Pubdate: Mon, 17 Feb 2014
Source: Alberni Valley Times (CN BC)
Copyright: 2014 Glacier Community Media
Contact:  http://www.avtimes.net/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/4043
Author: Liz Stonard

LET RCMP ENFORCE, OR MAKE LAWS LESS ASININE

Re: "RCMP's approach to grow ops 'appalling'" ( Alberni Valley Times, Feb. 6)

Attending a community meeting discussing a proposed new homeless 
shelter, Inspector Mac Richards was peppered with questions based on 
citizens' obvious hyper-vigilance of everything going on in and 
around the present shelter, to the point where I later joked that the 
inspector ought to sign citizens up as a 'surveillance patrol.'

So what do you want, Port Alberni?

"Snitching" on poor, homeless, drug-addicted people is OK, but it's 
not okay to report residential grow-ops which could pose a serious 
fire threat to neighbours' lives and homes?

Speaking of community relations, in the course of duty, why not 
utilize every tool at their disposal, including Port Alberni's proven 
penchant to conduct detailed surveillance on each other?

What's "appalling" is that the RCMP must expend valuable time and 
energy on this at all. Sometimes the law is an ass, but until 
marijuana prohibition is repealed to adopt more modern and mature 
regulation of something adults should be able to safely "brew" in the 
privacy of their homes, just like beer or wine, it is the duty of the 
RCMP to enforce the law as it stands now.

A big way to help our police, of course, is to lobby your elected 
officials to give them less asinine laws to enforce.

Liz Stonard Port Alberni
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom