Either the Dayton police have been up late staring at too many drug files, or they’re about to pitch a pilot of Unsolved Mysteries: Dayton Edition to their local network executives. It seems that the brass there would like to blame several recent area shootings on the assailant’s or victim’s possession of small amounts of weed.

According to baffled Lieutenant, Patrick Welsh:

The trend in several of the homicides and even non-fatal shootings is that they’re related to marijuana use and sales.

And the evidence for this? Apparently Dayton police found a man shot at a residence in which they had made a weed-related arrest three-months earlier. Let’s forget, for a moment, that the same residence was cited as an after hours alcohol distributor. This, combined with a few scattered cases of Dayton weed dealers being hit for either money or baggies prompted the Dayton Daily News columnist (of the story in question) to conclude:

Now, marijuana seems to be the dangerous drug.

Sherlock Holmes, this guy isn’t. Any Drug War newbie could tell you that the presence of the drugs in these cases are completely irrelevant, save for the fact that they’re worth money. And they’re worth so much money because of their illegality. Do you really think people would be shooting each other over this easily cultivated plant if anyone could grow it without fear of arrest or reprisal? Do people shoot each other over basil or tarragon? How many rosemary-related murders have we tallied this year?

Criminalization of plants is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you increase the value of an object and prohibit legal businesses from selling it, then you are literally handing a valuable monopoly over to the black market. That’s the market where business is settled with the business-end of a sawed-off shotgun. So, logically speaking, it was the police who were the cause of the very crimes that they were investigating. Elementary, my dear Watson.

According to a San Antonio news service, a Bexar County attorney was arrested for trying to bring two ounces of weed and a chrome pipe into the county courthouse. The attorney, Regina Criswell, said that the weed was for a client of hers.

While attorneys should generally be used to the plodding nature of court trials, one can see how some well-timed ganja could really perk up an otherwise dreary day in court. Few things are more likely to ensure that jurors pay attention to a diatribe on DNA evidence than a nice attention-intensive high.

Local Deputy and cartoon villain Ino Badillo added:

It doesn’t matter who you are. You can’t be in possession of narcotics. Period.

Well, unless you’re a prescription-toting MD, Washington DC mayor, or fun-loving DEA agent, that is.

A notoriously obtuse American public may finally be catching up to the reality that marijuana prohibition causes more harm than good. According to a Washington Post/ABC News poll, more Americans now support pot legalization than ever before. 46 percent of Americans now support legalizing ’small amounts of marijuana for personal use.’

This represents a ten percent jump in the last four years, which is a relatively huge shift in popular support for such a short time. Even during the weed-friendly Carter administration, support for legalization never rose higher than 28% (in 1977).

While tFS is confident that its own efforts are largely responsible for the newest poll results, other political factors may also account for this green-moving trend. Some of these factors include the weed-friendly stances of many mainstream celebrities and athletes (including the Michael Phelps bong fiasco), the worsening drug-related violence in Mexico, and the recognition of weed as a potential US cash crop in the midst of a debilitating recession.

Bruce Mirkin of the Marijuana Policy Project noted:

There is clearly more interest and serious discussion of whether marijuana prohibition makes any sense than I’ve seen at any point in my adult lifetime… Marijuana prohibition has become like the Soviet Empire circa 1987 or 1988… It’s an empty shell of a policy that continues only because it is perceived as being huge and formidable, but when the perception changes, the whole thing is going to collapse.

Well, the perception is certainly changing. And, as it happens, altered perceptions are the weed culture’s specialty.

A recent study was done on the effects of marijuana exposure to cats.

Okay, for the sake of time we’re just going to ignore the search for the rationale behind why this study was done. Cutting right to the obvious, the article says keep your pets away from your drugs. Awesome advice. Not only are your lovable house pets not really made to handle it, it’s a waste of weed. And they probably aren’t paying for it, and who likes a mooch? For the good of your supply, and your house pet (since if you sit around smoking with a house pet you probably can’t or won’t pay the costly veterinary bills you will incur) try to keep second-hand smoke away from your pets.