Life for growing weed?

Really?

With authorities closing in to seize 2,400 marijuana plants on John Robert Boone's farm two years ago, the legendary Kentucky outlaw vanished like a puff of smoke. The prolific grower has been dodging the law ever since...
...Boone, who's trying to avoid the life sentence he would get if convicted a third time of growing pot, has plenty of sympathizers in an area where many farmers down on their luck have planted marijuana.
"That's all he's ever done, raising pot," said longtime friend Larry Hawkins, who owns a bar and restaurant called Hawk's Place. "He never hurt nobody."

If anything, John Robert Boone set a great example. I hear a lot of people saying that American drug users have blood on their hands because their habits are fueling the violent drug cartel battles south of the border. (I can agree with that to an extent, though I do wonder how far it is from saying that to saying that American gun owners and the NRA have blood on their hands for opposing the tighter gun laws that the Mexican government wants us to enact.) Buying American-grown weed from folks like Boone takes that money and brings it home; of course, with the insane American drug laws, it only fuels the turf wars that take place here. But if we had more people like JRB here, it would at least lessen the potency of the argument that legalizing drugs wouldn't help matters because the cartels are so powerful now.