Oregon sees first violent robbery of a legal cannabis grow-op

Four masked intruders brutally assaulted and robbed a cannabis farmer in southern Oregon earlier this month in the first reported case of violent crime at a state-licensed cannabis production facility.

The robbers woke James Bowman, 56, in the early hours of Dec. 16, broke his nose and left him with black eyes. They filled a rented U-Haul truck with hundreds of kilos of harvested cannabis and fled, leaving the him tied up with the door open

Two of his workers discovered him several hours later, and he spent several days in hospital recovering from the ordeal.

The crime took place in the rural Jackson County community of Wimer, where Bowman started growing medical cannabis two years ago. He had moved there after federal agents and local police raided his farm in Ruch in 2012 before Oregon voters legalized recreational cannabis.

Bowman, who was on track that year to be the state’s largest producer of medical marijuana, had his entire crop wiped out in the robbery.

Read the full story by Noelle Crombie at The Oregonian.

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