Pubdate: Thu, 10 Mar 2005
Source: View Magazine (Hamilton, CN ON)
Copyright: 2005 View Magazine
Contact:  http://www.viewmag.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2393
Author: Terry Ott
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mjcn.htm (Cannabis - Canada)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/Rochfort+Bridge (Rochfort Bridge)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/opinion.htm (Opinion)

IT WASN'T MARIJUANA'S FAULT

The Deaths in Alberta Were a Tragedy. The Response Shouldn't Be.

"Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." -Jesus H, The
Bible.

All of Canada was rocked last week when four RCMP officers were
senselessly gunned down during a criminal investigation and drug bust
gone horribly wrong at a farm northwest of Edmonton, by a man first
alleged to have been a large scale marijuana grower with a "burning
hatred for police."

The National Post's front page screamed "4 MOUNTIES SLAIN" in the huge
type face usually reserved for major wars and world disasters.

Locally, the Hamilton police, city hall, and six area funeral homes
were providing a book of condolence for the families of the slain
officers that anyone could sign. Clearly, all of Canada is showing its
outrage at what Prime Minister Paul Martin characterized as an act of
"brutality." I profoundly share that outrage, and express my deepest
sympathies to the families, colleagues and friends of the slain officers.

Yet I fear that this tragic event will be turned into still another
misguided attack by authorities to even further demonize-if that is
now possible-the "devil weed." Yes, I am afraid of a new level of fear
and loathing spreading out across the land, in what may mimic the
"reefer madness" hysteria of the mid 20th century. Make no mistake:
anyone found in Canada with marijuana will be immediately looked upon
by police as a possible if not probable killer, and those foolish
enough to continue to run grow-ops would be wise to pre-pay their
funerals at worst, or get ready for a long stay at the big house, at
the least.

Put in simple terms, the police are going to be pissed off for a long
time, and on super hyper vigilance guard for longer than that. Routine
drug arrests will take on the spectre of a U.S. Army Baghdad street
patrol, where fear and desperation reign supreme.

Yes, the cops are gonna be spooked- and who the hell can blame
them?

But the bottom line is that this tragic event is more about an alleged
criminal who engaged in heinous and psychotic behaviour with an
illegal firearm, rather than an open-ended indictment to attach such
behavior to marijuana, or even the for-sale cultivation of same. From
the available reports out of Alberta, it appears that this
individual-who seemingly killed himself at some point after shooting
the officers-was in fact known to the local police as a ne'r do well,
and even considered by some neighbors to be "crazy," as well as "a
ticking time bomb."

You put "crazy" and "time bomb" and "burning hatred" together with
guns, and you got for damn sure a very bad and lethal cocktail.

So, the possibility that this deranged individual was allegedly a weed
grower is most likely a collateral fact, and not the logical reason-if
there can be one for such an event-for the deaths of five human beings
at the end of a gun.

There will certainly be a lot of second guessing about why the police
went in so understrength to confront a known nutjob, but such is the
nature of rural policing- and if this sick individual was, as has been
speculated, really lying in wait to "ambush" the coppers, well then,
more police may have added up to a larger death toll. But in any
event, no amount of gun laws-the killer evidently had a prohibited
military style carbine-nor hefty sentences for ganja cultivation would
have stopped a guy determined to go postal.

Indeed, former U.S. drug enforcement officer Jack Cole told the
Toronto Star that "prohibiting drugs does not cause less people to use
them," when there are "obscene profits," to be made.

"I'll guarantee you that whole armies of police cannot arrest our way
out of this when there's such profits to be made," said Cole.

So, even though this has bared a raw nerve in law enforcement in
Canada, the only logical way out of the mess we find ourselves in may
be the eventual nationalization of marijuana growing, which would put
the criminal grow-ops out of business overnight, and fill up
government coffers to boot.

If you study crime rates in the States, you will find an incredible
spike in the mid 1930s-during the disastrous U.S. experiment with
alcohol Prohibition-a time when many cops were gunned down and
gangsters ran wild across the country, mainly due to the bootlegging
and sale of alcohol.

Many police officers like Elliot Ness of the FBI enforced the booze
laws with the same zeal with which many cops attack weed today. Ness
went to many an agent's funeral over the "war on booze," and yet
alcohol is a very accepted part of our culture and way of life and no
one would dare think of outlawing it, nor cops getting shot over it.

In a nutshell, it is time to stop the government war on marijuana, and
then support the police properly to take down the real scourge of hard
drugs like cocaine, meth and heroin. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake