive, prone to criminal activity, and considered illegal for the vast number of users, wouldn't you take security seriously?  If you don't, wouldn't you think it would attract criminals?  These are the growers' homes, for Christsake.  Hell, some of these growers have children living there, even. 

And it's not just the home of the grower that is in danger.  It's the homes and families living around them.  As one Eugene detective and a grower's neighbor commented:

Eugene police detective Matt Hervert did not say that the medical marijuana grow operation had anything to do with this crime, but he did bring up the danger of gunfire in residential areas.

"Certainly bullets flying around the neighborhood are dangerous to everybody, everybody around," he said.

Brooks agreed.

"Got to be careful where you're shooting a shotgun in a neighborhood," he said. "It's got to go somewhere."

Consider THIS case from Springfield, Oregon, where a legal grower and his friend had been "out on the town" and returned to the grower's apartment.  The friend left, but realized he had forgotten his keys.  When the friend knocked on the door and got no answer, he then foolishly went to a door or window where the grower's plants were located and helped himself in.  That's when the grower grabbed a gun, mistaking his friend for a burglar, and shot the guy.  The article didn't say if being "out on the town" had inebriated either man, but clearly things weren't right here.  Before you exclaim that this is a "simple" accident and that the grower was well within his rights (which he was, legally), remember the following:  why didn't he answer the door?  And why was his rear window or door left unlocked, or at least not fortified enough to stop a would-be robber?  For that matter, why choose an apartment complex to grow your plants in?  Is this really where such an operation should be undertaken, in close confines to young families, probably with children, as many apartment dwellers are?

But before you consider these legal growers to be mere victims, consider that some of them are criminals, too.

HERE is a case where a legal marijuana grower in Marion County, Oregon, was burglarized.  When deputies came to investigate, they found an illegal "spring gun" in his garden: a shotgun with a tripwire, ready to fire. The gun was loaded only with wadding, and meant only to scare criminals, but was still illegal.  A minor example, yes, but consider the following two cases...

HERE is a case where a medical marijuana advocate, legal grower, and card holder from Coos County, Oregon, Robert M. Walker, became angry at a man over a "long-simmering dispute stemming from marijuana issues."  Walker shot the man in the leg while the man was biking along a highway.  Scandalized by his misdeeds, Walker hung himself in jail.

Just a couple months ago, there was another shooting of a medical marijuana grower just south of Cottage Grove, Oregon.  At first glance, this appeared to be like the others, where the home invaders wanted to rob the man they had killed.  But it turns out that the grower, Terry Fruichantie, may not have been so innocent after all.  Rumors of illegal drug trafficking had plagued him before, as well as the arrest of two of his family members and four other people, some of whom were listed as legal growers, and the seizure of hundreds of marijuana plants and $20,000, after a raid by 50 officers from various law enforcement agencies, there on the property where he had been killed.

Then it was revealed that the deceased man's father, Jerry Fruichantie, accused his son and others of being "methamphetamine users who threatened several times last year to assault and kill him — in at least one instance while accompanied by “neo-Nazis.”

Terry Fruichantie was charged in August with growing and selling marijuana. Court records indicate he had been scheduled to plead guilty on Tuesday to one of the charges, although his father said his son had wanted to fight the charges at a trial.

The father was one of those accused in the previous raid.

Jerry Fruichantie alleged in a separate restraining order application filed against son-in-law Russell Nealey that the younger man has threatened to “put me away,” pushed him, destroyed his vehicles and stole his tools and guns.

“I cannot go on my property because of him and his affiliation with white supremacists,” Fruichantie wrote in the application.

In yet another application, Fruichantie alleged that Brian Nealey threatened to assault him with a steel pipe and once brought “neo-Nazis” to his boat to “cut the squealer’s throat.”

Not surprisingly, these allegations have caused a split in the family.

Wow.  Allegations of neo-Nazi affiliation and threats, illegal drug dealing and growing, and yet the victim was still growing medical marijuana and owning guns?

Don't get me wrong.  I'm a supporter of medical marijuana.  I believe it helps relieve suffering for many patients, and I voted for it.  But that doesn't mean that there can't be reasonable limits on who can grow marijuana and how it is distributed.  Certainly, mixing it with guns leads to a higher-than-normal chance of tragedy.  And, as I've shown, there is a greater-than-average need to have reasonable security precautions in place, beyond what one would expect for your average household.  It's a dangerous business, and as for all dangerous businesses, it is the role of our government to step in and mandate safety for the good of the community.  Gun crimes follow drugs, even the legal ones.

UPDATE (5/17/13):  A legal medical marijuana dispensary was robbed at gunpoint in Portland, the armed man threatening a number of volunteers before making off with marijuana and money.

UPDATE (9/25/13):  Another example of a shooting, this time in Springfield, Oregon, of a man shooting someone trying to steal his marijuana plants in his back yard.

UPDATE (5/29/14):  Five masked gunmen invaded a medical marijuana garden located in Linn County, tied up the owners, and stole plants, cash, and guns from the owners.

Oregon Medical Marijuana and Gun Crimes -- Part I

In May of Last year, as I posted about previously, the Oregon Court of Appeals ruled that Oregonians who have a medical marijuana permit may be issued a conceal carry license (CCL) as well.  Then, in January of this year, the Supreme Court refused to hear the case, allowing that ruling to stand (but also allowing a gray area to remain, since both medical marijuana and gun possession by addicts is still illegal at a federal level; A provision of the 1968 Gun Control Act prohibits drug addicts from possessing or receiving a firearm (18 U.S.C. 922 (g)(3))). 

The Oregon Court of Appeals ruling stands against common sense, given the altered state of mind that marijuana leads to, the danger of a gun in that state, and the fact that there isn't a law (as far as I've been able to ascertain) against being high and carrying a loaded weapon at home or in public (with a CCL).

As stated in one article:

"Any person who uses or is addicted to marijuana, regardless of whether or not his or her state has passed legislation authorizing marijuana use for medicinal purposes, is an unlawful user of or is addicted to a controlled substance and is prohibited by federal law from possessing firearms or ammunition," Herbert wrote.

While medical marijuana supporters have expressed outrage, groups that can usually be counted on to stand up for Second Amendment rights have been largely silent. Although the National Shooting Sports Foundation was the first place outside ATF to post the open letter, it has not responded to repeated Chronicle requests to comment on the Second Amendment rights of medical marijuana users. Neither has the National Rifle Association.

Advocates of medical marijuana insist that they are law-abiding citizens just interested in easing their pain.  I don't doubt it.  Most likely the majority of Oregon's 40,000 medical marijuana permit holders fit that description.  Oregon Sheriffs don't agree.  

"This whole medical marijuana thing is a farce, and you can quote me on that," said Clatsop County Sheriff Tom Bergin, president of the Oregon State Sheriff's Assn., who believes only a fraction of the state's nearly 40,000 registered medical marijuana users have a legitimate need for the drug.

"I always ask them, 'How many times a day do you medicate?' They say it's like four or five times a day," Bergin said. "Well, that's 16 hours a day you're running around stoned. Do we even want them behind vehicles? No. Do we want them carrying around a gun? Absolutely no."

Police forces across Oregon are highly critical of Oregon's medical marijuana law:

[The law is] a system that allows designated growers to legally cultivate hundreds of pounds of marijuana, and it gives so-called "caretakers" cover to move marijuana through the state, critics said. Defenders of the existing law say their legitimate medication is under attack, and the proposed changes would go too far.

The law is so useful to drug traffickers that they'd be "foolish" not to use it, said Detective H. Ray Myers, a Grants Pass police officer who works on the Rogue Area Drug Enforcement Team. Myers said the vast majority of his cases involve medical marijuana cardholders.

"It is easy for them to hide behind it," Myers said. "It makes it difficult for us to investigate."

Critics say the professional growers can cultivate massive marijuana plants that are each capable of producing dozens of pounds of pot. That creates a significant excess beyond the 1½ pounds a patient is eligible to possess, and some growers sell their surplus on the black market. Designated "caregivers" are allowed to possess the marijuana designated for patients in their care, so becoming a caregiver for 10 patients would give someone cover to transport 15 pounds of marijuana.

HERE is one such example of a medical marijuana permit holder who abused the system (and, of course, had a loaded gun in his possession).  HERE is a recent case, an Oregon man illegally transporting three pounds of pot through Idaho, and ANOTHER recent case like that one, but with five pounds.

HERE is another case of one of those "caregivers" abusing the system.  They had 100 plants and nearly four pounds of processed pot.  Of course, they were also armed, with a 12-guage shotgun and 9mm semi-auto pistol.

So if there are so many cases of abuse, and our law enforcement has concerns, shouldn't we trust the opinion of those who are in charge of protecting public safety?  Shouldn't their concern about the need for stricter regulation and the prevention of arming these people be listened to?

Don't get me wrong; I support medical marijuana.  I voted to allow medical marijuana here, and truly believe it eases suffering.  I wish my grandmother could try it.  People are moving to Oregon just for the medical marijuana, and are seeking Oregon medical marijuana permits even when living out of state.  But while there are benefits of marijuana for patients, it comes with risks. 

One of those risks is that, when mixed with guns, the altered state of mind while high makes choices with guns a potentially deadly combination, just as with alcohol, some legal drugs, or many illegal drugs.  Reasonable restrictions need to be put in place to reduce cases of abuse of the law and dangerous activities.

"Just because we're patients doesn't mean we don't have real lifestyles and rights like everyone else," said the medical marijuana user who successfully sued to have her conceal carry permit.  True, but it also means that there's no guarantee you won't shoot an innocent person while high.  All rights have restrictions, since the welfare of the people is of highest importance.  This is no different.

Pro-gun advocates would like you to think that drug-related shootings are only back-alley deals gone wrong, by gang bangers and illegal dealers.  Most are, around the nation, like THIS one or THIS one.  HERE is a recent local case if ID thieves who were armed with a stolen gun and had illegal marijuana and other drugs. HERE is a local case from last year where five men who had a clandestine illegal marijuana crop kidnapped an innocent man at gunpoint and planned to kill him because they thought he had harvested their crop (turns out one of the five kidnappers had secretly done it).  But a large number of cases around here don't fit the gun advocates' model. 

Here's a case from just a couple days ago which doesn't fit that "shady drug deal" model, in Springfield.  A 26-year old man was high on marijuana and decided to twirl his .357 revolver.  The gun went off, tearing through his left thigh and lodging the bullet in the floor.  He had a 3 year old and 5 year old in the apartment with him.  Luckily, neither child was harmed, nor the three people in the apartment below.  Prior to that point, I'm sure this previously law-abiding man would have argued that there was no problem with having a gun while high, or having a gun around children.

And HERE is a case where a medical marijuana user was shot in the leg when someone broke into his apartment, trying to steal his pot.  He was a target because of his prescription.

Being a medical marijuana card holder doesn't keep you out of trouble.  It doesn't give you more common sense.  And for some, it increases the chance of abuse.  Smoking weed impairs your judgment, and when you have a medical marijuana card, it can also make you a target for addicts. Mix guns in with this, and you have a recipe for tragedy.

But what about legal growers?  For card holders, shouldn't they be the most law-abiding and safe of all card holders?  According to one article, 24,000 of Oregon's 38,000 medical marijuana card holders are growers of marijuana.  Are the growers any less likely to commit gun crimes or be attacked by shooters? 

As you'll see in Part II of this posting, this isn't the case...

Guns for Stoners

If you came upon someone on the street who was smoking pot and clearly stoned, how would you feel if they were handed a loaded gun?  Do you think that person would have sound judgment, enough to handle a lethal weapon?  Would they have good aim?  Would you feel  safer? 

I know I wouldn't. 

But the Oregon Supreme Court disagrees.  Earlier this week they ruled that people with medical marijuana permits can be issued concealed carry permits, too.

From an article in the Register-Guard:

The ruling upheld previous decisions by the Oregon Court of Appeals and circuit court that determined a federal law barring criminals and drug addicts from buying firearms does not excuse sheriffs from issuing concealed weapons permits to people who hold medical marijuana cards and otherwise qualify.

"We hold that the Federal Gun Control Act does not pre-empt the state's concealed handgun licensing statute and, therefore, the sheriffs must issue (or renew) the requested licenses," Chief Justice Paul De Muniz wrote in the ruling issued in Salem.

Cynthia Willis, one of four plaintiffs, welcomed the ruling.

"I feel like a big girl now," Willis said. "I feel like a real human being now, not just a source of revenue to the county."

The article goes on to explain that the plaintiff, Willis, "volunteers at a Medford smoke shop that helps medical marijuana patients find growers, and teaches how to get the most medical benefit from the pound-and-a-half of pot that card carriers are allowed to possess."

Honestly, I don't have too much of a problem with medical marijuana.  Like a majority of Oregonians, I feel it helps alleviate a variety of serious medical symptoms and is less damaging to society than alcohol or even cigarettes.

However, I firmly believe that guns should not be possessed by people who are using mind-altering drugs, whether they are legal or not.  This goes for alcohol, too.  Sadly, there is no law against them owning guns in this country simply for that reason, unless the drugs are illegal and they have been convicted of such crimes.  This ruling by the Oregon Supreme Court is a slap in the face of common sense.

Sure, I can see the coming argument.  You may say that medical marijuana users aren't your typical junky.  They are likely only to use their drug in their home, and are less likely to go out of the home while high. 

I would counter by saying that a gun in the home in their hands isn't any more safe than on the streets.  And there is nothing preventing them from walking out of the home, armed and stoned.

But consider also THIS article just the day after the previous one.  From the article:

Oregon's medical marijuana law provides a safe-haven for large-scale drug production and trafficking operations, law enforcement officials told state lawmakers Thursday in testimony supporting a proposed overhaul of the system.

and

Critics say the professional growers can cultivate massive marijuana plants that are each capable of producing dozens of pounds of pot. That creates a significant excess beyond the 1½ pounds a patient is eligible to possess, and some growers sell their surplus on the black market. Designated "caregivers" are allowed to possess the marijuana designated for patients in their care, so becoming a caregiver for 10 patients would give someone cover to transport 15 pounds of marijuana.

Now, I'm certain the vast majority of medical marijuana distributors and users are not criminals.  Still, some clearly are, according to law enforcement professionals who testified.  Thanks to the Oregon Supreme Court, they can now be legally armed in public, too.

Interestingly, there is also a bill written by the extremist group, Oregon Firearms Federation, and submitted by Representative Thatcher, their voicebox in the legislature, which proposes that anyone convicted of misdemeanor marijuana crimes (including non-medical marijuana) should be allowed to carry concealed as well.  House Bill 2789 was referred to the Judiciary Committee, last I knew, but isn't likely to get traction.  Still, it is disturbing to me that any leader would even propose such a heinous attack on common sense.   Never mind that those who are convicted of this crime likely have been convicted of other drug crimes, but I digress.  I call this the "Guns for Stoners" bill.  It's one of a number of very dangerous pro-gun bills introduced this year in Oregon.

I'm glad that the plaintiff mentioned earlier, Willis, feels "like a big girl now" or a "real human being" because the Oregon Supreme Court says she can pack heat and be stoned in public.  But I don't want to be anywhere near her if I could help it, and it doesn't give me any sort of sense of "liberty" knowing she is able to blow me away if she feels threatened in her mind-altered manner.


UPDATE (7/27/11):  The case is appealed by the Sheriff and heads to the U.S. Supreme Court:  http://www.kval.com/news/health/126264363.html.  Let's hope for a ruling in the Sheriff's favor.


UPDATE (1/10/12):  The Supreme Court refused to hear the case, thus letting stand the Oregon Appeals Court ruling allowing Oregonians with medical marijuana permits to be allowed concealed carry permits, as recognized by Oregon.  Of course, medical marijuana is still considered illegal at a federal level, as is the carrying of a gun by drug offenders.  So there is still gray area here.