We have not masked our feelings in the nearly six years this website has been in existence that we believe marijuana should be legalized, but since it isn't we continue to report on those arrested for possession of the controlled substance.
There have been several comments posted on our social media page that the task force is a wasted resource. We don't believe it is.
There are no extra monetary resources going to fund the task force. It is simply a combining of the efforts of existing drug agents from the Halifax County Sheriff's Office and the Roanoke Rapids Police Department. Weldon may be joining the task force in the future.
These agents receive no extra pay, only the salaries their respective agencies were paying them before the formation of the task force.
The task force gives the combined agencies the opportunity to share resources such as equipment that one may have, but the other lacks. It gives them the opportunity to share intelligence so efforts are not duplicated.
To say it is a wasted resource is to put blinders on our eyes that we have don't have a drug problem. Until marijuana is legalized in this state, the enforcement should include those who publicly flaunt those laws away from the privacy of their own homes.
The arrest Friday of an Amityville, New York, woman in a two-vehicle collision in which a five-year-old child was killed is a perfect example of the flaunting of those laws.
The woman received a DWI charge, among others, that reflected negligence on her part in a senseless motor vehicle crash that claimed the life of an innocent and adorable child who was just starting her journey in life.
On Monday, state Highway Patrol troopers helped lead the task force to an indoor marijuana-growing operation on Highway 903 outside Halifax.
The purpose of Trooper J.A. Murray's visit to the residence was not to look for marijuana, but to serve warrants to a man who was endangering the motoring public by reportedly driving recklessly on Highway 903, doing so without a license and then trying to place the blame on his brother.
Once the troopers got a whiff of the marijuana reportedly coming from the residence, it was their duty to pass the information along to the task force.
In the short time it has been in existence, task force agents have not only made marijuana arrests, but its first arrest was for cocaine.
A man on probation was taken into custody and the task force was responsible for the arrest of Jvon Martin, a man who by all accounts, law enforcement sources have said privately, was determined to go on an armed robbery spree.
We don't call that a waste of resources — we call that reinforcing the resources law enforcement is already giving us.
While many of us would like to see the end of the prohibition of marijuana in this state, that time has not come and law enforcement would be derelict to ignore it when it is discovered. If troopers Monday had ignored the odor coming from the house on Highway 903 and word leaked out they ignored it, think of the trouble they would be in.
They did what they were legally obligated to do and the task force did what it is legally obligated to do. If we pulled off the blinders and looked at the matter objectively, read the initial story of how the task force is to be run, that no extra dollars are being funneled into it, there would be no misconceptions and a clear understanding they are charged with upholding all controlled substances laws until such a time those laws are changed — Editor
