Marijuana - not so harmless

It's amazing to me how widespread marijuana is in our society. Maybe I've been naive? I know attorneys for whom smoking pot is a regular part of their leisure activities. Don't ask me how I know, but I know. At the other end of the economic spectrum is our neighborhood, where it's not unusual to see young black men strolling down the street in broad daylight smoking a joint. And I know some blue-collar working people that like to get high too. Has reefer gone mainstream?

Often you'll hear a distinction made between marijuana (the peaceful innocuous drug that doesn't hurt anybody) and "harder" drugs associated with crime, violence and addiction. The truth is more complicated as this news story from The Palm Beach Post demonstrates.

BOCA RATON — Three teenagers had a plan to buy marijuana Sunday night with counterfeit money, police said. But the ill-fated scheme backfired, leaving two of them clinging to life.

They used a scanner at Northwood University in West Palm Beach to make $1,250 in counterfeit money, then bought a quarter-pound of marijuana from a Boca Raton drug dealer, police said.

But the 19-year-old dealer, Thomas Fenech, recognized the fake money, grabbed his AK-47 assault rifle and ran out of his house, blasting 21 rounds into a black Mustang and wounding two of its occupants, police said.

It happened about 8:30 p.m. in the parking lot of Fenech's apartment in the 300 block of Northwest 19th Street.

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The well-heeled professionals smoking pot in the privacy of their home may justify what they're doing as harmless, but those drugs had to come from somewhere. I bet the other residents of that apartment complex (including children no doubt) are glad the local gun-wielding pot dealer is behind bars.