Drugs and violence.

The drug: medical marijuana.

In the past week, a man in Orting, Wash., near Tacoma, died after he reportedly was beaten while confronting people trying to steal marijuana plants from his property. On Monday, a prominent medical-marijuana activist shot an armed man who is accused of breaking into his home in a suburban area near Seattle where he grows and distributes marijuana plants....

In both cases... the victims appear to have been chosen because they were known to have relatively large amounts of marijuana in their homes....