Illinois Police Chief Asks to Grow Weed [VIDEO]

What is this? Reefer Madness? Is the whole world upside down? According to the Peoria Journal Star, the police chief of the small central Illinois town of Lacon has filed an application to build a state-licensed marijuana cultivation operation just outside of town. Doesn't this guy make a living off of busting people for weed?

The facility would be used for preparing medical cannabis-infused products, including an extraction room to "extract the medical cannabis properties as an oil," according to the application. So the police chief knows how to extract oil from pot plants? Is that what he's been doing in his spare time?

Colorado and Oregon have been in the news lately regarding their full legalization of marijuana. Shops are opening and the people who smoked it before are now able to smoke it wherever they like, and those who didn't before may try it since the taboo of law-breaking is removed. Of course, this was proceeded by several years of only medical marijuana being legal. Anybody who thought the medical angle wasn't an intentional stepping stone for recreational use being legit was foolish. It was obvious to me everytime they would interview a hefty dude with dreadlocks listening to the Allman Brothers in the background extol the virtues of helping the sick. I never saw a doctor interviewed.

I had a very close family member who suffered from cancer who had a medical marijuana card. It helped him. Quite frankly, I believe if someone is dying, there isn't one other person on the planet who can dictate to them how they should live out their days. You get one shot on this giant dirtball and it's yours to live. I also knew people who got their medical marijuana cards because they stubbed their toe in 1986 or some other far-fetched reason. Doctors were handing those things out for no reason.

I don't have any problem with it being legal for medical reasons or otherwise, but let's not fool ourselves. It will move from medical to recreational in Illinois, especially after our idiot lawmakers realize they can make a ton of money off of it. Then they will mismanage that cash into oblivion.

Illinois relies on gambling money to 'help the children'. Illinois relies on tobacco taxes fund a senior citizen prescription drug program and property tax rebates (don't quit now!). The plan for the taxes raised by medical marijuana in Illinois is that they will be used to fund the program itself. Seems legit. But they'll screw it up. Show me an example where they haven't.

Wonder how people who have been arrested in Lacon, IL will feel as they sit in a cell while the police chief is growing weed? Probably not quite as happy as content as Officer Perma Grin.

Officers Cheech and Chong (NSFW):