Curtain pulled back on "medical marijuana" facade again

"Oh, but it's just medicine for sufferers of chronic pain!"

Leaving aside the fact that the typical "medical marijuana patient" is a twenty-something no-job-having skateboarder or a college kid repeating his freshman year for the third time, I guess that we can assume that the cocaine and guns seized at this dope den "medical marijuana dispensary" all had some sort of medicinal use too, right?People, wise up. When the pro-pot crowd comes to your state with their bus load of professional patients who get paid to sob about how only marijuana makes their chronic pain go away, once you vote to legalize it to help the poor old cancer sufferers (all five or six of them), this is what you approve for your community if you vote for legalized "medical" pot.

Normally I'm not one to tell others how to live, but most people wouldn't vote to allow crack houses next to their local playgrounds and these so-called "medical" marijuana operations are really no different despite the professional PR campaign that they run.

Knowledge is power, and drug dealers who hire lobbyists and PR firms are still scumbags.

A note to stupid criminals--it's usually smart to keep your mouth shut.

Rule #1 when you're running a clandestine dope-growing operation: Don't give interviews to the media bragging about it.

Dope grower Chris Bartkowicz, of Highland Ranch Colorado, apparently never heard this. He actually gave an interview to the local news outlets bragging about how he turned his house into a dope factory with the hope of cashing in on the "medical marijuana" craze.

"I'm definitely hidden in suburbia," he said.

A jungle of electrical wires and water hoses snakes from room to room in the home's basement, all supporting Bartkowicz's nearly $500,000 medical-marijuana operation.

This year, he is hoping for a record profit.

"I'd like to see somewhere in the vicinity of $400,000 " he said, though he admits he could make as little as $100,000 depending on what happens with proposed laws regarding medical marijuana.

Bartkowicz said he has grown for more than a year without his neighbors finding out and without any criminal complications.

"If my neighbors don't know and no one else knows, how would I be a target?" he said. "I want to be invisible."

Bartkowicz must route air from the home through a carbon filter to remove the marijuana odor before pumping it outside. Lights and pumps get expensive too. He showed 9Wants to Know his electric bill for two months. He owed $3,694.92, a small price to pay for what he earns, he said.

"I'm definitely living the dream now," he said.

A drug dealer bragging openly about his defiance of the law. Only in a Blue State...

However Bartkowicz' boasting didn't go unnoticed for long. Today's 9News had a related story, but from a different angle.

HIGHLANDS RANCH - Federal Drug Enforcement Administration agents raided a Highlands Ranch home on Friday and arrested a medical marijuana grower who was part of a 9Wants to Know story about suburban medical marijuana growing operations.

After 9NEWS showed a tease for a story about Bartkowicz and his operation Thursday night, DEA agents decided he needed a visit. By Friday afternoon DEA agents were at the house carrying away moving boxes and leaf-size trash bags from his home, all filled with marijuana plants.

They also carried away lights, filters and other equipment that were part of Bartkowicz's growing operation.

In the earlier interview, Bartkowicz claimed his operation was completely legal under a state law that allows the growing and sale of medical marijuana.

The special agent in charge of the DEA in Denver says federal law still makes growing and selling marijuana illegal.

"According to him and according to what he's seen on the news he probably believes he is legal," Jeff Sweetin said late Friday afternoon. "We will continue to enforce federal law that's what we are paid to do until the federal law changes."

Bartkowicz is in custody and will not learn what charges he might face until Tuesday, after the President's Day holiday. The U.S. Attorney's office told 9NEWS Friday if he is charged, he could face a charge of possession with intent to distribute. The U.S. Attorney will review the evidence and the decide on the charges.

Hey, moron...you still living the dream?

They call it "dope" for a reason. And I note for the record that this guy himself claimed to be a "medical marijuana" patient. But then all the dopers and drug addicts in Colorado are making that claim these days, almost all for aches and pains that no doctor can actually see or disprove. The voters passed a law allowing the drug for actual sufferers of chronic pain and the addicts jumped right on it and began gaming it by claiming to all have some sort of pain that can't be treated any other way. Hopefully the Colorado voters are waking up to the fact that they were gulled by a pro-legalization lobby that trotted a few cancer-stricken elderly people out in front of them, claiming that they were the people that needed medical marijuana. Now it's every twenty year old skateboarder and x-box player who is going around with a medical marijuana card, each pretending to be disabled in some way.

It's time to change the law back, Colorado. And people in other states that are considering legalizing marijuana for so-called medical use, please take note of the massive fraud going on in Colorado today and just say no.

More proof that "medical marijuana" is just a scam to let almost anyone get weed

This tale out of Brighton, Colorado has it all...a hundred potheads, a doctor fleeing the police, a Chiropractor and his wife going to jail... So much for the fiction that medical marijuana is only used by a few pitiful people in the end stages of their lives.

A Brighton chiropractor and two other people were arrested Saturday for distributing pot after police say 100 people gathered — and smoked — at a makeshift medical-marijuana dispensary.

The chiropractic office building on South Fourth Avenue in Brighton was set up as an "assembly line to give out marijuana prescriptions" — complete with a doctor and a caregiver, said Sgt. Jim Gearhardt of the North Metro Drug Task Force.

Patients were paying $100 each to get into the building, police said.

When police arrived, the prescribing doctor fled the scene. Officers smelled pot smoke and arrested a chiropractor and his wife, and the caretaker dispensing the pot. Police declined to give the names of those arrested until they finished the investigation.

Brighton has a ban on medical-marijuana dispensaries, Gearhardt said.

Police said they were trying to get a search warrant to determine whether there is any more marijuana in the office building.

"The state law allows distribution of marijuana for medical purposes," said Sgt. Scott Takahashi of the North Metro Task Force. "It appears every single person coming through the door here was getting pot."

Chiropractor Darrin Marchus co-owns the building where the arrests were made. He was seeing his chiropractic patients on Saturday morning when he heard the commotion outside.

"I was doing my normal day, seeing patients," he said. "And there were a bunch of people lining up and police lining up."

He said the chiropractor with whom he shares the building, Jeffrey Gappa, who runs Complete Care of Colorado, told him last week he was having a "meeting" Saturday.

"He said he was going to have a talk of some kind with some people," Marchus said. "He was very secretive about all of it."

Marchus said Gappa mentioned something about medical marijuana, and Marchus told him he didn't want any part of that in their shared office building.

Marchus is worried sick about how the drama will affect his business, Marchus Chiropractic, which he has built over 20 years in Brighton.

State lawmakers are crafting legislation that should provide clarity to the state's burgeoning medical-marijuana industry.

State Sen. Chris Romer, D-Denver, is working on a measure that would create more stringent rules on the relationship between patients and prescribing doctors.

The bill would require the doctor and patient to have a "bona fide" relationship in which the doctor provides the patient a full examination and follow-up care before a prescription.

Rob Corry, an attorney representing the interests of the medical-marijuana industry, said Saturday's arrests were timely.

"I am sure there is no coincidence whatsoever between the fact this comes to light at the moment the state legislature is thinking about debating this issue," he said.

So the "doctor" needs to be located, charged criminally and stripped of his license to practice. Then this so-called "clinic" needs to be padlocked and/or seized. And every pothead who was identified as having been there needs to be put on a list of those who have abused the medical marijuana system and barred from getting it again unless and until they appear at a hearing and have a real doctor testify before a panel of other legitimate medical experts about the patient's actual need for weed.

And states that are considering legalizing marijuana for medicinal purposes need to look at stories like this. They are becoming more and more common, especially when the average "medical marijuana" card-holder is now apt to be some twenty-something skateboarder who claims to have some injury that no one else can see instead of the poor cancer or glaucoma sufferer that we were all told this law was being passed to help.

And if we're going to treat marijuana as a legitimate medicine, let's at least start controlling it like one by establishing purity standards, licensing and regulating growers and dispensing it through actual pharmacies instead of letting any old Cheech or Chong set himself up in the business of selling it. As it stands now, the whole thing is just a joke and I'm all in favor of just going back to the day when weed was illegal and warranted a record and maybe some time in jail. We gave the potheads an inch based on their claims of legitimate use for a select few, and they abused it. So screw 'em; let's just go back to jailing the potheads until they learn to leave the stuff alone.

More proof that the whole "medical marijuana" scam is just about getting high and selling dope

Here we have Glen Meyer. Glen Meyer is a pothead. But Glen Meyer is also a pothead who was lucky enough to break his arm a few years ago and then hook up with a quack doctor somewhere who agreed with Glen that the only thing that would make Glen feel better is if Glen smokes pot every day for the rest of his life.

Let me insert my first "Give me a fucking break" right here. I got hurt a lot worse than this loser did a couple of years back, and I can tell you that people heal, and people injured much more seriously than this doper manage to get through life without smoking weed. And any number of returning vets can back me up on that.

But it gets better. It always does.

You see, Glen, who had permission from the state of Vermont to possess up to two ounces in his home for "medical purposes" was just busted by the local police, who found fifty-five plants and about four pounds of processed marijuana in his home and a restaurant that he runs. That's about $100,000 worth of dope, folks. And even Cheech and Chong and Woody Harrelson put together couldn't smoke all that up as "personal use".

Now he and his wife are facing felony drug charges as suspected drug dealers. And I hope they're convicted and their property is seized under the forfeiture laws designed to strip drug dealers of the fruits of their crimes. And I'll go farther and wish that this would rebound into the legislature in Vermont and put an end to the pretense of authorizing pot possession for people who claim any sort of phantom pain or nausea.

Of course Meyer claims that some of the pot wasn't his. That stuff growing outside his house? He claims that someone else planted those and he never noticed them. And he's hinting that the police are setting him up with the stuff found in his house and restaurant.

Here's where I insert the second "Give me a break."

Come on, stoner. We all know that every ounce was yours, and you know it too. At least try to act like a man for once in your pathetic life and own up to what you were doing. Don't act as if we're the ones on drugs by expecting us to buy those lame excuses. My dog comes up with better lies than you do.

Meanwhile, I'll continue to oppose the idea that smoking marijuana has any legitimate medical benefit or alleviates any pain that cannot be better treated with safe, regulated pharmaceuticals. And even though I'm a big States' Rights fan, I'll smile and approve every time that the feds step in and trump some state's decision to allow some druggie to get high while pretending that it's a medical necessity.