This article was originally published on the Marijuana Patients Organization site on July 18, 2013.
This article does not promote Team Zimmerman nor Team Martin. As a nation we are questioning “stand your ground” laws in Florida and it’s constitutionality, unfortunately, we sit idle as law enforcement responds to “legal medical marijuana” calls in the same fashion as they did 30 years ago, by kicking your door in.
The Compassion Chronicles earlier this week, told the story of Barb Agro, who in August of 2010 lost her husband (Sal Agro) to a heart attack following a swat-style police raid on her and her late husband’s home. The raid was in “connection” to her son’s involvement in Clinical Relief, a licensed dispensary in Ferndale, MI. A charge that was quickly overturned and a raid deemed unnecessary and illegal by county judges.
Unfortunately for Barb Agro (age 73) a retired police dispatcher with the Lake Orion Police Department, not only did she lose her husband but she was found to be in possession of 6 immature marijuana plants and convicted in an Oakland county court for manufacturing narcotics. At age 71 Barb was given a felony, her first ever crime. Throughout trial the judge ordered Mrs. Agro to not inform the jury that she possessed a marijuana patient card, a card that allowed her to possess up to 12 plants.
This month Mrs. Agro will appeal her felony conviction and bring some closure to an event that should have never occurred.
While we have a “State Marihuana Act”, Oakland county sheriffs under the auspice of federal agents, funded with federal dollars, drove tanks blindfolded by ski-masks and held assault rifles to the heads of law-abiding parents and their young children.
If we question the manner in which George Zimmerman confronted Trayvon Martin than there is no doubt the manner in which law enforcement raid medical marijuana patients, caregivers, dispensaries and clinics is not only excessive but deadly. Specifically in the Clinical Relief and Barbara Agro case(s) , and the 99% of similar raids where charges are never brought against otherwise law-abiding citizens.
Are Sal Agro and Trayvon Martin one in the same? The way I see it, they were both in the wrong place and at the wrong time (in history perhaps) and their deaths were justified not by common sense but dated attitudes.
I really don’t under stand why a petition has not been made to the Federal Government to make marijuana legal for adults or people who carry a medical marijuana card. Until it is no one will be safe from the wasted efforts of the “war on drugs” .
Sal is a hero, Trayvon is a zero.