(The Denver Channel) DENVER — Two Denver elementary schools were put on temporary lockdown Wednesday morning after an armed robbery at a medical marijuana dispensary.
Munroe Elementary and Castro Elementary were locked down after shots were reported fired at The Healthy Choice Wellness Center, at 3005 W.Gill Place in southwest Denver. The lockdown was lifted shortly before noon.
According to a co-owner of the business, two people tried to rob the dispensary and shots were fired.
Three people were transported to the hospital with unknown injuries.
One of the robbers was arrested and a second robber is still being sought.
I can hear the reefer mad prohibitionists now, wailing about how the dispensaries bring crime and violence to the neighborhood and My God, What About the Children!?!
Why do people commit robbery? In this case, they were either desperate for money or desperate for marijuana.
If they were desperate for money, they could’ve robbed a bank or a convenience store, and nobody would complain that we shouldn’t open banks and stores near schools. They robbed a dispensary because it is flush with money, because marijuana prohibition keeps the price of marijuana artificially high.
If they were desperate for marijuana, either for themselves or for resale, then once again, it is the prohibition of marijuana that makes its theft a lucrative option and its acquisition more difficult for healthy people.
This is the backlash I fear on the path from medical marijuana to legalization. For years we’ve been told drugs create violence, corruption, and death. We know it is the prohibition, not the drugs, that is the cause (prohibit sugar and you’d see sugar gangs and sugar wars), but that point is missed by most of the public.
So when a violent armed robbery occurs in a dispensary, it’s their opportunity to say, “See, we legalized marijuana just a little bit and look what happened! We told you drugs cause violence and crime!” Where prohibition’s social harms had been blamed on the drug itself, now there’s the risk of the harms being blamed on the effort to legalize the drugs.
[...] Three injured in armed robbery of Denver dispensary [...]
I bet it was a Cop who robbed them, just to make them look bad, knowing they had to lock down the schools and that the press would go nutz and hope the parents go nutz too, then bye bye medical marijuana there! Thats why he did it, dam cops.
I used google map and the schools are several blocks away. Near the dispensary there are many other retail stores. Is it standard operating procedure to shut down schools when a business is robbed several blocks away? Or only when medical marijuana is involved?